Bubba Junior and the
Electronic Theory of Evolution
The youth spoke cautiously at first but as his parents listened in wide-eyed amazement, he felt encouraged to boldly relate the story.Billions of years ago in the dawning mists of time, perhaps eons after the Big Bang but still millennia before man, the earth was swamped with primordial soup, primitive foliage and some really heavy livestock. And the weather was "the pits" too.
Along the shore of the primordial stew, papyrus grew in the shade of giant thorn trees which were often struck dead by lightening.
As giant dinosaurs lumbered along the shore, their huge feet smashed the papyrus reeds as flat as . . well, as flat as paper. They scratched themselves by rubbing against the trees, causing thorns to fall and to punch holes in the papyrus pages.In the hills above the swamp, rain loosened the sandy soils and rocks rolled down and splashed into the swamp water which, thickened by the addition of sand, became more of a Primordial Goo (TM, Muckosoft). Mold and fungus also ate holes in the papyrus but millenniums of random holey-ness went by before the holes began to form a systematic pattern.
Dazed by a falling rock, a large swamp turtle struggled out of the soup, "only to die . . . in the rain".
Eventually a passing monkey noticed the punched papyrus and began to check it out as a possible lunch item. He folded, spindled and mutilated it, but it still tasted like papyrus. Holding a piece between his teeth, he began poking his fingers in the holes. In the holes. Out of the holes. In the holes. Out of the holes. Just as he was about to understand binary code, lightening struck the thorn tree and showered him with sparks. Inhaling sharply on the ignited papyrus, the monkey discovered the richness of unfiltered flavor and the satisfying Big Country (tm) taste of burning ashes.
During the next millennium of fortuitous time and chance, certain laws of physics appeared, such as "monkey see, monkey do" and the result was a continuation of papyrus-puffing-primates. This is amply demonstrated by the fact that they never have weight problems and always have small butts.* (See footnote.)
Through experimentation and natural selection the monkeys finally realized that the papyrus tasted somewhat "flat" but that some of the other weeds when burned, gave them a buzz. While the monkeys tripped themselves higher and higher into the trees above the primeval soup of life, they distanced themselves from the basics of tool making which could have enabled the engineering to develop the hardware which would have interpreted the punched papyrus in some meaningful way.
Apparently this potentially (sic) pre-homosapienistic branch of semi-erectus, in an ironically anticipatory (LSD) way, "tuned in, turned on and dropped out", thus failing to ever fulfill the concept that "an infinite number of monkeys, tossing an infinite number of bones into the air" would eventually produce the Univac.
Meanwhile, back at the swamp, our now vacant turtle shell has sedimented full of sand, swamp water, Primordial Goo (TM, Muckosoft) and petro-chemical derivatives. It has been repeatedly struck by lightening until the petrochemicals emulsified into plastics and the sand melted into glass. Ore deposits in the sand were smelted by the high temperatures into wire-like strands, interlacing the the mixture. Eventually this became a system of electronic tubes, diodes, relays, resistors, insulators and switches.
The humid swamp air must have provided a constant conductor for static electricity, the residue of frequent lightening strikes. This crackling energy somehow sparked a continuity of charge within the turtle shell and suddenly, the circuitry came alive.
From that point, it was only a matter of time, perhaps a few billion years before it would reproduce itself. However this "tubular" device was painfully slow and eventually faced extinction.Fortunately there must have been at least one "electric turtle" that sank back into the depths of the soup. It was upon this shell that a dinosaur collapsed and died, lending its weight to the proof of electronic evolution. Under the tremendous pressure of tons of dinosaur guts and dead thorn trees, the electric turtle was crushed smaller and smaller until it became a miracle of printed circuitry on chipped silicon. Because of millions of years of adapting to this tremendous pressure, it evolved into a small package with tremendous capacity.
As the swamp dried up, Windows (TM) of opportunity appeared periodically for the micro-turtle to reproduce itself until it spread throughout the world. Evidence that this occurred is seen in the widespread fossilized remains of turtles, monkeys and dinosaurs as well as the presence of sand and oil deposits throughout the world. Add to this the recent 'unearthing' of an electronic shell in a flea-market village NW of Fort Worth. The shell bore strange markings, perhaps made by the monkeys, which appeared to form the words "Commodore 64". This discovery, sold in the market for a few dollars, is of inestimable value in reconstructing the history of electronic evolution of artificial life on our planet. All that remains is to find the remains of turtle shells linking that first reptilian processor with today's virtual realities. However, dead links are always hard to trace.(All together, "GROAN!!!")
As the young boy finished the story, he eagerly anticipated his parents' reaction. There was silence in the room for what seemed like the space of about half an hour.
Finally, but still slack-jawed with disbelief at what he had heard, Bubba spoke. "You did a really great job of telling that story, son.", he said encouragingly. "Is that what they're teaching you in school now?"
"Oh, no sir!", he replied, "But I didn't figure you'd ever believe it the way they told it, with people evolving from soup and monkeys."
*Footnote: Recent excavation in a borough of New York, produced the remains of a primate within soils composed of clay and calcium carbonate, also known as greensand or marl. The primate's teeth were discolored with tar. Hence, the primate has been labeled "the marl-borough monkey".
Mel Horne
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