42
The answer to the Question of Life, the Universe and Everything (LUE). In the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books by Douglas Adams (H2G2 and DNA accordingly). One of the many additions to our culture and language given by this brilliant man. But one that's not so well understood. So here it is. Some of it is verbatim from the books, and some of it is just my opinion of it. With the emphasis on opinion. You'll understand at the end.
42 is the answer given by the second greatest computer ever created, to LUE. The only problem is, it's a meaningless answer without knowing the ACTUAL, concise question. So the computer, Deep Thought, created a greater computer, which was run by lab rats, and is more commonly named, "Earth". The program unfortunatly was ended early when a Vorgon Constructor fleet came a long and demolished Earth to create a new hypersteller by-pass. (Don't you just HATE when that happens?)
In the course of the travels, we find that the actual question, the one that the vast computer called Earth is coming up with, is this. "What do you get when you multiply six by nine". This question, while being absolutly foolproof, and completly rigid, also has the distiction of being 100% wrong at every level. This is a very cynical message of course, being that the Earth is completly more fucked up than anybody ever could possibly think.
What a lot of people miss, and is not widly known as well, is that there's a SECOND question to the answer of LUE. Marvin recites it to a bunch of depressed matresses. So what is the second question?
"Pick a number. Any number"
This is the real question. What does life mean? Pick a number. Any number. Life is whatever you define it to be..the answer to the meaning of life is the answer to what your personal question is. If I could beam any one thing into the heads of everybody on this planet. That would be the one thing.
The funny thing is..my wife mentioned..considering how cool of a message this is, why isn't it pushed to the nines. Because that would break the whole concept of it. You can get out of the books what you WANT to get out of them. That's the key. It's up to you to define the experience you have out of the books.
It's up to you to define the experience you have out of life.
The answer to the Question of Life, the Universe and Everything (LUE). In the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books by Douglas Adams (H2G2 and DNA accordingly). One of the many additions to our culture and language given by this brilliant man. But one that's not so well understood. So here it is. Some of it is verbatim from the books, and some of it is just my opinion of it. With the emphasis on opinion. You'll understand at the end.
42 is the answer given by the second greatest computer ever created, to LUE. The only problem is, it's a meaningless answer without knowing the ACTUAL, concise question. So the computer, Deep Thought, created a greater computer, which was run by lab rats, and is more commonly named, "Earth". The program unfortunatly was ended early when a Vorgon Constructor fleet came a long and demolished Earth to create a new hypersteller by-pass. (Don't you just HATE when that happens?)
In the course of the travels, we find that the actual question, the one that the vast computer called Earth is coming up with, is this. "What do you get when you multiply six by nine". This question, while being absolutly foolproof, and completly rigid, also has the distiction of being 100% wrong at every level. This is a very cynical message of course, being that the Earth is completly more fucked up than anybody ever could possibly think.
What a lot of people miss, and is not widly known as well, is that there's a SECOND question to the answer of LUE. Marvin recites it to a bunch of depressed matresses. So what is the second question?
"Pick a number. Any number"
This is the real question. What does life mean? Pick a number. Any number. Life is whatever you define it to be..the answer to the meaning of life is the answer to what your personal question is. If I could beam any one thing into the heads of everybody on this planet. That would be the one thing.
The funny thing is..my wife mentioned..considering how cool of a message this is, why isn't it pushed to the nines. Because that would break the whole concept of it. You can get out of the books what you WANT to get out of them. That's the key. It's up to you to define the experience you have out of the books.
It's up to you to define the experience you have out of life.
posted by Karmakin at 12:25 AM
2 Comments:
Actually, it's not wrong at every level as the answer to six times nine. I don't know how much you know about arithmetic using bases other than ten (the best known example would be binary, using base two), but it is fairly trivial to figure out what base system would make it true that six times nine is 42. That base system is 13 (in decimal notation), which seems terribly appropriate.
Oddly enough, despite the fact that I figured this out on my own, many years ago, it came to the attention of others as well (I sincerely doubt I was the first). At some point, it was brought to Mr. Adams' attention, and he denied having deliberately set it up that way at all. Nonetheless, I find the idea quite appealing that the Answer and the Question seem to be based on what we consider the "unlucky number".
I read that once. I pretty much dismissed it, as I like the whole symbolism of "Pick a number", a whole lot more. However, it does make sense.
The strange bit is that I consider 13 to be my personal lucky number.
BTW. Congrants on the uber first post.
Post a Comment
<< Home