Cunk on Life (2024) Movie Script
1
Have you ever looked around at
the limitless majesty of creation
and wondered
wondered what all these forests, valleys,
mountains, and puddles are actually for?
Wondered how many buildings were
knocked down to make way for them,
and who granted the
planning permission?
Wondered about all the
incredible yet musky animals
we share our planet with?
What's up with them?
From pointless ants
to long-necked horse monsters,
from repugnant wombats
to beautiful elephants.
What do the creatures want?
And why do they
refuse to tell us?
And then of course, there's us.
Humanic kind.
Have you ever wondered
how we got here?
Wondered where we're going?
Wondered about the
biggest mystery of all,
what is the meaning of life?
Well, I haven't.
But others have.
For thousands of years,
thinkers, artists,
authors, and my aunt Carol
have struggled to define
humankind's purpose.
Is life's meaning a riddle
that even can be answered?
And if so, should we listen,
or cover our ears
to avoid spoilers?
In this landmark
documentary special,
I'll travel the globe
to walk in slow motion
through picturesque locations,
get up close to some of the most
significant molecules in existence,
and meet a variety of academics,
experts, and professional mammals,
to ask some of the most
significant questions
you can say with a mouth.
Hello, who are you?
I'm Brian Cox,
Professor of Particle Physics
at the University of Manchester.
Can I call you Brian,
or do you prefer Cox?
So join me, Philomena Cunk,
as I uncover the
point of it all.
This is Cunk on Life.
Welcome
to our universe,
a limitless expanse peppered with
stars, planets, and assorted space muck.
It's where you live.
In fact, you're
somewhere in this photo,
but we don't know where because
the universe is so vast,
we simply can't make you
out, even with your ears.
Gazing into this infinite
tapestry makes us ask questions.
Not just about where
the ceiling's gone,
but deep questions that strike at
the very core of our arseholes.
Questions like, "How
did it get here?"
Who are you?
I'm Douglas Hedley,
and I teach the Philosophy of Religion
at the University of Cambridge.
So, why are we here?
You mean, why
human beings exist?
No, I mean why are we here in
- Is this near your house or something?
- No.
It took me 90 minutes to get
here on the Piccadilly Line.
There are countless theories
about how the universe got here,
and the earliest one comes from
the wacky world of religion.
This is the good Old Testament,
the first entry in the
Christian Cinematic Universe.
Jesus isn't in this one.
It's mainly about
his bad-tempered dad,
a man so mysterious,
we still only know him
by his stage name, God.
Um, I'm gonna go straight
in at the deep end.
Is there a God?
Yes.
- Oh. That was quick.
- Mm.
Great. Um, has anyone proved it?
No, except to their
own satisfaction.
Does God have a
brother called Simon?
No.
But they can't prove that
either, so he might have.
The universe could have
been created by Simon.
The Old Testament claims God
and/or Simon created our universe
in just seven days.
It sounds like a lot to achieve
in such a short space of time,
but unlike us,
God wasn't constantly interrupted
by iPhone notifications.
God started by saying,
"Let there be light,"
which makes sense because he needed
to be able to see what he was doing.
Then he divided light from dark, like
I do when I'm doing a clothes wash.
Next, he created the
firmament, whatever that is,
and the oceans and the stars.
For his next trick,
God filled the oceans with water animals,
or "fish" as they're sometimes known,
and the heavens with
sky-beasts, or "birds."
Then he infested the Earth with
insects, reptiles, mammals,
and whatever category
of thing slugs are.
And finally, for his
crowning achievement,
he created perhaps the only
thing worth celebrating,
us.
Here on the planet of Italy
is the Sistine Chapel.
Inside it is an astonishing
collection of images
created by overachieving painter
decorator Michael A.N. Jello.
This artwork took him
four years to complete,
ruining a perfectly good
ceiling in the process.
But whatever you think of it,
what it depicts is momentous.
The moment God created life by
jizzing us out of his hands.
This image of the most
significant fingerbang in history
has inspired visitors to the
Sistine Chapel for many centuries
and visitors to this replica
for less time than that.
It's perhaps the greatest
masterpiece in all of art,
but also the most
annoying to look at.
When I gaze up at it, I'm
struck by a sense of wonder
but mainly by a
crick in my neck.
When Michelangelo painted
the Sistine Chapel,
did he start on the floor and
then they flip the building over,
or was it always on the ceiling?
The painting was
always on the ceiling.
It's quite high up, isn't it?
Did Michelangelo use
a really long brush,
or did he have really long arms?
Um, well, he had to stand up
on top of some scaffolding
and bend his head backwards.
Wouldn't paint drip down into
his eyes when he was doing it?
I bet he was blinking the whole
time, sort of like like that.
He doesn't complain about
that, but he must have done.
However he did it,
painting the Sistine Chapel must
have been a great upper body workout.
How strong were
Michelangelo's arms?
Like, if a mad priest had leapt on
his back while he was painting it,
would he have been able to
reach around and pull him off?
Oh yeah. I think so.
I think Michelangelo was quite
muscular. He must have been.
- Mm, so he could really yank him off.
- I think he could have done, yeah.
The man God's
creating here is called Adam.
He's one half of the
first celebrity couple,
Adam and Eve,
played here by actors who
happily signed a nudity waiver.
Of course, the real Adam and Eve
wouldn't have had tattoos
we'd have to paint over
or intimate piercings we'd
have to ask them to take out
and hand to our researcher
for safekeeping.
We've pixelated the offensive
parts of their bodies,
a technology that wasn't
available in Old Testament times,
which is why I can
see everything,
even though I don't
really want to.
Adam and Eve weren't just
the first humans to exist,
but the first humans to
disappoint their dad.
God had hidden the secret of knowledge
inside a delicious looking fruit
and then forbidden them to eat
it for some fucking reason,
but eat it they did.
An early example of an Apple product
hastening the downfall of humankind.
This was the original sin,
and ever since, all humans
have been considered sinful.
Sinners worry God might punish
them, but what about you?
Well, um, I'm a sinner
like anybody else.
No, I mean, should they worry
about you punishing them?
Uh no.
God realized he needed
help keeping us sinful humans in check,
and he knew just who to call on.
This is holy Moses,
the most successful influencer
of Old Testament times,
very much the
MrBeast of his day.
One day, God invited Moses
to the top of Mount Sinai
and handed him a set of rules
for life carved on stone tablets.
It was the world's first
and heaviest press release.
God commanded Moses to spread
this message far and wide,
which must've been
annoying for Moses
because he'd have to carry
the tablets back down on foot
and probably didn't have
room in his rucksack.
How many Ten
Commandments were there?
How many? You just
named them. Ten.
So there were ten
Ten Commandments?
There weren't 100 commandments.
There were ten commandments.
There were ten commandments.
Yes. That's it.
These shalts and shalt nots are a set
of terms and conditions for humankind.
All Christians had to
agree to abide by them
and also accept occasional
promotional messages from God
on subjects that
may interest them.
How did God manage to boil his terms
and conditions down to just ten points
when the iPhone end user license
agreement is about 100 pages long?
It just proves the point that God is God,
so he's a lot more concise than we are.
Is it a legally
binding contract?
It is a covenant, which is a covenant of
love between God and God's people, so...
No, I meant the iPhone one.
In a bid to stay in
God's good books,
devout followers avoid sinful
pleasures, like lusting after sloths,
during their lifetimes.
Not everyone thinks
enjoying yourself is bad.
Some people dedicate
their lives to hedonism,
the sleaziest ism there is,
apart from jism.
Entire cities have been
built for hedonist pursuits,
impressive, opulent cities
like Swansea in Wales,
and also this place.
This is Las Vegas,
Spanish for "The Vegas."
With its culture of casinos, strip
clubs, and round-the-clock drinking,
it's a mecca for people
who aren't going to Mecca.
Vegas is a shimmering visual
metaphor for human indulgence,
according to our director,
and too far away and
expensive for us to film in,
according to our producer,
who lost the argument.
Given its reputation,
Las Vegas is also
known as Sin City,
which is short for Cincinnati,
or would be, if that wasn't
a different place altogether.
Many of the tourists who
flock here each year hope
that what happens in
Vegas stays in Vegas.
Maybe that's true.
But on the other hand,
God sees everything,
even that thing my ex Sean
used to do with his thumb.
Worse still, God doesn't just know
about the sinful things you've done.
He also knows about the sinful things
you're merely thinking of doing.
God knows everything
we're thinking.
That's a data privacy
nightmare, isn't it?
Is there a way to opt out?
Not that I'm aware of.
Could you put God off the scent
by only thinking decoy thoughts,
like only thinking the opposite
of what you actually think?
Would that work?
I don't think so.
No.
You're not just dealing with a God
who's omniscient, knows everything.
You're also dealing with a God who
is omnipotent, is all-powerful.
I'll be honest. This relationship
with God throws up a lot of red flags.
He's watching us all the time.
He sets rules.
He's got a terrible temper.
He even thinks he's God.
Isn't he basically just
a toxic narcissist?
If you follow God's rules religiously,
you'll ascend to the kingdom of heaven,
which sounds great.
Although, if you're
old when you die,
you might not want to be
going up a lot of stairs.
In heaven, nobody
has to work anymore.
The most that will be asked of
you is doing the washing up,
but since all earthly
appetites will have been sated,
we can only be talking
about the odd mug.
The alternative
to heaven is hell,
a fiery pit of damnation
and eternal torment
which currently only has
two stars on Tripadvisor.
This is quite a spiritual show.
Can I ask about our souls?
Do we get judged for the cleanliness
of our souls when we get to heaven?
I think we get judged by how
we've acted in the world.
When we look into our souls,
what do we find there?
Well, it depends how far we're
prepared to look into it.
How far you look up, yeah.
God's unforgiving nature means
his believers try to
stay in his good books
through a form of
organized groveling
called worship.
Enter our souls,
king of heaven
Even though they reek of sin
Enter our souls resolutely
Penetrate the depths within
Our souls! Our souls!
Our souls! Our souls!
Fill them up unto the brim
Many find praising God in this
way gives them a purpose in life.
Sucking up to the boss.
If God's up there looking down on
us, why do we kneel when we pray?
Kneeling is the expression of
a sense of awe and holiness.
But what's the point in
kneeling though, all bent over?
You know, it's
terrible acoustics.
Wouldn't it be better to stand up and
shout a list of demands up to the sky?
God is not in the
sky, literally.
Right. So where is he?
Has he got an address?
God is present
in all places and all times.
What, even, like, in cupboards?
Well, you've raised a very
important question here
because one way of thinking
about the divine presence is
in terms of his knowledge.
So maybe God is not
located in the cupboard,
but he knows about the state
of affairs in the cupboard.
Uh, sorry, is he in
a cupboard or not?
Not everyone believes God is solely
responsible for giving us life.
Other origin stories
are available.
The man slowly moving towards you is
unshaven Victorian genius Charles Darwin.
One day, Darwin rode a beagle
to the Galpagos Islands,
where an exotic tortoise gave him
an idea in the form of a theory,
a theory that human bodies
haven't always been human bodies.
Why do we say our
ancestors came in apes?
Our ancestors came?
In apes.
Ah. They didn't come from apes.
Apes and ourselves came
from something else.
A chimp?
It's sort of It's not exactly like
a chimp or a modern ape or ourselves.
- Right. So we didn't come in a chimp?
- No.
It's hard to believe
we all mutated from monkey meat,
unless you consider all life is basically
the same at a microscopic level.
Lots of things are alive, from
tiny microbes to bigger microbes.
Every life form
is made of cells,
like a prison,
which is probably why
existence is so depressing.
It's a life sentence.
Just like the sentences I say
in this program about life.
Are cells worth having?
Well, without cells
we wouldn't be.
We're made up of
trillions of cells.
We all came from a single cell,
so they're really important to us.
Are my cells dividing and
multiplying all the time,
like even when I'm
sitting here now?
Since you've been sat there,
you've had about a million cell
divisions going on in your body.
Ah, no wonder I feel so
worn out all the time.
Cells couldn't
multiply without this,
the IKEA instruction
manual for life, DNA.
DNA is tiny yet complex,
like Tom Cruise.
It would take a typist over 50
years to type out the DNA sequence,
which would be stupid because she
could cut and paste it and go home.
I call her "she" because
of unconscious bias,
which is in my DNA
and not my fault.
Have you heard of D and A?
Yes.
Do we all have D and A?
Or do some of us have
D or A, but not both?
No, it's not D and A.
It's three letters. DNA.
Can you tell by looking
at me whether I have DNA?
Well, I know you have DNA
because you're a living organism,
and all life has DNA.
My mate Paul tried to
create a new life-form
by inserting his DNA
into a grapefruit,
but halfway through the experiment,
the greengrocer started hitting him.
Why is science so controversial?
Sorry, that that question didn't
follow from your story of the
- DNA.
- No, it changed, yeah.
One of life's biggest mysteries
is how it's possible for me
to look both like my mother
and my father
at the same time,
even though I've
only got one face.
Is it true the most important thing we
can do as humans is piss in our jeans?
Pass on our genes.
- Sorry?
- Sorry, it's "pass on our genes."
Oh, right.
Um, is it true the most important
thing we can do as a human is
pass
pass on our genes?
I don't know if it's the
most important thing,
but it is very important
because what it means is that
you pass on your genes from you
to your child.
What if I don't want
to pass on any of mine?
Then, um, then
you don't have to.
Right. How can I avoid it?
Well, um, you have to make love.
What, to avoid
passing on my genes?
All living things reproduce, which
means all living things procreate.
Dogs, lions, pigs,
penguins, monkeys,
shell monsters,
elephants, horses,
David and Victoria
Beckham, and pigs again.
The female reproductive organs are
largely hidden indoors for safekeeping
and normally only visible
behind some kind of paywall.
By contrast, the male
genitals, or "Mr. Genitals,"
live on the outside of the body,
where they can be easily photographed
and DM'ed to a potential
mate without consent.
So, which bit's the penis?
So, the penis is over
here. It's this bit here.
Right. I'll talk quietly.
I don't want to wake it.
This is a flaccid penis.
So, for sexual intercourse,
it has to become erect.
So what happens, then?
What bit goes where?
- So this penis needs to become erect.
- Yeah.
And then it will be put into the
vagina here during intercourse,
and he's going to ejaculate
sperm through his penis
and then into the
woman's vagina.
Christ.
I hope nothing like
that ever happens to me.
The disappointingly-flavored
soup that vomits from the penis
contains millions of
plucky young tadpoles
which swim their way up through
the female pipework towards an egg
and then kamikaze into it, like
a tiny 9/11 happening up a lady.
This is where, incredibly,
the miracle of life begins
and the precise moment that a
woman's right to choose ends.
Nine months after conception,
the infant painlessly slides
through the lady's front hole
and out into the world.
It then slowly mutates from a
baby into an actual human being.
But what exactly
is a human being?
What percentage of
people have a human body?
All humans have a human body.
What about people holding a cat?
Have they got a human
body and a cat's body,
or does it not work that way?
No, the two are
completely separate.
The human is a human
and the cat is a cat.
Human biology has existed
almost as long as humans themselves,
if not longer.
It involves a complex arrangement of
skin and meat machines called organs.
Put these organs in a plastic bag
and walk around a shoe shop with them
and you'd be arrested.
But put them in the right order
and you've got a human body,
an exquisitely constructed machine
that also farts and eats crisps.
Our organs are so gory,
some people can't bear
to see images like this.
If you're one of those sensitive
viewers, look away five seconds ago.
Is the correct term for
all this offal or gore?
All this stuff.
Yeah, that is This is
called the intestine.
If you pulled an intestine
out, how long would it be?
It would be many meters.
Okay, but why are
you pulling it out?
We wouldn't normally pull it out
unless there was a disease process.
- So you don't know why it's happening?
- No.
All these slimy innards
need a surrounding structure
to stop them slopping onto the
floor for passersby to slip on.
We wouldn't be upstanding
citizens if it wasn't for this,
the human skeleton
of ghost train fame.
It's incredible to think that there's
one of these inside some of us.
Did you know only 40% of
people have skeletons?
- Where did you get this figure from?
- It's true. I saw a video about it.
You only find out if you've
got a skeleton after you die.
Some people are just solid meat.
- This is...
- You know Burt Lancaster, the actor?
He was solid meat,
apparently, like a sausage.
Every human being
has a skeleton.
That figure is 100%.
Did you know knees are a con?
Why do you say that?
If you walk everywhere
without bending your legs,
you can prolong your life
by about eight years.
I went running this morning.
How would I run without
bending my knees?
I'm not saying you
didn't bend your knees.
I'm just saying that if
you didn't bend your knees,
you could prolong your
life by eight years.
Although, it does make stairs
a problem. I'll grant you that.
The most important bit of
the human body is up here,
in the driver's
compartment or "skull."
Imprisoned within every skull
is a creature we've enslaved
to do our thinking for us,
a sort of smart cauliflower
known as the brain.
- So, this is a brain.
- This is a brain.
How many of these are
in an average head?
We have one each.
- Just the one?
- Just the one brain.
The brain doesn't
just tackle complex tasks
like blinking or
making porridge.
It also handles trivial things,
like our entire human consciousness,
the origins of which
are a complete mystery.
Does the brain generate
the consciousness,
or does the consciousness
operate the brain?
- You'll find lots of disagreements...
- Oh, sorry.
I'm supposed to remind
you to keep your answer
What was it?
"Coherent for our
fuck-witted viewers."
It is a complicated question.
My view is that the brain
generates consciousness,
but consciousness gives us
the ability to do things
that we wouldn't be able to
do if we weren't conscious.
Right. Thank you.
And apparently, I wasn't supposed
to read that card aloud, so
Apologies to you at home.
All of this leads to a
fundamental human question.
Who am I?
Not me, obviously. I'm on the
telly, so people know who I am.
But who are you? What
are you doing here?
And is any of this
really happening?
When we have a thought, like
if I picture a windmill,
how real is that windmill?
It's not real.
It's not real?
It's in your It's in your mind.
Why did I picture a windmill,
though? Is it a clue?
A clue to?
- Something.
- I don't know.
It depends what you
were thinking about.
What's inside the windmill?
Um, it depends what you
were thinking about.
What if someone lives
inside the windmill
and I'm not imagining
them, they're imagining me?
This is a very unusual way to
think about how imagination works.
Imagination is a
side effect of having a mind,
and some believe
it can be enhanced
with the use of
mind-expanding drugs.
When hippies took mind-expanding drugs,
how much wider did their minds get?
Did their skulls ever pop open?
Their skulls didn't pop open,
but it meant that they were more open
to ideas and philosophies and concepts
they may not have
previously considered.
You know when people talk
about opening their third eye?
That's what my mate Paul calls
the hole in the end of his penis.
Why would anyone
want to widen that?
The use of psychopathic
drugs in the 1960s
also led popular figures to contemplate
more spiritual aspects to human existence.
When The Beatles dropped
acid and went to India,
did they actually go, or
was that part of the trip?
No, they did
actually go to India,
and they visited an ashram and
gurus while they were out there.
It changed the stuff they said, didn't
it? They said, "All you need is love,"
and then George Harrison
said, "All things must pass."
Those were spiritual
messages, weren't they?
So when Paul said he was simply
having a wonderful Christmastime,
was there a deeper
meaning there?
I don't know if there was
a deeper message there.
That was a bit later that Paul was
having a wonderful Christmastime.
Yeah. My ex Sean sang that to me in
bed once during an intimate moment.
Honestly, I went as
dry as a cat's tongue.
Rock stars also
popularized meditation
as a way to clear the stresses
of modern life from the mind.
Do you have to sit
down to meditate,
or could I do it at the
same time as something else,
like driving or operating
heavy machinery?
Some people do
So, Buddhists, for example,
do walking meditation,
so you don't have to sit down.
Does meditation help
our souls relax?
Yes.
Meditation does help
our souls relax?
- Yes.
- Yeah.
Let's take a moment to realign ourselves
with our present reality together.
We're going to do a guided meditation
now, so feel free to join in at home.
Close your eyes.
Slow your breathing.
Now, breathe in.
Sorry, breathe out.
Become aware of the rise
and fall of your belly.
Feel the fabric of your
clothes on your skin.
Why is it that
particular material?
Was it sewn together by
a child in a sweatshop?
Probably best not to think
about that, actually.
Listen to my voice.
Why have they put a sort
of echo effect on it?
I think it's so that when
they show this footage,
it sounds like these are my
thoughts echoing in my mind.
But we filmed that weeks ago.
Hang on. Where am I now?
Hang on. That's me waking up and
standing. That's not meant to happen.
Help! I'm still here!
Oh God, I've got separated
from my own body.
They said this might happen. Help!
Help!
Our
apologies for that.
We had a duplicate consciousness
stuck on the voice-over track.
So we've had it shot and can
shortly rejoin Cunk on Life.
Who's that walking
through an awesome landscape
recording a piece to camera?
It's your very own
Philomena Cunk!
Featuring a vaguely
realistic face,
similar clothing, and a
total lack of mannerisms.
But that's not all.
Philomena also sprouts facial hair,
witnesses the crucifixion, and lays eggs!
Pop off her head, tip her over,
and whoops-a-daisy! Real blood!
The fun doesn't end
with mopping that up.
Philomena pilots her very own
spacecraft, the USS Triceratops,
with her intergalactic friends,
Captain Shitpeas, Mrs.
Benson, and Barnaby-9.
Together they tour the galaxy, repairing
black holes and mutilating cattle.
Philomena Cunk & Pals. Available
from all good retailers.
May contain pine nuts.
Side effects include spontaneous
combustion and melancholy.
Do not feed after midnight.
Remember to hydrate. Amen.
Coming
up on Cunk on Life.
Meet a man facing
oblivion on death row.
I ask a philosopher
to probe our souls.
Do philosophers spend a lot of
time thinking about our souls?
And I visit the
Large Hadron Collider
for some astrochat with
Professor Brian Cox.
What's a black hole?
A black hole?
Sorry, a hole of color.
But first, let's take a sideways look at
the suffocating inevitability of death.
Death is the great leveler.
In life, you might've been a billionaire,
supermodel, president, and king,
but the moment you die, you start
rotting like a sausage in a lay-by.
The big unknown
is how you'll die.
You might die falling
off a ladder or a cliff,
or into a lake full of knives.
You could be hit by a car or a
bus, or a tractor if you're rustic.
Maybe you're already dead and
watching this from beyond the grave,
which would be a shame because you
won't count towards the ratings.
Statistically, which is more
common, athlete's foot or death?
Death is infinitely more common.
In fact, it is
guaranteed for all of us.
How soon after death is it safe to resume
your regular day-to-day activities?
You can't resume your
day-to-day activities
once you're dead.
- How would you?
- So you can't do anything?
You can't even
listen to a podcast?
You can't listen to anything.
If you played a podcast to a corpse,
would really none of it go in?
Absolutely nothing would go in.
One downside of
our big brains is
we're the only creatures who are
aware that death is inevitable.
Although, if you lined ten dogs
in a row and shot them one by one,
the dog on the end would probably
get the gist by about dog four.
Of course, it's easy to forget
about death until it happens to you,
at which point your
brain gets wiped anyway.
It wasn't like that
in medieval times.
Back then, thanks to plagues, wars,
and a general undercurrent of violence,
people were casually
familiar with death.
In fact, they got FOMO
when they didn't die.
And this matey relationship
with their own mortality
was reflected up their art.
This is Bruegel's
Triumph of Death,
which depicts an army of the undead
violently laying waste to humankind
in scenes unlikely to be
adapted into a Pixar movie.
It's terrifying to think
this actually happened.
We're lucky Bruegel managed
to capture this image
before he too was
captured by the skeletons.
In fact, I'm surprised
he could paint at all.
My hands would have
been shaking so much,
I'd have had my own
eye out with the brush.
What the fuck is this?
Well, it's a scene
of imagination,
but it's not a scene that
Bruegel would have actually
witnessed.
I mean, but it could
happen, couldn't it?
No, it couldn't happen.
Misinformation is getting so
sophisticated, it's terrifying.
For years, morbid art like
this depicted an ominous figure
dispatching human
souls with a scythe.
That's this man,
the Grim Reaper.
Don't worry. I haven't gone mad. It
only looks like there's no one there.
In fact, you won't be able to
see the Grim Reaper at home
unless you're going to die
within the next 24 hours.
What happens after death is
the subject of huge debate.
Some think that after you
die, you evolve into a ghost,
a sort of low-tech hologram
made of haunted smoke.
Scientists say
ghosts don't exist,
even though they've been caught
on camera loads of times,
like in Poltergeist
and Poltergeist II
and the remake of Poltergeist.
In fact, ghosts have been caught on
camera more often than scientists have.
So who's real now?
Should we move on to more,
uh, hardcore scientific stuff?
Okay, so ghosts.
When a human body dies,
which hole does the ghost
come out of, north or south?
I don't regard ghosts as a hard
scientific subject, I'm afraid.
Let me tell you something.
Don't dismiss it.
In 2021, my aunt Carol got engaged
to a man called Bob Collins.
But one day, he just vanished
and cleared out her bank account.
And when she looked up
the name Bob Collins,
she discovered
he'd died in 1958.
He'd been a ghost all along.
Could it not have been someone
impersonating Bob Collins?
No, no. There were photos
of Bob Collins in 1958,
and he looked totally different,
which proves he disguised himself,
so she wouldn't know he was a ghost.
You can't explain it,
can you? It's terrifying.
Isn't the easy answer that
he doesn't look like him
because it's a different
person altogether?
No, it
It's a ghost.
Death, tragedy and suffering have
always been part of human life.
Struggling with lives
of ceaseless misery,
people began to wonder whether
any kind of God exists at all.
But for centuries, no one
dared voice that suspicion
in case God did exist
and smited them shitless.
But that was about to change.
It's 1883,
and German philosopher Friedrich
Nietzsche is hard at work in his study,
putting his thoughts on paper.
Don't worry. He can't hear me.
He's about to write one
of the most controver...
He's about to write one of
the most controversial catchphrases
in history.
Three little words
by the name of
God is dead.
Nietzsche said, "God is dead,"
didn't he? And now he's dead himself.
Who's next?
Did he name the
killer before he died?
Nietzsche? No.
I think he thought that
people should realize that
they had constructed a God
that actually wasn't doing them
as much good as they thought,
and people need to realize
not perhaps that he was dead,
but that he hadn't existed.
So he's saying we killed him?
In effect.
But I wasn't even born.
No. Yeah.
Nietzsche can fuck off.
Mm.
Can we be sure God
didn't kill himself?
'Cause you never know what
people are going through.
It's possible.
Nietzsche's
proclamation that God was dead
caused an intellectual firestorm
as writers and thinkers debated
the decline of religious authority
in an increasingly
secularized world,
107 years before the release of unrelated
Belgian techno anthem "Pump Up the Jam."
Pump up the jam, pump it up
While your feet are stomping
And the jam is pumping
Look ahead, the
crowd is jumpin'
Pump it up a little more
Get the party goin'
on the dance floor
See, 'cause that's
where The party's at
And you'd find
out if you do that
Awa, a place to stay
Get your booty on
the floor tonight
Make my day
Awa, a place to stay
Get your booty on
the floor tonight
Make my day
Make my day
Make my day
Make my day
Make my day
But if Nietzsche was
right and God is dead,
it means we've got no higher
entities judging our lifestyles,
except the people from
the flat upstairs.
It could create a
terrifying moral vacuum
in which people feel free
to behave atrociously,
like they did in the entertainment
industry of the 1970s
and the '80s and the '90s,
2000s, 2010s, and today.
Luckily, moral
guidance was on hand
thanks to the world
of literature.
There were a lot of
influential Russian writers
in the 19th century.
Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev,
Turnover, and Pushkin.
Who was best?
I like Pushkin.
- Yeah?
- Yes.
What about Turnover?
Turnover is What did he write?
Oh, I don't know.
It's in my notes.
Um
"The main influential Russian
writers were Tolstoy, Dostoevsky,
Turgenev, Turnover,
and Pushkin."
It's all right if you've not heard
of him. You shouldn't be embarrassed.
I hadn't heard of him either.
Yeah. No. No.
This is one of the literary
world's greatest moral thinkers,
Russian novelist
Fyodor Dostoevsky,
seen here enjoying
himself at a party.
He wrote many books still
not read to this day.
But his most celebrated work,
his absolute Tour de France,
is unopened masterpiece
Crimean D Punishment.
Crime and Punishment grapples
with individual freedom,
the role of authority, and
the complexities of morality.
What would you
give it out of ten?
- I'd give it nine, I think.
- Nine.
Yeah.
Nine.
Punishment hasn't changed
much since Dostoevsky's day,
although, incredibly, in some countries,
if an offender's crime was really bad,
the authorities will actually
cut their sentence short
by killing them.
Capital punishment forces us to
ask questions like, "Does it hurt?"
"Are tickets available?"
and "What's the view
like from seat 6A?"
and also, other more
profound moral questions.
Why do we say people are
facing the electric chair
when they've got
their backs to it?
I think you're taking
it too literally.
What we mean by facing
the electric chair is
is facing an inevitable death.
This is
Waylon Jackalope IV.
In 2019, he skinned
six people alive
and was rewarded with his
own Netflix documentary
and a guest spot on death row.
And I'm delighted to say
he's joining us right now.
So, Waylon. You
murdered six people.
Where'd you get your ideas from?
It's kinda tough
for me to dwell on.
All I can say is, um,
the Waylon Jackalope that
killed those folks was a
a different man to
the one you see today.
So, it wasn't you?
You're innocent?
No, ma'am. I killed them.
Oh, thank God for that.
So, um, have you been on death row
before, or is this your first time?
First time.
You're facing the
electric chair.
Aren't you worried about
what's gonna happen?
I've made my peace
with the Lord,
and I'm ready to meet him.
Yeah, but aren't you scared it'll
hurt? It's millions of volts.
My mate Paul says your liver
fries and your kidneys pop
and your bowels go
into reverse flow
and shoot boiling shit up into
your throat which chokes you.
Apparently, it'd be
genuinely more humane
to pay some of the other inmates to
hold you down and pull your head off.
Anyway, um, best of luck.
Actually, before you go, could you
just do a quick promo thing for us
into that phone?
Could you say, "Watch
me die on Cunk on Life"?
It's for TikTok.
It's only short.
Watch me die on Cunk for Life.
On Life, on Life.
Watch me die on Cunk on Life.
There you go.
Wasn't hard, was it?
Why does the electric chair
only do one person at a time?
Could you have an electric bench
that does about seven in one go?
You probably could. You
definitely shouldn't.
Would be quicker though, and
you could do them in batches.
It would be quicker, but we'd have
to accept the death penalty was a
a sensible and useful thing to
do, and I don't accept that so...
Electrocuting people isn't
very eco-friendly, is it?
Could we steam them
to death instead?
Uh, I'm sure there are other ways
of administering the death penalty
that might be more eco-friendly.
I think the preference would
be to not do it at all.
In a just and moral society, is it
better to kill one innocent person
than to save one
innocent person?
It's never going to be better to kill
an innocent person, I don't think.
Contemplating weighty,
big-bummed life and death dilemmas
in a godless universe
opens the door to nihilism
and existentialism,
two of the hardest-to-spell
concepts in philosophy.
So nihilism is the view that
nothing, absolutely nothing, matters.
Why don't people mention they're
nihilists on their dating profiles?
Like, I went on a
date with a bloke,
and 20 minutes in, he
said he was a nihilist
and that because human
existence is futile,
there was no point continuing
with the date, and he left.
And I had to pay.
Was he a nihilist
or just a prick?
Probably both.
Yeah. As I suspected.
Nihilism is the belief
that life is meaningless
and nothing is worth believing
in except more nihilism.
Existentialism is the same as
that but using longer words.
Who's the most famous
existentialist in history?
Probably Jean-Paul Sartre.
Right. See, I'd have
said it was E.T.
This is the first
celebrity existentialist,
Parisian writer
Jean-Paul-Sartre-and-Ringo.
Sartre saw things differently
to everybody else,
partly because of his
questioning mindset,
but mainly because
of those eyes.
I mean, seriously, he could probably
see the back of his own ears with them
or write two books at once.
That's why he was such
a prolific author,
writing book upon book, outlining
his existentialist theories
decades before the release of
unrelated Belgian techno anthem,
"Pump Up The Jam,"
which you heard earlier.
Someone told me that
cats are a good example
of something that lives
like an existentialist.
A good life for an existentialist,
if there is such a thing,
is a matter of creating
your own goals and values
and sincerely following them.
For example, my cat
reacts to his environment
rather than just being
dragged around by others.
How do you know cats aren't
thinking about their existence?
They might be really anxious,
and when they say "meow,"
they're expressing their own pain
Iike "me, ow."
Well, cats have pain.
They don't behave in a way
that seems to suggest a
level of self-consciousness.
Cats lick their own
bum holes, don't they?
Are all existentialists
supple enough to do that?
Uh, no.
Being overwhelmed
with existential angst
is part of being human.
Some of the greatest artists
in history have tried
to express the agony
of the human condition.
And so have ones who could
only paint as badly as this.
This is Edvard
Munch's The Scream,
the first major existentialist
statement to later become an emoji.
What inspired Eddie
Munch to paint this?
It was an experience he'd
had walking with his friends.
But I've been on bridges, and you
don't find me painting about it.
How come we can't hear
him? Is he on mute?
No, it's nature that
is screaming loudly,
and we all could hear
nature screaming loudly.
So, is this one of the few
examples of a silent painting?
All paintings are silent.
If Edvard Munch knew we
wouldn't be able to hear it,
why didn't he wait till this bloke's
mouth was closed before painting him?
It's just annoying.
I've noticed he's not
moving either. Why is that?
Because he's rooted to the spot
by the deep emotion he finds.
So it's a freeze-frame
of a painting?
It's a freeze-frame of a mood.
Drew Barrymore dies at the start
of this painting, doesn't she?
Do you know if they've got
Scream 2 in this gallery as well?
- Scream 2?
- Yeah.
I'm afraid I don't
know Scream 2.
But this was based on
the film, wasn't it?
I don't think he'd seen the film. It's
a painting of an experience he'd had.
But not a physical experience, an
emotional and psychological experience.
We paint our souls.
Why do we paint arseholes?
The more agonized and
miserable the artwork,
the more people like it.
And no dead agonized artist is bigger
than miserable redhead and own-ear vandal,
Vincenzo Van Beethoven Gogh.
As you can see from
this photograph,
Van Gogh actually resembled
a painting in real life,
making a career
in art inevitable.
Several of his works,
such as Sad Flowers,
Scary Night,
and Woofy McPoker, have
fetched millions at auction.
22.5 million for the last time.
This is one
of his most famous works,
Wheatfield with Crows.
At first glance, it's
a simple, rural scene,
but look closer and you'll see
it's actually very badly made.
Take these birds.
Apparently, they're crows,
but it's impossible to know
'cause there's no detail at all.
Some are big. Some are small.
Some have more
wings than others.
Looking at this,
it's hard to believe
Van Gogh had actually even
seen a crow or a wheat field,
or even held a brush before.
Look at those strokes.
They're sloppy.
It's like he painted it
wearing boxing gloves.
It's just not good enough.
In fact, it's actively bad.
Van Gogh's life, and by
extension, our world,
would've been improved if
he'd never painted anything,
not even a bog door in
a home for the blind.
Anyway, that's my view.
What do you think?
Of course, most people aren't
miserable like Van Gogh.
They're miserable
like themselves.
They simply don't have time to channel
their pain into artistic expression
'cause they're too busy working.
And work is something we all
learn to barely tolerate.
Ever since the earliest caveman
went to work for the first cunt,
people have hated their jobs,
partly 'cause those jobs were awful.
For centuries, most jobs
involved manual labor
like lugging heavy coal around
and tilling the fields while
someone sketched you for posterity.
But as our world
gets more modern
and full of all plastic
and metal and stuff,
the nature of work has changed.
Now jobs are even worse,
which contributes to an
ever-growing sense of hopelessness.
Humans have to work
a lot, don't they?
Can work ever be
truly rewarding?
Yeah, I think so.
What, even for him?
All he does is hold
a stick all day.
There's no way that's
rewarding or meaningful.
There's no skill involved.
We wouldn't even need a
machine to replace him.
Just a bracket and
a stand would do.
Can't be fulfilling
in the slightest.
He holds that stick more
than he holds his loved ones.
If you think of the
things he's missed out on
just holding that fucking
stick like a slave.
You don't get that
time back, you know.
Wasted his life.
Very echoey
in here, isn't it?
Phil would've hated that.
Wouldn't he, Ian?
You're next.
Can we have a minute
for atmos, please?
Life itself can sometimes
feel like a horrible burden
from which there is no escape.
But luckily, help is at hand.
That's why I've come to leading
streaming platform Streamberry
to see how they help distract viewers
from the bottomless misery of existence.
Here at Streamberry, we're
passionate about providing our users
with entertainment that speaks to them
on a personal level about their needs.
Not just as a consumer,
but as a mammal.
We monitor our viewers'
emotional state at all times,
and we've discovered
most of them are locked
in a state of
existential helplessness.
And I imagine you
want to fix that?
Yes, that's why we launched
a suite of programming
aimed at viewers who've
given up all hope,
which is 116% of them.
These shows are grouped
together into genre brackets
that help despairing viewers locate
content that really speaks to their mood.
We're currently
seeing maximum growth
in a category called "Standing
On a Ledge Right Now."
And what's that?
That's programming aimed at viewers
standing on a ledge right now.
Usually watching on their phone.
Naturally, we don't want them to jump.
That would negatively affect engagement.
And what about the little ones?
Is there anything for them?
Yes, actually, one of our newest
releases is a show aimed at kids
standing on ledges.
Wow! And I think we've got an
exclusive preview of that right now.
Hey, mister! Don't jump!
Why not?
Well
Sometimes we all feel Like
life's lost its meaning
But jump and that sidewalk
Will need careful cleaning
And more to the point
You just wouldn't survive
Let me list you some
reasons For staying alive
Uh, okay.
You'd miss out on nature
In all of its wonder
Like puppies and kittens
And sunshine and thunder
Your parents would miss
you In sorrow, they'd drown
If you plunged from that ledge
And went splat on the ground
Uh-huh.
Jumping's so final
No chance of revision
Most people who do jump
Regret their decision
Ahh, he's right!
To leave a great legacy
Stay in the game
It sure beats just
leaving a dent
And a stain
Oh, okay.
- You've convinced me
- Yay
Life is worth it
I don't wanna die
Be careful returning
You don't wanna slip
- Oh!
- Uh-oh.
Oh well, it's
too late Bye-bye
Hm.
Well, thanks, Jacqui. That
was really enlightening,
and Streamberry seems fantastic.
- Thank you.
- Thank you.
Great.
- Brilliant.
- Thank you.
Yeah.
Still to come
Will computers recode
the meaning of life?
Will we ever be able to upload
our souls to a computer?
I take a closer look at cloning.
If you clone twins,
do you get two copies of one of
them, or one copy of both of them?
Brian Cox gives a scientific
view of the firmament.
Isn't it a waste of energy
leaving the stars on at night?
No.
But first, time to contemplate
our fate in a pitiless, godless universe.
With God dead and existential
despair all the rage,
it seemed humankind was
all alone in the universe.
We were back to square one,
staring up at the night sky
and wondering how it got there.
To find out, we'd have to reopen
the biggest cold case of all time.
The Bible had claimed the
universe was God's creation.
But now we knew
that that was a lie,
we'd have to come up with
a new implausible theory.
It's October 5th, 1923.
An astronomer, Edwin Hubble, is about
to make an incredible discovery.
Peering through his telescope,
he becomes the first human
to observe a Cepheid variable
star in a galaxy beyond our own.
Hubble raced home to
tell his wife, Grace,
who had loyally supported
him throughout his career.
"I've done it!" he cried. But
in his voice instead of mine.
"I've fundamentally altered
our concept of the universe."
"Oh, darling, that's
wonderful," she replied.
Her eyes shone with
pride, and they embraced.
As they kissed hungrily, their
excitement gave way to passion,
and they moved to the bedroom,
hurriedly shedding their clothes.
Flesh pressed on flesh
as they explored each other's
bodies with carnal abandon.
Together, they steadily built
towards a crescendo of ecstasy,
their faces
contorting with bliss.
And a mutual orgasm shuddered
through their bodies.
There they lay,
quietly entwined,
exhausted yet resplendent in the
warm afterglow of their union.
Then Hubble mopped up the
damp patch with his vest.
Hubble's discovery paved the
way for a groundbreaking theory
about how our
universe was formed,
a theory that still
excites nerds to this day.
Why do people say the universe
came out of a big bag?
I think you mean Big Bang.
A big bag that went bang?
No, no. Just a Big Bang, no bag.
Has anyone ever claimed
responsibility for the Big Bang?
It just happened.
So we're no nearer
finding a culprit.
The Big Bang is a theory,
and like all theories,
no one understands it.
If they come too close to working it
out, they're assassinated by the CIA.
But if it did happen,
the Big Bang filled the
universe with matter.
This is an atom.
It's so tiny, you
probably can't see it,
even if you're watching in 4K.
In fact, it's so small,
chances are I dropped it
before we started filming.
You, me, and everything
around us is made from these,
apart from this coat,
which is 100% cashmere.
What's the point of atoms?
Do we really need them, or
could we just do without?
We do really need them
because we are made of atoms.
Everything in the world is made of atoms
so without them, we wouldn't be here.
Are eyes made of atoms?
Yes.
'Cause my mate Paul
did ketamine once,
and he said he started counting
all the atoms in his eyes.
Then he tried to eat a towel
and ended up in hospital.
Okay.
- Are my feet made of atoms?
- Yes.
I mean, I could save
you the bother by
Everything you say, all
stuff is made of atoms.
Are thoughts made of atoms?
Well, no, thoughts are...
- Well, there you go then.
- Okay.
But thoughts Okay.
You might think
nothing's smaller than atoms,
but as usual, you'd be wrong.
Incredibly, atoms themselves are made
of even smaller subatomic particles.
Scientists have spent literally
decades attempting to explain
why these are interesting
to no avail.
Perhaps that's why, deep
underground near Geneva,
they built a gigantic machine
called the Large Hadron Colly-der.
It smashes subatomic
particles together,
recreating the conditions
of the Big Bang.
And I'm actually
walking into it now,
wearing a hard hat
in case a proton falls on me.
So, this is this is the
actual Large Hadron colander.
So am I right in thinking
that this might prove
the existence of chakras
within the human body?
No.
You're not interested
in chakras?
No. In the same way I'm
not interested in ghosts.
But my aunt Carol, she can
sense chakras in someone's body,
and she doesn't
need any machines.
- Um, this could explode at any minute.
- No.
How fast do the protons
in this thing go?
99.999999% the speed of light.
- Your sense of smell is faster, isn't it?
- No.
How come that when someone's frying
bacon and you walk in the kitchen,
you can smell it straight away
before you've even seen it?
Have you ever tried
putting bacon in here?
- No.
- Yeah, you should try it.
You might make quantum bacon.
- Would that make it more interesting?
- A little bit.
Why would it be more
interesting? 'Cause what it's...
I'm desperately I'm trying
to help you out here.
I'm trying to make it even slightly
more interesting than it is.
But what it did was it detected
a thing called a Higgs particle.
Without the Higgs particle,
you, me, and everything else
that we know of in the universe,
- none of those things would exist.
- Right.
In 2012, the megaboffins at CERN
discovered something incredible,
the Higgs bosom.
Because of its significance in
explaining how our universe was made,
the Higgs bosom is sometimes
referred to as the God Particle.
But it could also be
called the Allah Particle
because we can't show
you any pictures of it.
No less an authority than
the man I just spoke to
claimed it was the biggest
scientific discovery
in his lifetime.
I think this is the biggest
scientific discovery in my lifetime.
And it stood with the great
scientific discoveries of all time.
And it stands with the great
scientific discoveries of all time.
Can the Higgs boson rewind time?
No.
Can it tell when an
earthquake's gonna go off?
No.
- Can it make food spicier?
- It's just a particle.
It's like saying, "Can an electron tell
when an earthquake's gonna go off?"
- Can it?
- No.
Subatomic particles, the
tiniest things in existence,
can simultaneously exist in
two different states at once.
Just like Liam Hemsworth,
who's sexy and boring.
In other words, science moves in
mysterious ways just like God does,
which was awkward
because scientists had
decided God didn't exist.
So they invented a whole
new kind of science,
the science of things that
don't make scientific sense.
And to make it sound official,
they gave it a clever name.
What is Quantum McPhysics?
Quantum physics is
So quantum mechanics is our best
theory of how the world works.
It describes everything
that we've observed
other than gravity.
Do mirrors run on
quantum physics?
- Run?
- Yeah.
As in?
According to quantum physics, mirrors
shouldn't work. They're a miracle.
That's not correct.
Quantum theorionics proves
there's infinite multiverses,
like in Marvel
films, doesn't it?
That's one interpretation
of the theory.
How many infinite
multiverses are there?
If there were an infinite
number of multiverses,
then the number of
multiverses would be infinite.
See, I think there's two.
Ours and the one in mirrors.
Mirrors are windows into
other universes, aren't they?
No.
My mate Paul says they
run on quantum power
and that's why you can see
into an alternative dimension
in which everything's the same
as our realm but backwards.
What does Paul do?
Well, he worked in a tennis ball factory
where he had to catch tennis balls.
But he was fired from that,
and now he's unemployed.
Sorry, am I wasting your time?
Yeah.
By the end
of the 20th century,
science had tried
to outdo religion
by explaining creation, unpicking
the fabric of existence,
and discovering
the God particle.
For its next trick,
it tried to emulate God himself
by creating life.
The first ever thing to be
cloned was Dolly the sheep,
daughter of Dolly,
the other sheep.
Dolly became the most
famous sheep in history,
although to be fair,
that's a low baa.
Of course, cloning
raises awkward questions
about our sense of identity.
If I get copied,
am I still unique?
Or is the clone me more unique
because it's a clone, which is cooler?
What makes me me and you you
and us us and we we?
But rather than being
replaced by clones,
it's more likely we'll be replaced by
something else we created, computers,
which are becoming so clever, they
might one day outsmart their masters.
Will a computer ever be
clever enough to play chess?
Computers are already
clever enough to play chess.
Really? This is chess
we're talking about?
Yes. Years ago, computers
overtook human beings at chess.
But do they know what all the pieces
do? Even the little horse ones?
Yes.
But the horse ones move in
random directions, don't they?
- There's no pattern to it.
- No, there is. They just move
two in one direction and
one in the other, so
Oh, right. Did the computers
work that out for us?
Not content with playing chess,
computers are getting better
at emulating other more human,
less chess-like pursuits.
One of the first examples of AI was
a piece of software called ELIZA,
which stands for something.
ELIZA simulated a psychiatrist.
It would ask you how you were
feeling and respond to your reply.
But it was basic.
It couldn't do everything
a psychiatrist can do.
It couldn't walk round the
desk or overcharge you,
start an affair with its
secretary, cook an omelet, or go
Today, AI is everywhere and all around
us, in our homes and in our hands
- with digital assistants like Siri
- Hi there.
Alexa and that Google
one no one remembers.
Seriously, it might as
well be called Cuthbert.
But when people talk about AI,
most of them are thinking about
generative AI chatbots like this,
ChatGPT, which is so
good at mimicking humans,
we might as well
fucking kill ourselves.
Or at least, that's
what it just told me.
People worry a lot about AI.
What about you?
You mean am I worried about?
No, I mean, should
they worry about you?
N I hope not. I hope not.
I mean, I'm People are worried
about artificial intelligence
because they think maybe one day
it'll replace us human beings.
I'm a human being. Why should
they be worried about me?
No, the letter "U."
They're all vowels,
aren't they? A, I, U.
What does the "U"
in AI stand for?
Th There isn't a "U" in AI.
So, it's a secret then?
The computer's hidden it?
I'm more than machine or man,
more than a fusion of the two.
Us humans aren't
about to be slaughtered
by the nightmarish robots
of science fiction.
We're about to be slaughtered by
the nightmarish robots of real life.
Now as humans stand on a precipice
at the edge of a cliff face,
peering into a bottomless abyss
and wondering if there's
a void underneath it,
the question of life's purpose
seems more urgent than ever.
And even experts are confused.
Is there a point
to human existence?
And if there is, what is it?
When you're answering, bear
in mind that if it's too long,
we have to overlay funny pet
videos over part of the screen
so viewers don't get bored.
Well, we want our
lives to have meaning.
And the question is,
is that meaning something
that we construct,
which is what the German
philosopher Nietzsche would say,
or is meaning something that
we discover in the world?
Maybe that meaning
is generated by God,
or maybe that meaning just happens to
be part of the fabric of the universe.
Why are poos tapered at the end?
Are they that shape
when they're inside us,
or do our bums mold
them into that shape?
Sorry, that's for
the poo expert.
Although, you're here, so do
you fancy answering it or?
I don't think I know
enough about human biology
to give you an accurate answer.
Fair enough. Yeah.
Throughout this landmark epic,
which you have definitely enjoyed,
my quest for meaning has
taken me around the world
and into several buildings, down stairs,
and at one point, onto a bouncy castle.
From religious ecstasy
to nihilistic defecation,
from great works of literature
to that awful fucking painting,
humankind's quest for
meaning has never let up.
And now my work here is done.
I hope you found
it illuminating.
Now it's time for me to find out
the meaning of life in other worlds.
Goodbye.
Do authors sign their books at the
end like when you write a letter?
Like "That's Crime and Punishment.
The End. Yours sincerely, Dostoevsky."
Seldom, I think.
Why does the human eye have a nerve
connecting it directly to the anus?
It doesn't.
It does because when you pick your
bum, you sort of go like that.
When the penis goes into a lady,
why does it keep backing
out and going back in?
Can't it just go in,
get it done, and leave?
Were our souls created
during the Big Bang?
Depends what you
mean by "our souls."
You know what I
mean by "our souls."
It's a shame they only
make semen, isn't it?
If they made tomato soup,
you could share a nice mug
of it in bed afterwards.
Is it harder to enter the
kingdom of heaven since Brexit?
I don't think Brexit has anything
to do with the kingdom of heaven
or hell for that matter.
My mate Paul says if you look
in a mirror for about an hour,
it's possible to trick your consciousness
into thinking it's inside the other you,
and then you can run off before
it can jump back out and get you.
He said he managed it once, but a
second after he started running,
he caught his balls
on a door handle
and ended up rolling around
on the floor in agony
while his consciousness watched him
from the mirror, pissing itself.
I don't think your consciousness
can go inside a mirror.
I do worry about Paul.
I think he just hasn't
found his role in society.
So you're in the Big Bang gang?
The Big Bang?
- Gang. The Big Bang gang.
- The Big Bang gang?
We're all in the Big Bang gang.
- Are we?
- Yeah.
Could you say that down
that lens there, please?
I'm in the Big Bang gang.
You're in the Big Bang gang.
- You're in the Big Bang gang.
- We're all in the Big Bang gang.
Have you ever looked around at
the limitless majesty of creation
and wondered
wondered what all these forests, valleys,
mountains, and puddles are actually for?
Wondered how many buildings were
knocked down to make way for them,
and who granted the
planning permission?
Wondered about all the
incredible yet musky animals
we share our planet with?
What's up with them?
From pointless ants
to long-necked horse monsters,
from repugnant wombats
to beautiful elephants.
What do the creatures want?
And why do they
refuse to tell us?
And then of course, there's us.
Humanic kind.
Have you ever wondered
how we got here?
Wondered where we're going?
Wondered about the
biggest mystery of all,
what is the meaning of life?
Well, I haven't.
But others have.
For thousands of years,
thinkers, artists,
authors, and my aunt Carol
have struggled to define
humankind's purpose.
Is life's meaning a riddle
that even can be answered?
And if so, should we listen,
or cover our ears
to avoid spoilers?
In this landmark
documentary special,
I'll travel the globe
to walk in slow motion
through picturesque locations,
get up close to some of the most
significant molecules in existence,
and meet a variety of academics,
experts, and professional mammals,
to ask some of the most
significant questions
you can say with a mouth.
Hello, who are you?
I'm Brian Cox,
Professor of Particle Physics
at the University of Manchester.
Can I call you Brian,
or do you prefer Cox?
So join me, Philomena Cunk,
as I uncover the
point of it all.
This is Cunk on Life.
Welcome
to our universe,
a limitless expanse peppered with
stars, planets, and assorted space muck.
It's where you live.
In fact, you're
somewhere in this photo,
but we don't know where because
the universe is so vast,
we simply can't make you
out, even with your ears.
Gazing into this infinite
tapestry makes us ask questions.
Not just about where
the ceiling's gone,
but deep questions that strike at
the very core of our arseholes.
Questions like, "How
did it get here?"
Who are you?
I'm Douglas Hedley,
and I teach the Philosophy of Religion
at the University of Cambridge.
So, why are we here?
You mean, why
human beings exist?
No, I mean why are we here in
- Is this near your house or something?
- No.
It took me 90 minutes to get
here on the Piccadilly Line.
There are countless theories
about how the universe got here,
and the earliest one comes from
the wacky world of religion.
This is the good Old Testament,
the first entry in the
Christian Cinematic Universe.
Jesus isn't in this one.
It's mainly about
his bad-tempered dad,
a man so mysterious,
we still only know him
by his stage name, God.
Um, I'm gonna go straight
in at the deep end.
Is there a God?
Yes.
- Oh. That was quick.
- Mm.
Great. Um, has anyone proved it?
No, except to their
own satisfaction.
Does God have a
brother called Simon?
No.
But they can't prove that
either, so he might have.
The universe could have
been created by Simon.
The Old Testament claims God
and/or Simon created our universe
in just seven days.
It sounds like a lot to achieve
in such a short space of time,
but unlike us,
God wasn't constantly interrupted
by iPhone notifications.
God started by saying,
"Let there be light,"
which makes sense because he needed
to be able to see what he was doing.
Then he divided light from dark, like
I do when I'm doing a clothes wash.
Next, he created the
firmament, whatever that is,
and the oceans and the stars.
For his next trick,
God filled the oceans with water animals,
or "fish" as they're sometimes known,
and the heavens with
sky-beasts, or "birds."
Then he infested the Earth with
insects, reptiles, mammals,
and whatever category
of thing slugs are.
And finally, for his
crowning achievement,
he created perhaps the only
thing worth celebrating,
us.
Here on the planet of Italy
is the Sistine Chapel.
Inside it is an astonishing
collection of images
created by overachieving painter
decorator Michael A.N. Jello.
This artwork took him
four years to complete,
ruining a perfectly good
ceiling in the process.
But whatever you think of it,
what it depicts is momentous.
The moment God created life by
jizzing us out of his hands.
This image of the most
significant fingerbang in history
has inspired visitors to the
Sistine Chapel for many centuries
and visitors to this replica
for less time than that.
It's perhaps the greatest
masterpiece in all of art,
but also the most
annoying to look at.
When I gaze up at it, I'm
struck by a sense of wonder
but mainly by a
crick in my neck.
When Michelangelo painted
the Sistine Chapel,
did he start on the floor and
then they flip the building over,
or was it always on the ceiling?
The painting was
always on the ceiling.
It's quite high up, isn't it?
Did Michelangelo use
a really long brush,
or did he have really long arms?
Um, well, he had to stand up
on top of some scaffolding
and bend his head backwards.
Wouldn't paint drip down into
his eyes when he was doing it?
I bet he was blinking the whole
time, sort of like like that.
He doesn't complain about
that, but he must have done.
However he did it,
painting the Sistine Chapel must
have been a great upper body workout.
How strong were
Michelangelo's arms?
Like, if a mad priest had leapt on
his back while he was painting it,
would he have been able to
reach around and pull him off?
Oh yeah. I think so.
I think Michelangelo was quite
muscular. He must have been.
- Mm, so he could really yank him off.
- I think he could have done, yeah.
The man God's
creating here is called Adam.
He's one half of the
first celebrity couple,
Adam and Eve,
played here by actors who
happily signed a nudity waiver.
Of course, the real Adam and Eve
wouldn't have had tattoos
we'd have to paint over
or intimate piercings we'd
have to ask them to take out
and hand to our researcher
for safekeeping.
We've pixelated the offensive
parts of their bodies,
a technology that wasn't
available in Old Testament times,
which is why I can
see everything,
even though I don't
really want to.
Adam and Eve weren't just
the first humans to exist,
but the first humans to
disappoint their dad.
God had hidden the secret of knowledge
inside a delicious looking fruit
and then forbidden them to eat
it for some fucking reason,
but eat it they did.
An early example of an Apple product
hastening the downfall of humankind.
This was the original sin,
and ever since, all humans
have been considered sinful.
Sinners worry God might punish
them, but what about you?
Well, um, I'm a sinner
like anybody else.
No, I mean, should they worry
about you punishing them?
Uh no.
God realized he needed
help keeping us sinful humans in check,
and he knew just who to call on.
This is holy Moses,
the most successful influencer
of Old Testament times,
very much the
MrBeast of his day.
One day, God invited Moses
to the top of Mount Sinai
and handed him a set of rules
for life carved on stone tablets.
It was the world's first
and heaviest press release.
God commanded Moses to spread
this message far and wide,
which must've been
annoying for Moses
because he'd have to carry
the tablets back down on foot
and probably didn't have
room in his rucksack.
How many Ten
Commandments were there?
How many? You just
named them. Ten.
So there were ten
Ten Commandments?
There weren't 100 commandments.
There were ten commandments.
There were ten commandments.
Yes. That's it.
These shalts and shalt nots are a set
of terms and conditions for humankind.
All Christians had to
agree to abide by them
and also accept occasional
promotional messages from God
on subjects that
may interest them.
How did God manage to boil his terms
and conditions down to just ten points
when the iPhone end user license
agreement is about 100 pages long?
It just proves the point that God is God,
so he's a lot more concise than we are.
Is it a legally
binding contract?
It is a covenant, which is a covenant of
love between God and God's people, so...
No, I meant the iPhone one.
In a bid to stay in
God's good books,
devout followers avoid sinful
pleasures, like lusting after sloths,
during their lifetimes.
Not everyone thinks
enjoying yourself is bad.
Some people dedicate
their lives to hedonism,
the sleaziest ism there is,
apart from jism.
Entire cities have been
built for hedonist pursuits,
impressive, opulent cities
like Swansea in Wales,
and also this place.
This is Las Vegas,
Spanish for "The Vegas."
With its culture of casinos, strip
clubs, and round-the-clock drinking,
it's a mecca for people
who aren't going to Mecca.
Vegas is a shimmering visual
metaphor for human indulgence,
according to our director,
and too far away and
expensive for us to film in,
according to our producer,
who lost the argument.
Given its reputation,
Las Vegas is also
known as Sin City,
which is short for Cincinnati,
or would be, if that wasn't
a different place altogether.
Many of the tourists who
flock here each year hope
that what happens in
Vegas stays in Vegas.
Maybe that's true.
But on the other hand,
God sees everything,
even that thing my ex Sean
used to do with his thumb.
Worse still, God doesn't just know
about the sinful things you've done.
He also knows about the sinful things
you're merely thinking of doing.
God knows everything
we're thinking.
That's a data privacy
nightmare, isn't it?
Is there a way to opt out?
Not that I'm aware of.
Could you put God off the scent
by only thinking decoy thoughts,
like only thinking the opposite
of what you actually think?
Would that work?
I don't think so.
No.
You're not just dealing with a God
who's omniscient, knows everything.
You're also dealing with a God who
is omnipotent, is all-powerful.
I'll be honest. This relationship
with God throws up a lot of red flags.
He's watching us all the time.
He sets rules.
He's got a terrible temper.
He even thinks he's God.
Isn't he basically just
a toxic narcissist?
If you follow God's rules religiously,
you'll ascend to the kingdom of heaven,
which sounds great.
Although, if you're
old when you die,
you might not want to be
going up a lot of stairs.
In heaven, nobody
has to work anymore.
The most that will be asked of
you is doing the washing up,
but since all earthly
appetites will have been sated,
we can only be talking
about the odd mug.
The alternative
to heaven is hell,
a fiery pit of damnation
and eternal torment
which currently only has
two stars on Tripadvisor.
This is quite a spiritual show.
Can I ask about our souls?
Do we get judged for the cleanliness
of our souls when we get to heaven?
I think we get judged by how
we've acted in the world.
When we look into our souls,
what do we find there?
Well, it depends how far we're
prepared to look into it.
How far you look up, yeah.
God's unforgiving nature means
his believers try to
stay in his good books
through a form of
organized groveling
called worship.
Enter our souls,
king of heaven
Even though they reek of sin
Enter our souls resolutely
Penetrate the depths within
Our souls! Our souls!
Our souls! Our souls!
Fill them up unto the brim
Many find praising God in this
way gives them a purpose in life.
Sucking up to the boss.
If God's up there looking down on
us, why do we kneel when we pray?
Kneeling is the expression of
a sense of awe and holiness.
But what's the point in
kneeling though, all bent over?
You know, it's
terrible acoustics.
Wouldn't it be better to stand up and
shout a list of demands up to the sky?
God is not in the
sky, literally.
Right. So where is he?
Has he got an address?
God is present
in all places and all times.
What, even, like, in cupboards?
Well, you've raised a very
important question here
because one way of thinking
about the divine presence is
in terms of his knowledge.
So maybe God is not
located in the cupboard,
but he knows about the state
of affairs in the cupboard.
Uh, sorry, is he in
a cupboard or not?
Not everyone believes God is solely
responsible for giving us life.
Other origin stories
are available.
The man slowly moving towards you is
unshaven Victorian genius Charles Darwin.
One day, Darwin rode a beagle
to the Galpagos Islands,
where an exotic tortoise gave him
an idea in the form of a theory,
a theory that human bodies
haven't always been human bodies.
Why do we say our
ancestors came in apes?
Our ancestors came?
In apes.
Ah. They didn't come from apes.
Apes and ourselves came
from something else.
A chimp?
It's sort of It's not exactly like
a chimp or a modern ape or ourselves.
- Right. So we didn't come in a chimp?
- No.
It's hard to believe
we all mutated from monkey meat,
unless you consider all life is basically
the same at a microscopic level.
Lots of things are alive, from
tiny microbes to bigger microbes.
Every life form
is made of cells,
like a prison,
which is probably why
existence is so depressing.
It's a life sentence.
Just like the sentences I say
in this program about life.
Are cells worth having?
Well, without cells
we wouldn't be.
We're made up of
trillions of cells.
We all came from a single cell,
so they're really important to us.
Are my cells dividing and
multiplying all the time,
like even when I'm
sitting here now?
Since you've been sat there,
you've had about a million cell
divisions going on in your body.
Ah, no wonder I feel so
worn out all the time.
Cells couldn't
multiply without this,
the IKEA instruction
manual for life, DNA.
DNA is tiny yet complex,
like Tom Cruise.
It would take a typist over 50
years to type out the DNA sequence,
which would be stupid because she
could cut and paste it and go home.
I call her "she" because
of unconscious bias,
which is in my DNA
and not my fault.
Have you heard of D and A?
Yes.
Do we all have D and A?
Or do some of us have
D or A, but not both?
No, it's not D and A.
It's three letters. DNA.
Can you tell by looking
at me whether I have DNA?
Well, I know you have DNA
because you're a living organism,
and all life has DNA.
My mate Paul tried to
create a new life-form
by inserting his DNA
into a grapefruit,
but halfway through the experiment,
the greengrocer started hitting him.
Why is science so controversial?
Sorry, that that question didn't
follow from your story of the
- DNA.
- No, it changed, yeah.
One of life's biggest mysteries
is how it's possible for me
to look both like my mother
and my father
at the same time,
even though I've
only got one face.
Is it true the most important thing we
can do as humans is piss in our jeans?
Pass on our genes.
- Sorry?
- Sorry, it's "pass on our genes."
Oh, right.
Um, is it true the most important
thing we can do as a human is
pass
pass on our genes?
I don't know if it's the
most important thing,
but it is very important
because what it means is that
you pass on your genes from you
to your child.
What if I don't want
to pass on any of mine?
Then, um, then
you don't have to.
Right. How can I avoid it?
Well, um, you have to make love.
What, to avoid
passing on my genes?
All living things reproduce, which
means all living things procreate.
Dogs, lions, pigs,
penguins, monkeys,
shell monsters,
elephants, horses,
David and Victoria
Beckham, and pigs again.
The female reproductive organs are
largely hidden indoors for safekeeping
and normally only visible
behind some kind of paywall.
By contrast, the male
genitals, or "Mr. Genitals,"
live on the outside of the body,
where they can be easily photographed
and DM'ed to a potential
mate without consent.
So, which bit's the penis?
So, the penis is over
here. It's this bit here.
Right. I'll talk quietly.
I don't want to wake it.
This is a flaccid penis.
So, for sexual intercourse,
it has to become erect.
So what happens, then?
What bit goes where?
- So this penis needs to become erect.
- Yeah.
And then it will be put into the
vagina here during intercourse,
and he's going to ejaculate
sperm through his penis
and then into the
woman's vagina.
Christ.
I hope nothing like
that ever happens to me.
The disappointingly-flavored
soup that vomits from the penis
contains millions of
plucky young tadpoles
which swim their way up through
the female pipework towards an egg
and then kamikaze into it, like
a tiny 9/11 happening up a lady.
This is where, incredibly,
the miracle of life begins
and the precise moment that a
woman's right to choose ends.
Nine months after conception,
the infant painlessly slides
through the lady's front hole
and out into the world.
It then slowly mutates from a
baby into an actual human being.
But what exactly
is a human being?
What percentage of
people have a human body?
All humans have a human body.
What about people holding a cat?
Have they got a human
body and a cat's body,
or does it not work that way?
No, the two are
completely separate.
The human is a human
and the cat is a cat.
Human biology has existed
almost as long as humans themselves,
if not longer.
It involves a complex arrangement of
skin and meat machines called organs.
Put these organs in a plastic bag
and walk around a shoe shop with them
and you'd be arrested.
But put them in the right order
and you've got a human body,
an exquisitely constructed machine
that also farts and eats crisps.
Our organs are so gory,
some people can't bear
to see images like this.
If you're one of those sensitive
viewers, look away five seconds ago.
Is the correct term for
all this offal or gore?
All this stuff.
Yeah, that is This is
called the intestine.
If you pulled an intestine
out, how long would it be?
It would be many meters.
Okay, but why are
you pulling it out?
We wouldn't normally pull it out
unless there was a disease process.
- So you don't know why it's happening?
- No.
All these slimy innards
need a surrounding structure
to stop them slopping onto the
floor for passersby to slip on.
We wouldn't be upstanding
citizens if it wasn't for this,
the human skeleton
of ghost train fame.
It's incredible to think that there's
one of these inside some of us.
Did you know only 40% of
people have skeletons?
- Where did you get this figure from?
- It's true. I saw a video about it.
You only find out if you've
got a skeleton after you die.
Some people are just solid meat.
- This is...
- You know Burt Lancaster, the actor?
He was solid meat,
apparently, like a sausage.
Every human being
has a skeleton.
That figure is 100%.
Did you know knees are a con?
Why do you say that?
If you walk everywhere
without bending your legs,
you can prolong your life
by about eight years.
I went running this morning.
How would I run without
bending my knees?
I'm not saying you
didn't bend your knees.
I'm just saying that if
you didn't bend your knees,
you could prolong your
life by eight years.
Although, it does make stairs
a problem. I'll grant you that.
The most important bit of
the human body is up here,
in the driver's
compartment or "skull."
Imprisoned within every skull
is a creature we've enslaved
to do our thinking for us,
a sort of smart cauliflower
known as the brain.
- So, this is a brain.
- This is a brain.
How many of these are
in an average head?
We have one each.
- Just the one?
- Just the one brain.
The brain doesn't
just tackle complex tasks
like blinking or
making porridge.
It also handles trivial things,
like our entire human consciousness,
the origins of which
are a complete mystery.
Does the brain generate
the consciousness,
or does the consciousness
operate the brain?
- You'll find lots of disagreements...
- Oh, sorry.
I'm supposed to remind
you to keep your answer
What was it?
"Coherent for our
fuck-witted viewers."
It is a complicated question.
My view is that the brain
generates consciousness,
but consciousness gives us
the ability to do things
that we wouldn't be able to
do if we weren't conscious.
Right. Thank you.
And apparently, I wasn't supposed
to read that card aloud, so
Apologies to you at home.
All of this leads to a
fundamental human question.
Who am I?
Not me, obviously. I'm on the
telly, so people know who I am.
But who are you? What
are you doing here?
And is any of this
really happening?
When we have a thought, like
if I picture a windmill,
how real is that windmill?
It's not real.
It's not real?
It's in your It's in your mind.
Why did I picture a windmill,
though? Is it a clue?
A clue to?
- Something.
- I don't know.
It depends what you
were thinking about.
What's inside the windmill?
Um, it depends what you
were thinking about.
What if someone lives
inside the windmill
and I'm not imagining
them, they're imagining me?
This is a very unusual way to
think about how imagination works.
Imagination is a
side effect of having a mind,
and some believe
it can be enhanced
with the use of
mind-expanding drugs.
When hippies took mind-expanding drugs,
how much wider did their minds get?
Did their skulls ever pop open?
Their skulls didn't pop open,
but it meant that they were more open
to ideas and philosophies and concepts
they may not have
previously considered.
You know when people talk
about opening their third eye?
That's what my mate Paul calls
the hole in the end of his penis.
Why would anyone
want to widen that?
The use of psychopathic
drugs in the 1960s
also led popular figures to contemplate
more spiritual aspects to human existence.
When The Beatles dropped
acid and went to India,
did they actually go, or
was that part of the trip?
No, they did
actually go to India,
and they visited an ashram and
gurus while they were out there.
It changed the stuff they said, didn't
it? They said, "All you need is love,"
and then George Harrison
said, "All things must pass."
Those were spiritual
messages, weren't they?
So when Paul said he was simply
having a wonderful Christmastime,
was there a deeper
meaning there?
I don't know if there was
a deeper message there.
That was a bit later that Paul was
having a wonderful Christmastime.
Yeah. My ex Sean sang that to me in
bed once during an intimate moment.
Honestly, I went as
dry as a cat's tongue.
Rock stars also
popularized meditation
as a way to clear the stresses
of modern life from the mind.
Do you have to sit
down to meditate,
or could I do it at the
same time as something else,
like driving or operating
heavy machinery?
Some people do
So, Buddhists, for example,
do walking meditation,
so you don't have to sit down.
Does meditation help
our souls relax?
Yes.
Meditation does help
our souls relax?
- Yes.
- Yeah.
Let's take a moment to realign ourselves
with our present reality together.
We're going to do a guided meditation
now, so feel free to join in at home.
Close your eyes.
Slow your breathing.
Now, breathe in.
Sorry, breathe out.
Become aware of the rise
and fall of your belly.
Feel the fabric of your
clothes on your skin.
Why is it that
particular material?
Was it sewn together by
a child in a sweatshop?
Probably best not to think
about that, actually.
Listen to my voice.
Why have they put a sort
of echo effect on it?
I think it's so that when
they show this footage,
it sounds like these are my
thoughts echoing in my mind.
But we filmed that weeks ago.
Hang on. Where am I now?
Hang on. That's me waking up and
standing. That's not meant to happen.
Help! I'm still here!
Oh God, I've got separated
from my own body.
They said this might happen. Help!
Help!
Our
apologies for that.
We had a duplicate consciousness
stuck on the voice-over track.
So we've had it shot and can
shortly rejoin Cunk on Life.
Who's that walking
through an awesome landscape
recording a piece to camera?
It's your very own
Philomena Cunk!
Featuring a vaguely
realistic face,
similar clothing, and a
total lack of mannerisms.
But that's not all.
Philomena also sprouts facial hair,
witnesses the crucifixion, and lays eggs!
Pop off her head, tip her over,
and whoops-a-daisy! Real blood!
The fun doesn't end
with mopping that up.
Philomena pilots her very own
spacecraft, the USS Triceratops,
with her intergalactic friends,
Captain Shitpeas, Mrs.
Benson, and Barnaby-9.
Together they tour the galaxy, repairing
black holes and mutilating cattle.
Philomena Cunk & Pals. Available
from all good retailers.
May contain pine nuts.
Side effects include spontaneous
combustion and melancholy.
Do not feed after midnight.
Remember to hydrate. Amen.
Coming
up on Cunk on Life.
Meet a man facing
oblivion on death row.
I ask a philosopher
to probe our souls.
Do philosophers spend a lot of
time thinking about our souls?
And I visit the
Large Hadron Collider
for some astrochat with
Professor Brian Cox.
What's a black hole?
A black hole?
Sorry, a hole of color.
But first, let's take a sideways look at
the suffocating inevitability of death.
Death is the great leveler.
In life, you might've been a billionaire,
supermodel, president, and king,
but the moment you die, you start
rotting like a sausage in a lay-by.
The big unknown
is how you'll die.
You might die falling
off a ladder or a cliff,
or into a lake full of knives.
You could be hit by a car or a
bus, or a tractor if you're rustic.
Maybe you're already dead and
watching this from beyond the grave,
which would be a shame because you
won't count towards the ratings.
Statistically, which is more
common, athlete's foot or death?
Death is infinitely more common.
In fact, it is
guaranteed for all of us.
How soon after death is it safe to resume
your regular day-to-day activities?
You can't resume your
day-to-day activities
once you're dead.
- How would you?
- So you can't do anything?
You can't even
listen to a podcast?
You can't listen to anything.
If you played a podcast to a corpse,
would really none of it go in?
Absolutely nothing would go in.
One downside of
our big brains is
we're the only creatures who are
aware that death is inevitable.
Although, if you lined ten dogs
in a row and shot them one by one,
the dog on the end would probably
get the gist by about dog four.
Of course, it's easy to forget
about death until it happens to you,
at which point your
brain gets wiped anyway.
It wasn't like that
in medieval times.
Back then, thanks to plagues, wars,
and a general undercurrent of violence,
people were casually
familiar with death.
In fact, they got FOMO
when they didn't die.
And this matey relationship
with their own mortality
was reflected up their art.
This is Bruegel's
Triumph of Death,
which depicts an army of the undead
violently laying waste to humankind
in scenes unlikely to be
adapted into a Pixar movie.
It's terrifying to think
this actually happened.
We're lucky Bruegel managed
to capture this image
before he too was
captured by the skeletons.
In fact, I'm surprised
he could paint at all.
My hands would have
been shaking so much,
I'd have had my own
eye out with the brush.
What the fuck is this?
Well, it's a scene
of imagination,
but it's not a scene that
Bruegel would have actually
witnessed.
I mean, but it could
happen, couldn't it?
No, it couldn't happen.
Misinformation is getting so
sophisticated, it's terrifying.
For years, morbid art like
this depicted an ominous figure
dispatching human
souls with a scythe.
That's this man,
the Grim Reaper.
Don't worry. I haven't gone mad. It
only looks like there's no one there.
In fact, you won't be able to
see the Grim Reaper at home
unless you're going to die
within the next 24 hours.
What happens after death is
the subject of huge debate.
Some think that after you
die, you evolve into a ghost,
a sort of low-tech hologram
made of haunted smoke.
Scientists say
ghosts don't exist,
even though they've been caught
on camera loads of times,
like in Poltergeist
and Poltergeist II
and the remake of Poltergeist.
In fact, ghosts have been caught on
camera more often than scientists have.
So who's real now?
Should we move on to more,
uh, hardcore scientific stuff?
Okay, so ghosts.
When a human body dies,
which hole does the ghost
come out of, north or south?
I don't regard ghosts as a hard
scientific subject, I'm afraid.
Let me tell you something.
Don't dismiss it.
In 2021, my aunt Carol got engaged
to a man called Bob Collins.
But one day, he just vanished
and cleared out her bank account.
And when she looked up
the name Bob Collins,
she discovered
he'd died in 1958.
He'd been a ghost all along.
Could it not have been someone
impersonating Bob Collins?
No, no. There were photos
of Bob Collins in 1958,
and he looked totally different,
which proves he disguised himself,
so she wouldn't know he was a ghost.
You can't explain it,
can you? It's terrifying.
Isn't the easy answer that
he doesn't look like him
because it's a different
person altogether?
No, it
It's a ghost.
Death, tragedy and suffering have
always been part of human life.
Struggling with lives
of ceaseless misery,
people began to wonder whether
any kind of God exists at all.
But for centuries, no one
dared voice that suspicion
in case God did exist
and smited them shitless.
But that was about to change.
It's 1883,
and German philosopher Friedrich
Nietzsche is hard at work in his study,
putting his thoughts on paper.
Don't worry. He can't hear me.
He's about to write one
of the most controver...
He's about to write one of
the most controversial catchphrases
in history.
Three little words
by the name of
God is dead.
Nietzsche said, "God is dead,"
didn't he? And now he's dead himself.
Who's next?
Did he name the
killer before he died?
Nietzsche? No.
I think he thought that
people should realize that
they had constructed a God
that actually wasn't doing them
as much good as they thought,
and people need to realize
not perhaps that he was dead,
but that he hadn't existed.
So he's saying we killed him?
In effect.
But I wasn't even born.
No. Yeah.
Nietzsche can fuck off.
Mm.
Can we be sure God
didn't kill himself?
'Cause you never know what
people are going through.
It's possible.
Nietzsche's
proclamation that God was dead
caused an intellectual firestorm
as writers and thinkers debated
the decline of religious authority
in an increasingly
secularized world,
107 years before the release of unrelated
Belgian techno anthem "Pump Up the Jam."
Pump up the jam, pump it up
While your feet are stomping
And the jam is pumping
Look ahead, the
crowd is jumpin'
Pump it up a little more
Get the party goin'
on the dance floor
See, 'cause that's
where The party's at
And you'd find
out if you do that
Awa, a place to stay
Get your booty on
the floor tonight
Make my day
Awa, a place to stay
Get your booty on
the floor tonight
Make my day
Make my day
Make my day
Make my day
Make my day
But if Nietzsche was
right and God is dead,
it means we've got no higher
entities judging our lifestyles,
except the people from
the flat upstairs.
It could create a
terrifying moral vacuum
in which people feel free
to behave atrociously,
like they did in the entertainment
industry of the 1970s
and the '80s and the '90s,
2000s, 2010s, and today.
Luckily, moral
guidance was on hand
thanks to the world
of literature.
There were a lot of
influential Russian writers
in the 19th century.
Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev,
Turnover, and Pushkin.
Who was best?
I like Pushkin.
- Yeah?
- Yes.
What about Turnover?
Turnover is What did he write?
Oh, I don't know.
It's in my notes.
Um
"The main influential Russian
writers were Tolstoy, Dostoevsky,
Turgenev, Turnover,
and Pushkin."
It's all right if you've not heard
of him. You shouldn't be embarrassed.
I hadn't heard of him either.
Yeah. No. No.
This is one of the literary
world's greatest moral thinkers,
Russian novelist
Fyodor Dostoevsky,
seen here enjoying
himself at a party.
He wrote many books still
not read to this day.
But his most celebrated work,
his absolute Tour de France,
is unopened masterpiece
Crimean D Punishment.
Crime and Punishment grapples
with individual freedom,
the role of authority, and
the complexities of morality.
What would you
give it out of ten?
- I'd give it nine, I think.
- Nine.
Yeah.
Nine.
Punishment hasn't changed
much since Dostoevsky's day,
although, incredibly, in some countries,
if an offender's crime was really bad,
the authorities will actually
cut their sentence short
by killing them.
Capital punishment forces us to
ask questions like, "Does it hurt?"
"Are tickets available?"
and "What's the view
like from seat 6A?"
and also, other more
profound moral questions.
Why do we say people are
facing the electric chair
when they've got
their backs to it?
I think you're taking
it too literally.
What we mean by facing
the electric chair is
is facing an inevitable death.
This is
Waylon Jackalope IV.
In 2019, he skinned
six people alive
and was rewarded with his
own Netflix documentary
and a guest spot on death row.
And I'm delighted to say
he's joining us right now.
So, Waylon. You
murdered six people.
Where'd you get your ideas from?
It's kinda tough
for me to dwell on.
All I can say is, um,
the Waylon Jackalope that
killed those folks was a
a different man to
the one you see today.
So, it wasn't you?
You're innocent?
No, ma'am. I killed them.
Oh, thank God for that.
So, um, have you been on death row
before, or is this your first time?
First time.
You're facing the
electric chair.
Aren't you worried about
what's gonna happen?
I've made my peace
with the Lord,
and I'm ready to meet him.
Yeah, but aren't you scared it'll
hurt? It's millions of volts.
My mate Paul says your liver
fries and your kidneys pop
and your bowels go
into reverse flow
and shoot boiling shit up into
your throat which chokes you.
Apparently, it'd be
genuinely more humane
to pay some of the other inmates to
hold you down and pull your head off.
Anyway, um, best of luck.
Actually, before you go, could you
just do a quick promo thing for us
into that phone?
Could you say, "Watch
me die on Cunk on Life"?
It's for TikTok.
It's only short.
Watch me die on Cunk for Life.
On Life, on Life.
Watch me die on Cunk on Life.
There you go.
Wasn't hard, was it?
Why does the electric chair
only do one person at a time?
Could you have an electric bench
that does about seven in one go?
You probably could. You
definitely shouldn't.
Would be quicker though, and
you could do them in batches.
It would be quicker, but we'd have
to accept the death penalty was a
a sensible and useful thing to
do, and I don't accept that so...
Electrocuting people isn't
very eco-friendly, is it?
Could we steam them
to death instead?
Uh, I'm sure there are other ways
of administering the death penalty
that might be more eco-friendly.
I think the preference would
be to not do it at all.
In a just and moral society, is it
better to kill one innocent person
than to save one
innocent person?
It's never going to be better to kill
an innocent person, I don't think.
Contemplating weighty,
big-bummed life and death dilemmas
in a godless universe
opens the door to nihilism
and existentialism,
two of the hardest-to-spell
concepts in philosophy.
So nihilism is the view that
nothing, absolutely nothing, matters.
Why don't people mention they're
nihilists on their dating profiles?
Like, I went on a
date with a bloke,
and 20 minutes in, he
said he was a nihilist
and that because human
existence is futile,
there was no point continuing
with the date, and he left.
And I had to pay.
Was he a nihilist
or just a prick?
Probably both.
Yeah. As I suspected.
Nihilism is the belief
that life is meaningless
and nothing is worth believing
in except more nihilism.
Existentialism is the same as
that but using longer words.
Who's the most famous
existentialist in history?
Probably Jean-Paul Sartre.
Right. See, I'd have
said it was E.T.
This is the first
celebrity existentialist,
Parisian writer
Jean-Paul-Sartre-and-Ringo.
Sartre saw things differently
to everybody else,
partly because of his
questioning mindset,
but mainly because
of those eyes.
I mean, seriously, he could probably
see the back of his own ears with them
or write two books at once.
That's why he was such
a prolific author,
writing book upon book, outlining
his existentialist theories
decades before the release of
unrelated Belgian techno anthem,
"Pump Up The Jam,"
which you heard earlier.
Someone told me that
cats are a good example
of something that lives
like an existentialist.
A good life for an existentialist,
if there is such a thing,
is a matter of creating
your own goals and values
and sincerely following them.
For example, my cat
reacts to his environment
rather than just being
dragged around by others.
How do you know cats aren't
thinking about their existence?
They might be really anxious,
and when they say "meow,"
they're expressing their own pain
Iike "me, ow."
Well, cats have pain.
They don't behave in a way
that seems to suggest a
level of self-consciousness.
Cats lick their own
bum holes, don't they?
Are all existentialists
supple enough to do that?
Uh, no.
Being overwhelmed
with existential angst
is part of being human.
Some of the greatest artists
in history have tried
to express the agony
of the human condition.
And so have ones who could
only paint as badly as this.
This is Edvard
Munch's The Scream,
the first major existentialist
statement to later become an emoji.
What inspired Eddie
Munch to paint this?
It was an experience he'd
had walking with his friends.
But I've been on bridges, and you
don't find me painting about it.
How come we can't hear
him? Is he on mute?
No, it's nature that
is screaming loudly,
and we all could hear
nature screaming loudly.
So, is this one of the few
examples of a silent painting?
All paintings are silent.
If Edvard Munch knew we
wouldn't be able to hear it,
why didn't he wait till this bloke's
mouth was closed before painting him?
It's just annoying.
I've noticed he's not
moving either. Why is that?
Because he's rooted to the spot
by the deep emotion he finds.
So it's a freeze-frame
of a painting?
It's a freeze-frame of a mood.
Drew Barrymore dies at the start
of this painting, doesn't she?
Do you know if they've got
Scream 2 in this gallery as well?
- Scream 2?
- Yeah.
I'm afraid I don't
know Scream 2.
But this was based on
the film, wasn't it?
I don't think he'd seen the film. It's
a painting of an experience he'd had.
But not a physical experience, an
emotional and psychological experience.
We paint our souls.
Why do we paint arseholes?
The more agonized and
miserable the artwork,
the more people like it.
And no dead agonized artist is bigger
than miserable redhead and own-ear vandal,
Vincenzo Van Beethoven Gogh.
As you can see from
this photograph,
Van Gogh actually resembled
a painting in real life,
making a career
in art inevitable.
Several of his works,
such as Sad Flowers,
Scary Night,
and Woofy McPoker, have
fetched millions at auction.
22.5 million for the last time.
This is one
of his most famous works,
Wheatfield with Crows.
At first glance, it's
a simple, rural scene,
but look closer and you'll see
it's actually very badly made.
Take these birds.
Apparently, they're crows,
but it's impossible to know
'cause there's no detail at all.
Some are big. Some are small.
Some have more
wings than others.
Looking at this,
it's hard to believe
Van Gogh had actually even
seen a crow or a wheat field,
or even held a brush before.
Look at those strokes.
They're sloppy.
It's like he painted it
wearing boxing gloves.
It's just not good enough.
In fact, it's actively bad.
Van Gogh's life, and by
extension, our world,
would've been improved if
he'd never painted anything,
not even a bog door in
a home for the blind.
Anyway, that's my view.
What do you think?
Of course, most people aren't
miserable like Van Gogh.
They're miserable
like themselves.
They simply don't have time to channel
their pain into artistic expression
'cause they're too busy working.
And work is something we all
learn to barely tolerate.
Ever since the earliest caveman
went to work for the first cunt,
people have hated their jobs,
partly 'cause those jobs were awful.
For centuries, most jobs
involved manual labor
like lugging heavy coal around
and tilling the fields while
someone sketched you for posterity.
But as our world
gets more modern
and full of all plastic
and metal and stuff,
the nature of work has changed.
Now jobs are even worse,
which contributes to an
ever-growing sense of hopelessness.
Humans have to work
a lot, don't they?
Can work ever be
truly rewarding?
Yeah, I think so.
What, even for him?
All he does is hold
a stick all day.
There's no way that's
rewarding or meaningful.
There's no skill involved.
We wouldn't even need a
machine to replace him.
Just a bracket and
a stand would do.
Can't be fulfilling
in the slightest.
He holds that stick more
than he holds his loved ones.
If you think of the
things he's missed out on
just holding that fucking
stick like a slave.
You don't get that
time back, you know.
Wasted his life.
Very echoey
in here, isn't it?
Phil would've hated that.
Wouldn't he, Ian?
You're next.
Can we have a minute
for atmos, please?
Life itself can sometimes
feel like a horrible burden
from which there is no escape.
But luckily, help is at hand.
That's why I've come to leading
streaming platform Streamberry
to see how they help distract viewers
from the bottomless misery of existence.
Here at Streamberry, we're
passionate about providing our users
with entertainment that speaks to them
on a personal level about their needs.
Not just as a consumer,
but as a mammal.
We monitor our viewers'
emotional state at all times,
and we've discovered
most of them are locked
in a state of
existential helplessness.
And I imagine you
want to fix that?
Yes, that's why we launched
a suite of programming
aimed at viewers who've
given up all hope,
which is 116% of them.
These shows are grouped
together into genre brackets
that help despairing viewers locate
content that really speaks to their mood.
We're currently
seeing maximum growth
in a category called "Standing
On a Ledge Right Now."
And what's that?
That's programming aimed at viewers
standing on a ledge right now.
Usually watching on their phone.
Naturally, we don't want them to jump.
That would negatively affect engagement.
And what about the little ones?
Is there anything for them?
Yes, actually, one of our newest
releases is a show aimed at kids
standing on ledges.
Wow! And I think we've got an
exclusive preview of that right now.
Hey, mister! Don't jump!
Why not?
Well
Sometimes we all feel Like
life's lost its meaning
But jump and that sidewalk
Will need careful cleaning
And more to the point
You just wouldn't survive
Let me list you some
reasons For staying alive
Uh, okay.
You'd miss out on nature
In all of its wonder
Like puppies and kittens
And sunshine and thunder
Your parents would miss
you In sorrow, they'd drown
If you plunged from that ledge
And went splat on the ground
Uh-huh.
Jumping's so final
No chance of revision
Most people who do jump
Regret their decision
Ahh, he's right!
To leave a great legacy
Stay in the game
It sure beats just
leaving a dent
And a stain
Oh, okay.
- You've convinced me
- Yay
Life is worth it
I don't wanna die
Be careful returning
You don't wanna slip
- Oh!
- Uh-oh.
Oh well, it's
too late Bye-bye
Hm.
Well, thanks, Jacqui. That
was really enlightening,
and Streamberry seems fantastic.
- Thank you.
- Thank you.
Great.
- Brilliant.
- Thank you.
Yeah.
Still to come
Will computers recode
the meaning of life?
Will we ever be able to upload
our souls to a computer?
I take a closer look at cloning.
If you clone twins,
do you get two copies of one of
them, or one copy of both of them?
Brian Cox gives a scientific
view of the firmament.
Isn't it a waste of energy
leaving the stars on at night?
No.
But first, time to contemplate
our fate in a pitiless, godless universe.
With God dead and existential
despair all the rage,
it seemed humankind was
all alone in the universe.
We were back to square one,
staring up at the night sky
and wondering how it got there.
To find out, we'd have to reopen
the biggest cold case of all time.
The Bible had claimed the
universe was God's creation.
But now we knew
that that was a lie,
we'd have to come up with
a new implausible theory.
It's October 5th, 1923.
An astronomer, Edwin Hubble, is about
to make an incredible discovery.
Peering through his telescope,
he becomes the first human
to observe a Cepheid variable
star in a galaxy beyond our own.
Hubble raced home to
tell his wife, Grace,
who had loyally supported
him throughout his career.
"I've done it!" he cried. But
in his voice instead of mine.
"I've fundamentally altered
our concept of the universe."
"Oh, darling, that's
wonderful," she replied.
Her eyes shone with
pride, and they embraced.
As they kissed hungrily, their
excitement gave way to passion,
and they moved to the bedroom,
hurriedly shedding their clothes.
Flesh pressed on flesh
as they explored each other's
bodies with carnal abandon.
Together, they steadily built
towards a crescendo of ecstasy,
their faces
contorting with bliss.
And a mutual orgasm shuddered
through their bodies.
There they lay,
quietly entwined,
exhausted yet resplendent in the
warm afterglow of their union.
Then Hubble mopped up the
damp patch with his vest.
Hubble's discovery paved the
way for a groundbreaking theory
about how our
universe was formed,
a theory that still
excites nerds to this day.
Why do people say the universe
came out of a big bag?
I think you mean Big Bang.
A big bag that went bang?
No, no. Just a Big Bang, no bag.
Has anyone ever claimed
responsibility for the Big Bang?
It just happened.
So we're no nearer
finding a culprit.
The Big Bang is a theory,
and like all theories,
no one understands it.
If they come too close to working it
out, they're assassinated by the CIA.
But if it did happen,
the Big Bang filled the
universe with matter.
This is an atom.
It's so tiny, you
probably can't see it,
even if you're watching in 4K.
In fact, it's so small,
chances are I dropped it
before we started filming.
You, me, and everything
around us is made from these,
apart from this coat,
which is 100% cashmere.
What's the point of atoms?
Do we really need them, or
could we just do without?
We do really need them
because we are made of atoms.
Everything in the world is made of atoms
so without them, we wouldn't be here.
Are eyes made of atoms?
Yes.
'Cause my mate Paul
did ketamine once,
and he said he started counting
all the atoms in his eyes.
Then he tried to eat a towel
and ended up in hospital.
Okay.
- Are my feet made of atoms?
- Yes.
I mean, I could save
you the bother by
Everything you say, all
stuff is made of atoms.
Are thoughts made of atoms?
Well, no, thoughts are...
- Well, there you go then.
- Okay.
But thoughts Okay.
You might think
nothing's smaller than atoms,
but as usual, you'd be wrong.
Incredibly, atoms themselves are made
of even smaller subatomic particles.
Scientists have spent literally
decades attempting to explain
why these are interesting
to no avail.
Perhaps that's why, deep
underground near Geneva,
they built a gigantic machine
called the Large Hadron Colly-der.
It smashes subatomic
particles together,
recreating the conditions
of the Big Bang.
And I'm actually
walking into it now,
wearing a hard hat
in case a proton falls on me.
So, this is this is the
actual Large Hadron colander.
So am I right in thinking
that this might prove
the existence of chakras
within the human body?
No.
You're not interested
in chakras?
No. In the same way I'm
not interested in ghosts.
But my aunt Carol, she can
sense chakras in someone's body,
and she doesn't
need any machines.
- Um, this could explode at any minute.
- No.
How fast do the protons
in this thing go?
99.999999% the speed of light.
- Your sense of smell is faster, isn't it?
- No.
How come that when someone's frying
bacon and you walk in the kitchen,
you can smell it straight away
before you've even seen it?
Have you ever tried
putting bacon in here?
- No.
- Yeah, you should try it.
You might make quantum bacon.
- Would that make it more interesting?
- A little bit.
Why would it be more
interesting? 'Cause what it's...
I'm desperately I'm trying
to help you out here.
I'm trying to make it even slightly
more interesting than it is.
But what it did was it detected
a thing called a Higgs particle.
Without the Higgs particle,
you, me, and everything else
that we know of in the universe,
- none of those things would exist.
- Right.
In 2012, the megaboffins at CERN
discovered something incredible,
the Higgs bosom.
Because of its significance in
explaining how our universe was made,
the Higgs bosom is sometimes
referred to as the God Particle.
But it could also be
called the Allah Particle
because we can't show
you any pictures of it.
No less an authority than
the man I just spoke to
claimed it was the biggest
scientific discovery
in his lifetime.
I think this is the biggest
scientific discovery in my lifetime.
And it stood with the great
scientific discoveries of all time.
And it stands with the great
scientific discoveries of all time.
Can the Higgs boson rewind time?
No.
Can it tell when an
earthquake's gonna go off?
No.
- Can it make food spicier?
- It's just a particle.
It's like saying, "Can an electron tell
when an earthquake's gonna go off?"
- Can it?
- No.
Subatomic particles, the
tiniest things in existence,
can simultaneously exist in
two different states at once.
Just like Liam Hemsworth,
who's sexy and boring.
In other words, science moves in
mysterious ways just like God does,
which was awkward
because scientists had
decided God didn't exist.
So they invented a whole
new kind of science,
the science of things that
don't make scientific sense.
And to make it sound official,
they gave it a clever name.
What is Quantum McPhysics?
Quantum physics is
So quantum mechanics is our best
theory of how the world works.
It describes everything
that we've observed
other than gravity.
Do mirrors run on
quantum physics?
- Run?
- Yeah.
As in?
According to quantum physics, mirrors
shouldn't work. They're a miracle.
That's not correct.
Quantum theorionics proves
there's infinite multiverses,
like in Marvel
films, doesn't it?
That's one interpretation
of the theory.
How many infinite
multiverses are there?
If there were an infinite
number of multiverses,
then the number of
multiverses would be infinite.
See, I think there's two.
Ours and the one in mirrors.
Mirrors are windows into
other universes, aren't they?
No.
My mate Paul says they
run on quantum power
and that's why you can see
into an alternative dimension
in which everything's the same
as our realm but backwards.
What does Paul do?
Well, he worked in a tennis ball factory
where he had to catch tennis balls.
But he was fired from that,
and now he's unemployed.
Sorry, am I wasting your time?
Yeah.
By the end
of the 20th century,
science had tried
to outdo religion
by explaining creation, unpicking
the fabric of existence,
and discovering
the God particle.
For its next trick,
it tried to emulate God himself
by creating life.
The first ever thing to be
cloned was Dolly the sheep,
daughter of Dolly,
the other sheep.
Dolly became the most
famous sheep in history,
although to be fair,
that's a low baa.
Of course, cloning
raises awkward questions
about our sense of identity.
If I get copied,
am I still unique?
Or is the clone me more unique
because it's a clone, which is cooler?
What makes me me and you you
and us us and we we?
But rather than being
replaced by clones,
it's more likely we'll be replaced by
something else we created, computers,
which are becoming so clever, they
might one day outsmart their masters.
Will a computer ever be
clever enough to play chess?
Computers are already
clever enough to play chess.
Really? This is chess
we're talking about?
Yes. Years ago, computers
overtook human beings at chess.
But do they know what all the pieces
do? Even the little horse ones?
Yes.
But the horse ones move in
random directions, don't they?
- There's no pattern to it.
- No, there is. They just move
two in one direction and
one in the other, so
Oh, right. Did the computers
work that out for us?
Not content with playing chess,
computers are getting better
at emulating other more human,
less chess-like pursuits.
One of the first examples of AI was
a piece of software called ELIZA,
which stands for something.
ELIZA simulated a psychiatrist.
It would ask you how you were
feeling and respond to your reply.
But it was basic.
It couldn't do everything
a psychiatrist can do.
It couldn't walk round the
desk or overcharge you,
start an affair with its
secretary, cook an omelet, or go
Today, AI is everywhere and all around
us, in our homes and in our hands
- with digital assistants like Siri
- Hi there.
Alexa and that Google
one no one remembers.
Seriously, it might as
well be called Cuthbert.
But when people talk about AI,
most of them are thinking about
generative AI chatbots like this,
ChatGPT, which is so
good at mimicking humans,
we might as well
fucking kill ourselves.
Or at least, that's
what it just told me.
People worry a lot about AI.
What about you?
You mean am I worried about?
No, I mean, should
they worry about you?
N I hope not. I hope not.
I mean, I'm People are worried
about artificial intelligence
because they think maybe one day
it'll replace us human beings.
I'm a human being. Why should
they be worried about me?
No, the letter "U."
They're all vowels,
aren't they? A, I, U.
What does the "U"
in AI stand for?
Th There isn't a "U" in AI.
So, it's a secret then?
The computer's hidden it?
I'm more than machine or man,
more than a fusion of the two.
Us humans aren't
about to be slaughtered
by the nightmarish robots
of science fiction.
We're about to be slaughtered by
the nightmarish robots of real life.
Now as humans stand on a precipice
at the edge of a cliff face,
peering into a bottomless abyss
and wondering if there's
a void underneath it,
the question of life's purpose
seems more urgent than ever.
And even experts are confused.
Is there a point
to human existence?
And if there is, what is it?
When you're answering, bear
in mind that if it's too long,
we have to overlay funny pet
videos over part of the screen
so viewers don't get bored.
Well, we want our
lives to have meaning.
And the question is,
is that meaning something
that we construct,
which is what the German
philosopher Nietzsche would say,
or is meaning something that
we discover in the world?
Maybe that meaning
is generated by God,
or maybe that meaning just happens to
be part of the fabric of the universe.
Why are poos tapered at the end?
Are they that shape
when they're inside us,
or do our bums mold
them into that shape?
Sorry, that's for
the poo expert.
Although, you're here, so do
you fancy answering it or?
I don't think I know
enough about human biology
to give you an accurate answer.
Fair enough. Yeah.
Throughout this landmark epic,
which you have definitely enjoyed,
my quest for meaning has
taken me around the world
and into several buildings, down stairs,
and at one point, onto a bouncy castle.
From religious ecstasy
to nihilistic defecation,
from great works of literature
to that awful fucking painting,
humankind's quest for
meaning has never let up.
And now my work here is done.
I hope you found
it illuminating.
Now it's time for me to find out
the meaning of life in other worlds.
Goodbye.
Do authors sign their books at the
end like when you write a letter?
Like "That's Crime and Punishment.
The End. Yours sincerely, Dostoevsky."
Seldom, I think.
Why does the human eye have a nerve
connecting it directly to the anus?
It doesn't.
It does because when you pick your
bum, you sort of go like that.
When the penis goes into a lady,
why does it keep backing
out and going back in?
Can't it just go in,
get it done, and leave?
Were our souls created
during the Big Bang?
Depends what you
mean by "our souls."
You know what I
mean by "our souls."
It's a shame they only
make semen, isn't it?
If they made tomato soup,
you could share a nice mug
of it in bed afterwards.
Is it harder to enter the
kingdom of heaven since Brexit?
I don't think Brexit has anything
to do with the kingdom of heaven
or hell for that matter.
My mate Paul says if you look
in a mirror for about an hour,
it's possible to trick your consciousness
into thinking it's inside the other you,
and then you can run off before
it can jump back out and get you.
He said he managed it once, but a
second after he started running,
he caught his balls
on a door handle
and ended up rolling around
on the floor in agony
while his consciousness watched him
from the mirror, pissing itself.
I don't think your consciousness
can go inside a mirror.
I do worry about Paul.
I think he just hasn't
found his role in society.
So you're in the Big Bang gang?
The Big Bang?
- Gang. The Big Bang gang.
- The Big Bang gang?
We're all in the Big Bang gang.
- Are we?
- Yeah.
Could you say that down
that lens there, please?
I'm in the Big Bang gang.
You're in the Big Bang gang.
- You're in the Big Bang gang.
- We're all in the Big Bang gang.