Rome was not built in a day

 

I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.

Oscar Wilde
Irish dramatist, novelist, & poet (1854 – 1900)

Despite being quite old, God, unlike most, still had a zest for the zest of life. So one evening, many years ago, he was not wasting his time; he was not watching TV; he was not reading the newspaper. He was, in fact, experimenting; investigating reality, a pastime from which we could all, perhaps, benefit. So, arched over that which was to become known as the human brain he was in pensive mood for at last he felt that it was perfect. Abruptly, he was startled by a loud crash as in fell Gabriel.

Good day to you G.” spluttered Gabriel.

Good day to you …. G.” God replied.

It was their little joke.

“Made a bit of a pig’s ear of the landing didn’t we?”

“Could never get the hang of these wings.”

“Practice makes perfect, you know.”

“What in heavens name have you got there?” asked Gabriel, noticing the greyish, nodular mass on the table.

“It’s a self replicating, self learning, and massively parallel biological neural network.”

“Oh, yes. And what does that do when it’s at home?”

“I’m really not quite sure. That is, I know what it is  meant to do, but to be certain I will need to test it and I am presently developing a test environment.”

It was this conversation that prompted the creation of the universe: thus.
“Now, a lot of energy concentrated into an infinitesimally small point and a ‘Big Bang’ should do it,” mused God.

“Can I help?” asked Gabriel.

“No thank you, it is very kind of you to offer but I think I can manage. Why don’t you try out your new wings and get in a bit of harp practice. ”

“When the time is right, I shall spend another six days creating a proving ground for you, old son,” thought God, as he tenderly replaced his latest creation into its box.

Gabriel left, miffed, muttering something about six days being ridiculous.

It may seem to you that six days is rather a short time in which to create the universe, particularly when it takes most of us that time to complete our tax returns and such. What we fail to realise in such argument is that the Almighty had an above average insight into the realms of probability and despite the number of variables involved he knew exactly what would result from the projection of one hundred or so elements violently into space. Indeed, his knowledge of quantum mechanics was second to Nun, who was a leading ancient mathematician. So out of touch with the Lord are we today that philosophers are still arguing as to whether or not God would leave creation to the ‘throw of a dice’. It is also worth remembering, as Einstein knew, that time varies from place to place and God, being at the centre of things, where an instant of ours was an eternity of his, was well placed to achieve that which to us appears to be an outlandish possibility.

It was now up to G and G to consider the matter of integrating the brain into the environment.

“If we give it ears and a mouth perhaps it would tell us what it would like,” suggested Gabriel.

Within a few minutes God had provided the brain with all things that were necessary for communication.

“Aaaaah. Thanks mate,” exclaimed brain. “Now, what I really want is a nose, eyes, arms and legs?”

“Are you sure that you would not like a nice pair of wings,” asked Gabriel.

“Look. I’ve been watching your performance and they seem to me to be far too dangerous.”

“But wings are very prett…………..”

“Stop arguing,” shouted God “I’m running out of time.”

So it was that the brain became fully equipped.

It is rumoured that on completion God looked down on his creation and shouted “Oh, man, what have I done? This is, however, not true. In fact, the self willed, so called ‘intelligent’, biological monstrosity would much later call itself man. It would also be very annoyed with itself for not accepting Gabriel’s wings idea for such freedom would have made control by governments very difficult – if not impossible. Hey Ho. Scientists, however, would refer to themselves as the human species, a development which took a few million years.

Unfortunately, due to the arguments between the prototype and Gabriel, God was a bit pushed for time on the project. Thus he failed to tell the brain what it was that would be considered to be a successful test outcome. This, however, did not unduly concern him for he felt sure that the brain would be intelligent enough to work it out for itself. It is clear, in retrospect, that this was a major miscalculation for to this day even the best of brains still struggle to come to terms with things like ‘the meaning of life’ and such. In fact the nearest anyone has come to the answer is ‘2.718281828’. Never-the-less the brain became totally engrossed in his raison d’être. He struggled with the order of things; questioning whether his essence preceded his existence or vice-versa. His insecurity grew and grew.

To avoid waste, earlier models of the brain were installed in dogs, cats, hares and the like. This resulted in the human brain insulting each other by the use of such terms as ‘You chicken brained git’ and ‘That’s a stupid hare brained scheme’.

Hey Ho!