In 2001, does the monolith directly cause human evolution, or is there to observe us?
In 2001, does the monolith directly cause human evolution, or is there to observe us?
In 2001, does the monolith directly cause human evolution, or is there to observe us?
It inspires the primates to learn. It's an allegory for the spark of sentience.
It is a machine that accelerates the evolution of life. That's it's goal. The aliens are like watchers and caretakers of the Solar System, and they tinker with it. In the sequel stories they turn the solar system into a dual sun system by making Jupiter into a sun, and then they start the life system again on Europa.
>dual sun system
Won't that burn us
Yes, it's stupid and Jupiter doesn't have the mass to become a star to begin with. Whatever.
Hi, Neildegrasse!
Why did the ayyas have such a hard on for Europa?
>You apes can go do what ever dumb shit you want anyplace in the galaxy. But you better not frick with Europa!
Cuz Earth was their first experimentation, and now Europa is their next one. They likely said the same shit the last time around.
>You can do whatever you want, just don't go to earth!
Seems logical. But what happened to Dave? Did his consciousness just join eternity or time? He didn't literally become Star Child, did he?
The novels are more direct and literal. They made him the next step of evolution, a star child.
So eventually he becomes a Star Man waiting in the sky?
I'm sure he would like to come and see us, but he would doubtlessly have grave concerns about blowing our minds...
After 2010, he gets Hal as a companion.
>Hey TARS...
>Yeah, Coop?
>You wanna go hang out with Dave and HAL?
>I thought you'd never ask, Coop.
>Alright, alright, alright!
There's a whole gay novel series that goes into this. He becomes a kind of emissary for the alien race as an energy being. He isn't literally some fetus forever, it's just his first stage of rebirth.
Damn... That sounds kinda lonely.
This assumes that an "ascended" Human-Being/purely spiritual entity deals with such trifling, antiquated things like the emotion of "loneliness".
That's true, but Dave didn't really know what he was getting into. I hope the poor bastard didn't regret his choice.
The dude probably got way too ascended to care I'd reckon.
It's not that they preferred Europa. They just did not want the nascent life on Euopa interfered with, and instead told humans they had to abide by a sort of Prime Directive.
sequel is not cannon.
The film did show that the apes have some semblance of intelligence even before the monolith appears. Maybe it's simply nudging them toward an idea for them to act upon.
The monolith's form stands out from the natural environment the primates live in. They have never seen anything like it, and just like the viewer they try to figure out what sort of function it can serve.
By thinking about the relationship between form and function, they come up with different functions rather than naturally intended functions for objects from their environment, the first case being the usage of a bone as a weapon.
This way, the monolith inspired the development of tool usage by introducing an abstract concept to a species that was already cognitively capable of adapting it.
>showgays
so god, or the pillar thing, taught them how to murder one another in a better way? this shit is all so confusing wtf.
It's a device that induces absract thinking in the primates. It has a "perfect" form in that it has uniform shape and seemingly unbreakable material. It is the closest to a God that their minds can conceive of.
The aliens have down this on every planet where they found life with the potential to gain from the device, but they always wiped themselves out before they could reach bronze/iron age tech.
>wow this thing is so square
>…I think it’s God
Lmao
Yes. What else is there with such a perfect and untouchable form in nature aside from the Moon? It's part of the reason why idolatry went out of fashion very quickly after people realized they can break statues. The monolith is alien to them in every way. It's like if you were presented with an entirely new form of matter.
Honestly, with how absurd people got over the perfectly broken plate, I can understand.
It's just a monolith my dude, it does nothing. It's just there.
I never understood why there was one of those on the moon.
The book says it was planted there long ago
>how the hell did they do that
Beats me
>In 2001, does the monolith directly cause human evolution, or is there to observe us?
It psychically forces Moonwatcher to knot blades of grass over and over until he understands how to use his hands to alter his environment in planned ways thus opening the gates of foresight and planning for the future.
>I never understood why there was one of those on the moon.
It's a checkpoint that activates when unearthed as a way to tell home base that the apes have achieved spaceflight.
Yeah I always thought the moon monolith was a checkpoint or beacon to Jupiter
>Yeah I always thought the moon monolith was a checkpoint or beacon to Jupiter
The book literally says the humans detect a signal being sent when it's unearthed.
It's a Progress-Activated Trigger/Litmus Test for Human Development.
Mankind would not be able to reach the Moon itself; i.e. giving them opportunity to find and interact with the Monolith in the first place; until they reached at least a specific level of intelligence and conseqient technological advancement.
The Monolith on the Moon served as a waiting Alarm/Indicator that Mankind had reached the technological era of Spaceflight & Space-Exploration.
I thought it freaked them out
In addition to comments above I want to point out that the monolith does nothing on its own, ie it's not a device with technological capacity beyond our understanding, it's just an object. The sudden presence and the perfection of the form of this object is what makes the apes evolve. More precisely, it's the first object they actually notice and actually start pondering, actually start observing - enabling them to observe the distinction between them-the-observers and the-object-observed. Essentially, it starts the development of their consciousness, in philosophical terms, makes them aware of the Subject-Object dichotomy.
Nah, it forces Moonwatcher to sit and tie knots for hours when he doesn't want to. He's clearly distressed and being compelled by the monolith to perform this repetitive action.
so it's god and gave them a soul?
Never thought about it that way, but why not. The film nudging us towards the conclusion that the monolith was created by aliens may as well be a red herring of surface reading. The higher force behind the monolith can be a singular entity - although reducing the philosophical God to a very basic, anthropomorphized understanding of an acting figure is itself a surface reading.
>ie it's not a device with technological capacity beyond our understanding
Both the books and the movie directly indicate that it is.
They levitate, teleport, emit sounds that are painful/damaging, etc., all on top of somehow forwarding biological evolution.
In the books they are seen doing even more, such as self-replicating and piloting themselves through space.
In the book, it DOES directly affect them and function as a "teacher". It's not just a metal slab. The apes are presented as mindless creatures that cannot fathom even the most basic emotions. They only know hunger and cold. Their emotions are more like a wolf pack than a family unit.
It starts off by instilling a sense of time in the apes, who otherwise have no concept of "then" and "now". It isn't all at once either. First and foremost, it creates a sense of self in the apes by making them aware of their own motor skills. It does this by hypnotizing them into performing seemingly pointless physical excersises like touching their fingertips toegether.
The next day, MoonWatcher is staring at a group of antelopes grazing in the valley, and he begins to THINK about how scary these animals are to approach because of the natural daggers they have on their foreheads. This is when the Monolith works upon the leader's mind one last time and makes him pick up a large bone from the ground left behind from a other animal. He now understands that this tool can be used as a buffer and as his own "dagger". He realizes his tribe will never go hungry again.
Near the end, they are attacked by a leopard who wanders into their cave. They successfully beat it to death, from which they learn coordinated tactics rather than mindlessly swarming prey.
Finally, the apes emerge from their caves a year after they were driven away from the watering hole. They rival apes are there, jumping like morons and screeching to show dominance, but the protagonist and his tribe are silent, observant, and calm. The rival apes are frightened by this display of stoic determination, but are too primitive to understand that the protagonist is wielding a weapon. The rival leader charges across the water and is immediately btfo by a finely aimed swing of the bone weapon. Thus, modern Man is born.
The monoliths are tools the aliens use. They sent one to "inspire" our ancestors to start using tools. We started hunting using weapons, eating meat. That allowed our brains to get better. It didn't have to evolve us, it just had to nudge us in the right direction of getting a decent meal
The monolith signals a leap in evolution, not a cause of it. They find one on the Moon which indicates humans have advanced enough to leave their planet. Then they find one deeper in space to signify farther interstellar travel/advancement. The last one in 2001 signifies that Dave made the next step.
The novel explicitly states that it does something to the alpha ape that makes him slightly more intelligent, and then the others learn from him.
It seems that the monoliths have some ephemeral effect on beings near it.
It grants access to an infinite amounts of GBs of brap porn to whoever touches it.
i met kubrick at an illuminati picnic in 1995. he told me it's a metaphor for BBC
The apes that interact with the Monolith approach it on all-fours, and the scenes set in the prehistoric past end with those same apes walking upright on two legs.
The movie very clearly indicates that the Monoliths sometimes forward biological evolution somehow.
Is this movie good? Is it better if you watch it drunk? Should i get hammered tonight and watch this movie?
Yeah, it's a classic. Definitely worth a watch... Why would you watch any movie without being druk?
It's better if you have access to shrooms. Getting drunk would be fine if you have a decent attention span.
it's a mess of a movie with a mish-mosh of whatever it's point is
>Watching anything Kubrhack