MONKEY BUSINESS AND INFINITUDE

So, this British scientist sets a bunch of monkeys in front of a bunch of keyboards for a bunch of hours to (dis)prove the notion that, given enough time, they could produce a Shakespearian play. Instead, sure enough, they produced gibberish. See, I told you so. Case closed.

Call me naïve, but I always thought that that assertion was an attempt to illustrate the mystery of infinity, not about composing a sequel to Hamlet. I bet that if you turned loose a bazillion monkeys at a bazillion keyboards for a bazillion years, they still could not crank out Othello, because even a “bazillion” is dwarfed by the enormity of infinity. As, from the mouth of babes, my little Sunday school student told me, “Infinity just goes on and on and on and on . . .”

So, what did the Brit discover? Perhaps that people who cannot savor allegory and allusion will just never get it. The epitaph next to the 1966 yearbook photo of a hyper-literalist high school chum read, “Speak to him of Jacob’s Ladder and he would ask you the number of rungs.” Perhaps the Brit’s unintended discovery was that people who are enslaved to finitude will never come to perceive the infinite.

Or, maybe this is the point: None of us, however wise, however “big picture,” will ever completely comprehend the infinite. This is a humbling notion. Its incomprehensibility can be comprehended only through utter humility – which may be the reason that we who are tinged with arrogance will never fully comprehend it.

Theologians old and new collide with it as they contort themselves into spiritual pretzels trying to “define” eternity and God’s infinitude. Ironically, Harold Kushner sold millions of copies of Why Bad Things Happen to Good People to the narcissistic Me Generation by building it around the premise that we are mistaken if we think that God is infinite, or at least omnipotent and omniscient.

Astronomers curse their surrender to the endlessness of the universe, even as they push the edges of understanding ever outward. Molecular biologists pick apart fragments of the DNA double helix only to find that they will never fully comprehend the creative zap that converts inert chemicals into living organism.

Megalomaniacs as Saddam and Stalin slew millions in a vain, but bloody, attempt to prove their infinite wisdom and power.

And what of our daily encounters with folks who lord over us their intimations of omniscience or omnipotence? Intimations, I say, because they rarely surface as open claims, but as manipulativeness, self-righteousness, holier-than-thou-ness, and the list of “more . . . than you”: more smart, more wealthy, more influential, more important, more successful, even, damn it, more spiritual, more moral (attention, Bill Bennett) and more humble.

It read like the script of a sitcom: Linda and I recently found ourselves sharing dinner with new acquaintances, a doctor and his wife, who spent the evening prating about his $20,000 Rolex, $1,200 bottles of wine, humidor of finest cigars and how many billable patients he sees each day. All this, of course, was aimed toward Linda, who directs a program for the homeless, and yours truly, who is still among the chronically unemployed. Thus, I recalled the observation of Mark Twain’s contemporary, Josh Billings: “When I see a man of shallow understanding extravagantly clothed, I feel sorry – for the clothes.”

Bitter? Nah, not me. But it certainly offered a too-sad-to-be-funny caricature of the ways that the human incapacity to attain infinite power or wherewithal still do not deter so many people from trying.

This “incomprehensibility of infinity” thing is not merely theoretical. It is manifest daily in the frustration, angst and insecurity-cloaked-as-arrogance of pulpit-thumping demagogues, manipulative competitors, condescending professors and bosses, know-it-all talking heads and smugly self-righteous of folks who think that they have slam-dunked the claim to salvation. And, do not forget braggadocious dinner partners.

So, a finite number of monkeys at a finite number of keyboards cannot attain infinity or even The Tempest. Then again, a gaggle of people with graduate degrees could likely not accomplish the same. This should be no great revelation. The only difference is that the monkeys likely acquiesced to the reality. After all, it is like my momma always said: “When a man acts like a monkey, it is no big deal. But, when a monkey starts acting like a man, now that is a big deal!”

Then again, maybe if that Brit had upgraded to Windows XP . . .