June 4th, 2008
How to deliver a Gilgamesh to this world.
Question: How many generations would it take (and how much sex (and incest) was involved? Not to mention, arranged marriages?) to bring into this world an individual like Gilgamesh?
Solution: Using MS Excel's worksheet which consisted of 65536 rows, I had started with the numbers zero (to represent a mortal, having no divine lineage at all) and one (to represent an immortal, a god or goddess). Afterwards, taking into consideration what I had learned from my numerical methods class back in college where I had to manipulate(?) the numbers to make it converge to a value equal to the quotient of 2 and 3, which is 0.66666666666666666666666... (well, you get the picture).
First up is a pure god and a pure mortal. The two's offspring (the 2nd generation) would have to be half-god and half-man. Since we need to have someone who has to be two-thirds god, we have to mate the 2nd generation godling with a pure god. The resulting quotient would be a number between the first two. Hence, the 3rd generation of Gilgamesh's ancestors would be 3/4 god. Now, since 2/3 is between 3/4 and 1/2, the 2nd generation would have to have sex with the 3rd one and the 4th generation would be 5/8 god. Following this pattern, successive generations need to have sex with each other (incestuous, yes. Haha).So, after 51 rows (which translates to 50 generations under ideal conditions), the number I had been playing around with finally converged to 2/3. Hence, it would take a god and a mortal (and several of their descendants) that much "work" (and "fun", if you want to include that. Haha) before making a Gilgamesh.
So how long would that take? Well, here are some assumptions for you (and there are lots more I’d state later on).Under these conditions, to have someone like Gilgamesh would take his descendants 803 years and 3 months of (careful. Haha.) planning. At the very least.· For the first generation, we have a male god and a female mortal.
· For every even-numbered generation (except the first), the offspring would have to be male while odd-numbered ones yield females.· At least one of the participants in each intercourse should be 15 years old.
· 9 months for conception is included in the computation.· Incest is very much allowed!
But honestly, this solution is an extremely simplistic one. How come? Here’s a list of initial assumptions I had (apart from the ones I had mentioned earlier):
· I had set the quotients to be accurate only up to the fifteenth decimal place (which is the limit of MS Excel, apparently). Therefore, 50 generations is just a safe estimate. The true count would most likely go on forever. (In this case and in theory, even if gods were having sex since the dawn of creation, Gilgamesh would still not be born to this day. Haha.)· The requirement that males should be born on even generations and females on odd ones. However, having these gods produce as many sons and daughters as they could would likely increase the probability of having someone like Gilgamesh. Haha.
· Age-factor. Enough said. But then again, these are gods we’re talking about, right?· I had used just one approach, the simplest one. I am not in any position to say that using another could reduce the number of years and generations or increase them.
Conclusion: Taking these into consideration, I’d say Gilgamesh is an impossibility. Either that or someone’s lying about him being what he is. And this is simply explained by the fact that 2/3, when written in decimal form, is non-terminating and repeating. (Or so I think.)
