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

The answer is 42. I truly believe this. Using other posts, I will prove this. In one post, it was stated that Deep Thought could not have possibly get the answer because the answer cannot exist without the question. In another, it was stated that if you knew the answer to the ultimate question of life, all life would cease to exist. And lastly, in another post, it was mentioned that in terms of alchemy, 4 represents fire and 2 represents water.
A way to put this together is like so:
Water and fire “cancel” each other out
If you know the answer to the question, the universe is replaced (therefore it has a different answer)
Deep Thought was set out to find the answer, although it is impossible
If you smart people (yes) put this information together like I did, you hopefully will see that the answer to the Universal Question is that it is impossible to know what the Universal Answer is.
If this is not what DNA meant by 42, or how God would explain it, may all of us intellectuals use this to represent the idea that the answer is that you cannot find the answer.

Therefore, 42 is the answer, but not how DNA or GOD intended.

But what would happen if someone knew the question and then read HHGTG???

If you think you know and can reduce it to less words than that, perhaps you should be trying this: A3895770

I will in bit. Hang on.

Maybe you do. So why didn't you say what it was? Never mind though I will tell you. It's simple really. If you were a writer or an office girl you could look it up your printer manual, probably near the back :o) A computer would not need to look it up.

But of course first we need to know the question. But as this is Earth we can manage with, it was something like "Computer what is the SIMPLEST answer to life the univese and everything". With me so far?

So the computer (and the writer etc) figures out that life is it's own reward so the answer is "Just Be". But computers are very literal and that is not the SIMPLEST answer. For example the "Just" is not need so "Be" would do. Do we really need that "e"? Nah! so "B" But even that's to complex for a computer. Computers use numbers not letters. Hexadecimal numbers in fact. So if the writer looked in his printer manual for the number that a computer uses when it wants to tell the printer to print "B" (capital of course) He would find an ASCII table which would tell him that ASCII Hex for B is?

You guessed it didn't you?

Remember the girl who figured it out and was just about to ring up and tell everyone when the Vogons came along and totalled the planet?

She was probably reading her printer manual.

Yes the ASCII Hex for capital B is 42 now that's not forty two which would be decimal and wrong. But Douglas Adams wrote the number 42 or four two Hex. Not forty two in words.

So now you know.

Stuart de Baker Hawke

No I don't.

But it says so just above your post. Surely you believe me.

Stew

Try reading your last post drunk with crossed eyes and thats about 10 times more than I understood being an unintelligent teenager.

Wrong..

On November 2, 1993 Douglas Adams gave an answer on alt.fan.douglas-adams:

The answer to this is very simple. It was a joke. It had to be a number, an ordinary, smallish number, and I chose that one. Binary representations, base thirteen, Tibetan monks are all complete nonsense. I sat at my desk, stared into the garden and thought '42 will do' I typed it out. End of story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Answer_to_Life,_the_Universe,_and_Everything

On the HHGTG cds, the 7th and 8th cds are all about the making of it and he says he chose it because it was an ordinary, even number which no-one would have thought of.

Obviously DA liked his beer. Maby 42OZ was the amount it took to get buzzed.

Fluid Oz I presume.

the answer to life is not a number but a word but not one word but two words one with 4 letters and one with 2 its the only answer that you might think that this answer is wrong but i can prove it the word that it is is to LIVE ON this it the one goal of all life no matter how big or small dna is a is a complex chain of LIVE ON IF THIS AMSWER IS WRONG THEN WE WOULD SIMPLY NOT BE LIKE THE BEE TAKES POLLEN FROMM FLOWER TO FLOWER THE COMETS OR METERIOTE TAKES LIFE FROM PLANET TO PLANET WE DONT NEED TO TRAVEL FROM ONE PLANET TO ANOTHER LIFE HAS DONE IT MILLIONS OF TIMES ALL READY WHAT IS A VIRUS ITS A LIVE ON LIKE A PLANT EVERY THING IS MADE OF LIVE ON,S AND WE AND ALL LIFE IS CHANGING FOR THE ONE GOAL BECOUSE IF LIFE DIDNT CHANGE THEN WE COULD NOT LIVE ON

WHAT A COMPUTER CANNOT DO IS LIVE ON AND SOMTHING THAT CANT LIVE ON WILL DIE IN A SCAP HEAP OF RUBISH LIKE THE ANSWER IT GAVE 42 THE ANSWER IS TO SURVIVE EVERY THING IS MADE OF ONE THING SMALLER THAN STRINGS BUT WE JUST AINT FOUND IT YET AND WHEN WE DO IT WILL HAVE CHANGED BECOUSE WITHOUT CHANGE DESTRUCTION OF ALL

What if we discover AI then? A computer could live on then as it could make new robots/ computers out of raw materials or even out of dead robots (assuming robots don't live forever). I feel the concept of AI is perfectly plausible, only scientists are searching for it in the wrong way. If you built a machine which worked the same way as the human mind and let it learn in the same way AI could logically occur.

For a computer or even a human for that matter with an unending lifespan the meaning of life would be different.
For a being who is immortal where is the preassure to engender new life for that being is and shall always be.
With us and our short lifespans the meaning of life can only be to have children and see our bloodlines continue.
It would be useless to ask an intelligent computer or an immortal being the question, even if you knew what to ask.

I have found the meaning of life....

The property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism. b. The characteristic state or condition of a living organism.

Living organisms considered as a group: plant life; marine life.




Ask a stupid question.

But you cannot deny that is one of the meanings of life.

Strong love...

You all want to know what the ultimate question about life, the universe and everything is, knowing only that the correct answer is the number 42.

In our house, anyway, the question is "Why is there always an odd sock?"

I don't know. But that always end up being a question in our house too.

A583300 is a beautiful Entry about socks. One of my favourites. And yes, I have a favourite sock Entry.