h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The key to understanding is knowing what questions to ask, i.e. "What is the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything?". So my question to you is what are the questions that we need to ask our scientist, philosophers, theologians, and sages to answer. Here are a few examples to get us going.

What is the crucial distinction between inanimate matter and an entity that can act as an agent manipulating the world on its own behalf; and how does that change happen?

Exactly how much of nature can we trash and burn and still get away with it?

What is information and where does it ultimately originate?

What are the powers and limits of the human mind?

Is justice real?

What makes a soul?

What question should I ask?

What is consciousness after all, and how is it created?

How can conflicts be solved best?

Why are they often solved the worst way?

Are all cultures doomed to be extinct when there time is over?

Why do people watch movies like "Alien"?

Why do they watch movies like "Mars Attacks"?

Who should you ask such questions?

Do those questions have only one right answer?

What's the exact defenition of "question" anyway?

And what about answers?? Any of you have any answers to these questions?

Why are we here?

Would the world be here if we weren't?

Would God care if we weren't here?

Why do we spend our lives looking for things to do until they're over? Why not just sit around and wait? (It's cheaper and environmentally friendly)

What shall I cook for lunch?

Crucial distinction: Inanimate matter can act only passively: by being acted upon--say, tripped over. An entity can act both passively and aggressively. Who's to say the entity is manipulating the world on its own behalf? Perhaps it's manipulating the world on someone or -thing else's behalf... Is the change you're asking about the change from inanimate matter into entity?

Looking at how much of nature we've trashed so far, I'd say we'll get away with trashing it only as much as we allow ourselves to. It depends on whether we want to surround ourselves with nature or "civilization". As an attempt at an answer, though, I'd say we'll get away with quite a lot of nature trashing...we've done so much so far, and the efforts of the environmentalists haven't proved to be resoundingly effective...

Information is variable, and originates from many sources. (O.K., that's a cruddy answer)

I'm not going near the human mind one.

Justice is real. And sometimes real hard to find.

Music makes a soul.

What question should you ask? How about: Why?

And a question to add to the list...why are we here, and where would we be if we weren't here?

All alone, we are born. All alone we die. The time in the middle is classified as life. There is no real answer to what we are to do in that time.
Life is one of those things that we can’t ignore, we can’t walk away from it, and we can’t put it down for later reference. This is what we try to do in that time. We guess and contemplate over things that we know little about. Our time is spent thinking about how things were created and about this God person. Many, many hours are spent on guessing and debating over the answers. We may never in our lifetime find what we are looking for. I believe we will find out about many things in the future, about the past. Most people though, want all of the answers now. In plane and clear English. Well, as I have grown to believe, there is not just one answer to every thing. There are many things that could be the answer.
If we do find answers to every thing we want to know about, there would be nothing left to contemplate and this entire conversation would be pointless.

cheeze

that's depressing

Answers:
The tendancy of aperiodic crytals to self-replicate, about half, intelligence, 42, Ray Charles, lots of neurones, finding bigger ones, they aren't, yes, it is something to do, Tom Jones, a drunk, yes, not necessarily, anything you like, don't be so pretentious, everybody's got to be somewhere, yes, no, we'd get bored otherwise, pasta.

Next question?

Um.... what question was 42 the answer to again?

You all need to be aware that the Questions are always MUCH more important than the Answers.

it depends on the question..... the questions and answers to these are EQUALLY important. Questions are no more important than answers and vice-versa.

Why do I care all all about anythng?

Does some natural inner-desire for self replication drive my every movement?

Is my life preset?

If so, how can it be prest and still allow me to make my own decisions?

Do I just THINK i am making my own decisions?

Well, this is an interesting thread

To answer a few questions:

Aliens and Mars Attacks are both cool movies

I think your every move is determined by your will to self-replicate, except it has been screwed up a bit by being sentient.

Why ask if God cares about us, before anyone(surprisingly) has asked the question "Is there a God"

Justice isn´t a universal thing, it´s something we have created in the "pact of society", as Jean Jaques Rosseau called it. It is another thing of freedom we have given up to have comfort.

That´s what I believe the answers are anyway.

Other questions I think should be, is there a meaning of life?, a life after death?, Are we alone? Where did I leave my two CD´s with the Corrs? Is what we call reality the reality? (Matrix rocked!) And others that I´m too sleepy to come up with.

Would God be here if we weren't?

No

Have I said this before? Keith Richards is alleged to have said: "If life is the answer, then it must have been a bloody stupid question"

Intriging name. Who is Trillian's Child and why ?

Well, if you really want to know, I was desperate to register and think up a name which didn't give away my gender. It's at least fifteen years since's I'd read any DNA books and I rummaged around in my memory for a name which wouldn't blatantly give away the fact that I wasn't really au fait with the stories any more. If I could get off the screen for long enough, I'd get hold of the books again and have another read - this time of all of them.

Since then, however, I have given away my gender very often, but have really enjoyed my time here. I wonder if I'll still be doing it when I'm 80?

Are you new - I'm off to your personal space now to check up on you so watch out!

Yes I am new and have'nt a clue what I am doing, but do have a clue about what I say/ask.

A hearty welcome then.

Thanks. Bye for now - I have to go to my loft - as in attic incase you think my 'loft' is some vast arty place which it is not unfortunately - I have to go to the attic to sort some stuff.

Nice typing to you. Some other time perhaps.