Original subtitles

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 Galápagos 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.