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

It's all in my books, you'll have to read them. If you want, when I have time I can walk you through it. Let me know.

we are born, then we die.

we are just here, get with it.

if we have a purpose it will come in due course.

The fact that we still use the name Aristotal when using philosophies that were created 2500 years ago has ensured his immortality. This lend support to my theory that by affecting the people around us we will achieve immortality

hmmmm... 42, eh?
why did these hyper-intelligent pan-dimentional beings, "forget" the whole question even after they figured the answer- 42. maybe 42 is the answer to life, the universe and everything! maybe i'm gonna have exactly 42 bites of food tommorrow and 42 gulps of water- (although i dont know why that would answer the question) but maybe then, there is no question...

No, 42 is the Awnswer but I am told by the insane guy who used to talk about the truth as the serum incident. "The question and awnswer would cancel each other out"

He died as I kept asking him stupid things like: Do you have a Pencil?

ok i am back to put in my monthly 2 cents as pertains to the interveneing articles:
first of all we begin with post number 2495 posted by changeling about jesus being the meaning of life. now i'm sorry, but i must follow my atheistic views and say that i can not believe that the entire meaning of human existence is based on the actions of a single person even as extraordinary as he may be.
second is post number 2499 by enough, now this i can believe. one i dea of the meaning of life must of course be that there is no all inclusive "meaning of life" but instead each and every one of us must make our own meaning. a meaning that can help us continue to live. it can be as simple as survival or hope or as strong as love or hate, it matters not whether this meaning is perceived as good. the poor man that turns thief has taken on the meaning of survival and once he does so will go to any means to protect it, whether it is just shoplifting or killing a person.
third is post number 2502 by nonsumpisces. i'm sorry but once again i find this to a load of crap "we are just here, get with it." i'm sorry but no. enough said
finally i address post number 2504 by qrome. obviously u misread part of the books the hyper-intelligent pan-dimentional beings never "forgot" the question they never knew it the only reason they knew the answer was because deep thought told them they never found the question.
any ways that is all i have and i am now empty and maybe for now this is my "meaning" but in a couple seconds my "meaning" will be that which is known as "sleep". gnight

and happy philosiphiseing

Good sport that man, keeping the thread alive .

The meaning of life is keeping H2G2 thread alive.

yes the meaning of life is to keep a thread alive about what the meaning of life is, i like that.

so happy philosiphiseing

it means you know ether before 42 or after 42 but if you get "it" at 42 you die a most wonderfl death,at lest thats what every one that knows 42 befor or after 42 is lead to belive, the truth of the matter is # are illousions and "yours is the univers and everything in it" a book title wrote in 1942,by robert collers, its very simple and they sould teach these things at school, when are you going to be 42?

the better part of me must admit a great light, and the true meaning of life as i know it, is expanding love that is truth

What is 42?

by "what is 42?" do u mean why are we blabering on about this specific number or do u mean what is the meaning of 42 in it's status of being the answer to the question of life the universe and everything?

42 is not the answer, it's the question. The answer is 1=1.

Oh boy I missed this thread, and h2g2. Hi everyone!

Making the meaning of life out to be an equality statement is a very amorphous argument. You might as well make your agrument read "the answer is the answer" which in its own way is true enough.

Could it be that life cycles, and thus the meaning of life is to cycle? This thread for instance, how many times has it moved from 42 and back into more meaningfull topics?

The argument for being circular, ironically enough is circular. If you were searching for a meaning to life, and you found out that it was to cycle. The next step would be to return where you started, a state of not knowing what the meaning of life really is.

And in the words of the ever immortal Austin Powers "oh dear, I think I have gone crosseyed"

This sound similar to the missing matter point from "Mostly Harmless" Where physists find that miising matter is in fact packing material, only for this knowlege to be forgotten and figured out again by a later generation of physists.

However the live forever or die trying motto sounds the best to me. If a person does infact live forever then they will eventually return to child-like innocence before returning to wisdom. "To be old and wise you first must be young and stupid."

After reading through all of these posts (phew!) it would seem that most of us agree on the basic things: life, love, freedom, experience, living kindly and making your mark.



...it's only a pity that I feel that there's clearly no objective meaning to life (except the biological one, and that's hardly reassuring, is it?)

There can be no objective meaning of life as only a lifeform can postulate the meaning of it. Ignoring Deep Thought and other such creations

Firstly, it could be argued that something like Deep Thought would be a lifeform, of a sort. Secondly, just because it is only accessible by life forms, doesn't mean it's not objective: that would require everything to be subjective, which would make set-ground distinguishments of this sort impossible; and also, many things - mathematics, laws of physics, definitions - are objectively true and discovered by life forms.

Well, biologically, it could be argued that we are here to pass on our genes to the next generation. So, to ensure this is done in an effective manner, we should get some practice in before-hand, so that we're really good at it when the time comes to actually raising them!

get my drift?