You are a fluke. You are a separate event. And you run from the maternity ward to the
 crematorium and that's it, baby. That's it. Now why does anybody think that way? There's
 no reason to, because it isn't even scientific. It's just a myth. And it's invented by people
 who wanted to feel a certain way. They want to play a certain game. See, the game of God
 got embarrassing. The idea of God as the potter, the architect of the universe, is good. It
 makes you feel that life is, after all, important. There is someone who cares. It has meaning.
 It has sense. And you are valuable in the eyes of the Father. But after a while it gets
 embarrassing. And you realize that everything you do is being watched by God. He knows your
 tiniest, inmost feelings and thoughts, and you say after a while, "Quit bugging me. I
 don't want you around." So you become an atheist, just to get rid of it. Then you feel terrible
 after that, because you got rid of God, but that means you got rid of yourself. You're
 just nothing but a machine. And your idea that you're a machine is just a machine, too.
 So if you're a smart kid, you commit suicide. Camus said there is only really one serious
 philosophical question, which is whether or not to commit suicide. I think there are four
 or five serious philosophical questions. The first one is, "Who started it?" The second
 is, "Are we going to make it?" The third is, "Where are we going to put it?" The fourth
 is, "Who's going to clean up?" And the fifth, "Is it serious?" But still, should you or
 not commit suicide? This is a good question. Why go on? And you only go on if the game
 is worth the candle. Now, the universe has been going on for an incredible long time.
 And so really, a satisfactory theory of the universe has to be one that's worth betting
 on. That's a very, it seems to me, absolutely elementary common sense. If you make a theory
 of the universe which isn't worth betting on, why bother? Just commit suicide. But if
 you want to go on playing the game, you've got to have an optimal theory for playing
 the game. Otherwise there's no point in it. But the people who coined the fully automatic
 theory of the universe were playing a very funny game. What they wanted to say was this,
 all you people who believe in religion are old ladies and wishful thinkers. You've got
 a big daddy out there and you want to comfort and thing, but life is rough. Life is tough.
 And success goes to the most hard-headed people. That was a very convenient theory when the
 European-American world was colonizing the natives everywhere else. They said, "We are
 the end product of evolution, and we are tough. I'm a big strong guy because I face facts,
 and life is just a bunch of junk, and I'm going to impose my will on it and turn it
 into something else. And I'm real hard." See, that's a way of flattering yourself. And so
 it has become academically plausible and fashionable that this is the way the world works. In academic
 circles, no other theory of the world than the fully automatic model is respectable.
 Because if you're an academic person, you've got to be an intellectually tough person.
 You've got to be prickly. See, there are basically two kinds of philosophy. One's called prickles,
 the other's called goo. And prickly people are precise, rigorous, logical. They like
 everything chopped up and clear. Goo people like it vague. For example, in physics, prickly
 people believe that the ultimate constituents of matter are particles. Goo people believe
 it's waves. And in philosophy, prickly people are logical positivists, and goo people are
 idealists. And they're always arguing with each other. And what they don't realize is
 that neither one can take his position without the other person. Because you wouldn't know
 you advocated prickles unless it was somebody else advocating goo. You wouldn't know what
 a prickle was unless you knew what goo was. Because life is not either prickles or goo,
 it's gooey prickles and prickly goo. They go together like back and front, male and
 female. And that's the answer to philosophy. See, I'm a philosopher, and I'm not going
 to argue very much, because if you don't argue with me, I don't know what I think. So if
 we argue, I say thank you, because going to the courtesy of your taking a different point
 of view, I understand what I mean. So I can't get rid of you. But however, you see, this
 whole idea that the universe is just nothing at all but unintelligent force playing around
 and not even enjoying it, is a put-down theory of the world. People who had an advantage
 to make a game to play by putting it down, and making out that because they put the world
 down they were a superior kind of people. So that just won't do. We've had it. Because
 if you seriously go along with this idea of the world, you're what is technically called
 alienated. You feel hostile to the world. You feel that the world is a trap. It is a
 mechanism, it's electronic and neurological mechanisms into which you somehow got caught.
 And you poor thing have to put up with being in a body that's falling apart, and that gets
 cancer, that gets the great Siberian itch, and it's just terrible. And these mechanics
 doctors are trying to help you out, but they really can't succeed in the end. And you're
 just going to fall apart, and it's a grim business, and it's too bad. So if you think
 that that's the way things are, you may as well commit suicide right now. Unless you
 say, "Well I don't, because there really, after all, there might be eternal damnation
 in the back of the thing if I did that. Or then I identify with my children or something,
 and I think of them going on, and without me and nobody to support them. But of course
 if I do go on in this frame of mind and continue to support them, I shall merely teach them
 to be like I am. And they'll go on dragging it out to support their children, and they
 won't enjoy it, and they'll be afraid to commit suicide, and so will their children. They all
 learn the same lesson.
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