(from the BBC Radio series)
"when you are put into the vortex you are given just one momentary glimpse of the size of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, along with a tiny little marker saying “you are here”
or as Gagravarr (the Custodian of the TPV puts it)
<scream of a victim of the Vortex is heard>
<Zaphod>the Universe does that to a guy?
<Gagravarr>the whole infinite Universe, the infinite suns, the infinite distances between them, and yourself, an invisible dot on an invisible dot, infinitely small
<Z> Hey, I’m Zaphod Beeblebrox, man!
<G> that is precisely the point…
so, based on that information, the Vortex shows yourself in relation to the universe, do you think you could survive it?
i think i could, after all, i know i’m meaningless, a random collection of cells and neurons, completely unimportant in the grand scheme of things, i could dissapear tomorrow and the universe would continue on unabated, my nonexistence wouldn’t even register on a Galactic/Universal scale, heck, i don’t even matter on this insignificant little blue-green planet…
To be honest… I think I might have problems. Not necessarily for the fact of dealing with my own insignificance as such, but…
First of all, the universe is BIG… I know this conceptually, but I’ve never really been able to appreciate it directly. As I understand it, the TPV forces full awareness of the totality of existence on your brain, never mind if your synapses are equipped to handle it. Most aren’t.
Secondly, after being able to perceive everything in the universe, the shock of being limited to the senses of a human body afterward might kill me.
Of course, given this, how did Zaphod survive the TPV in the artificial universe?? point #2 is subjective, and he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would be affected by it overly much. For point #1… he has at least twice as many synapses as the rest of us… maybe that was the margin of his survival.
Also, maybe the artificial universe was limited in extent so that the fairy cake in the TPV couldn’t actually extrapolate much. There’s got to be a limit on the memory capacity of that little box in zarniwoop’s briefcase after all.
(I’m going by the material in the book ‘restaurant at the end of the universe’ here. Don’t believe I ever heard the secondary phase of the radio show… or the primary phase for that matter. Tertiary phase rocked.)
I thought the TPV was tampered with by someone (dang, can’t remember who…I need to read the series again) so that it would tell him how important he was instead of destroying his mind.
crisk, you’re missing the fact that the artificial universe was made specifially for his sake. So the TPV didn’t tell him he was insignificant, it told him that he was the most important being in the universe. Which, in the artificial universe, was the case, since he was the reason it exisited.
Maybe we should build one for ourselves and try it out. Anyone have some angelfood cake?
I think y’all are overestimating your own sense of insignifigents (a sure sign of thinking to much of yourself :D).
You couldn’t be a sane person and really know how small you are in the ultimate sense. It takes some concept of signifigents to get out of bed…bother to feed yourself…post on a message board…
So even though I’ve had a hard time getting out of bed recently, I don’t think I could survive it.
I think y’all are overestimating your own sense of insignifigents (a sure sign of thinking to much of yourself :D).
You could be a sane person and really know how small you are in the ultimate sense. It takes some concept of signifigents to get out of bed…bother to feed yourself…post on a message board…
So even though I’ve had a hard time getting out of bed recently, I don’t think I could survive it.
I think I’ve had an experience of what it’d be like, watching a film of a zoom into the Mandlebrot Set I got a feeling of vertigo. A disturbing glimpse into infinity. I recon the TPV would be like a massively amplified version of that sensation.
But I might make it:
[Gag Halfrunt]Clanger’s just this guy y’know?[/Gag Halfrunt]
My point was that personal significance and or insignificance isn’t necessarily the only stimulus that the TPV delivers to you. As described, it shows you the totality of existence, and how big or important you are in relation to it, showing the comparison.
My argument was that simply seeing the totality of existence would be a pretty big shock to my own system. (shrugs)
I think I wouldn’t survive it for just this reason. After all, I know how insignificant I am. But, the universe is big, really big. I get vertigo watching my heroes jump off tall buildings in City of Heroes, or when Gandalf is falling into the abyss with the Balrog. I don’t get vertigo when I’m actually high up though, only when it’s on screen, which is why I think the TPV would blow up my few remaining brain cells.
Chance of Survival 50%
Chance of ever being the same again (assuming I survived): 0%
Again, assuming I survived, would I be better or worse off : Unsure
.