[MARVIN]
Hi. Uh, I’m Marvin. I’ve been coming here for a while, but I haven’t ever shared. I'm a—well my thing's a little different.
I guess things started for me about six months ago. My wife and I had a baby. And it’s been, you know, all the clichés. It’s a miracle—but it’s been hell on my sleep. Cuz once I’m up, I’m up. So I started getting into late night comment sessions on science forums: evolution, intelligent design, that kind of thing.
Now I’m actually a neurochemist; I focus on the effects of audio stimuli on brain chemistry. You know, neural plasticity and dopamine production as they relate to music: subpartial alpha-beta waves, microtonal phase shifts, lydian quark compressions, you know. I’m a real dork for this stuff. But for whatever reason intelligent design is what really gets me going. Like I just go trolling the boards…though not trolling really; I mean I actually try to engage, educate a little. But you know, these people, it’s just impossible. It’s like throwing your mind against a wall. And I get so heated man…it’s like I’m intolerant of unintelligence, you know? It’s my fatal flaw. I might as well be getting mad at people for not being able to do calculus. “Just take the derivative, fool!”
But I get it. Science is suspect. I mean look at nutrition: like the scientific evidence for whether you should eat wheat or not is crazy. Or if acupuncture works? You know, as layman we trust that what we hear from our preferred media and peers is right; but skepticism is a necessary and healthy trait in a scientist. Or, at least that’s what I thought.
So. A couple nights ago, Cora gets up at like 3am, and it’s my turn—my wife had an early morning. So I get her down, and then go straight under my cans, put on some binaural meditation beats and get to it. And I’m raging away on someone, talking about the evolution of the eye, when suddenly, in my headphones, I start hearing something, weird.
(The chorus begins to sing.)
There’s a sort of crystal ringing in the 22000 hertz range. Sort of a tinny electric crackle. It gets me curious, so I export the file, isolate the frequency, pitch shift it, slow it down—and when I do all that, it resolves, into the sound of a hushed new age voice, saying:
[GOD CHORUS]
HELLO MARVIN, I THINK THIS IS GOD
[MARVIN]
“Hello Marvin, I think this is God.”
[HUMAN CHORUS]
Sounds like someone was having a laugh with you.
[MARVIN]
Right. Of course, that’s what I thought…but then the voice answers that thought:
Hi. Uh, I’m Marvin. I’ve been coming here for a while, but I haven’t ever shared. I'm a—well my thing's a little different.
I guess things started for me about six months ago. My wife and I had a baby. And it’s been, you know, all the clichés. It’s a miracle—but it’s been hell on my sleep. Cuz once I’m up, I’m up. So I started getting into late night comment sessions on science forums: evolution, intelligent design, that kind of thing.
Now I’m actually a neurochemist; I focus on the effects of audio stimuli on brain chemistry. You know, neural plasticity and dopamine production as they relate to music: subpartial alpha-beta waves, microtonal phase shifts, lydian quark compressions, you know. I’m a real dork for this stuff. But for whatever reason intelligent design is what really gets me going. Like I just go trolling the boards…though not trolling really; I mean I actually try to engage, educate a little. But you know, these people, it’s just impossible. It’s like throwing your mind against a wall. And I get so heated man…it’s like I’m intolerant of unintelligence, you know? It’s my fatal flaw. I might as well be getting mad at people for not being able to do calculus. “Just take the derivative, fool!”
But I get it. Science is suspect. I mean look at nutrition: like the scientific evidence for whether you should eat wheat or not is crazy. Or if acupuncture works? You know, as layman we trust that what we hear from our preferred media and peers is right; but skepticism is a necessary and healthy trait in a scientist. Or, at least that’s what I thought.
So. A couple nights ago, Cora gets up at like 3am, and it’s my turn—my wife had an early morning. So I get her down, and then go straight under my cans, put on some binaural meditation beats and get to it. And I’m raging away on someone, talking about the evolution of the eye, when suddenly, in my headphones, I start hearing something, weird.
(The chorus begins to sing.)
There’s a sort of crystal ringing in the 22000 hertz range. Sort of a tinny electric crackle. It gets me curious, so I export the file, isolate the frequency, pitch shift it, slow it down—and when I do all that, it resolves, into the sound of a hushed new age voice, saying:
[GOD CHORUS]
HELLO MARVIN, I THINK THIS IS GOD
[MARVIN]
“Hello Marvin, I think this is God.”
[HUMAN CHORUS]
Sounds like someone was having a laugh with you.
[MARVIN]
Right. Of course, that’s what I thought…but then the voice answers that thought:
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