42

does anybody know the question to the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything?

Originally posted by templersstorms1312
does anybody know the question to the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything?

I always thought the answer was 14, but I could be mistaken..

42 is the answer but I'm looking for the question.

And this kind of Douglas Adams humor probably doesn't belong in this forum (nevermind, got moved), but I'll give my best shot at a possible explanation.

From a combination of human psychology, theory of the mind and geo-spatial math as an expression of reality...

Scratch that. Too long and hard to explain.

Draw a circle. Draw a triangle in it. Then draw a square around it.

Find all possible relationships between triangle and square, as seperated by circle.

Then substitute trangle, circle and square for any other related variables you seek clarity on from the viewpoint of various subsets of a reality making sure you (or your understanding of said superset) are never larger than triangle...

...or 42% of the surface area of it's greater existence.

It's like the maximum any part of a whole defined by it's parts may ever be, understand or point to in my theory and humble opinion.

[edit on 30-1-2005 by RANT]

Theres a geek joke that was taught to me a long time ago. That Deep Thought had an order of operations error. C defines macros 6 and 9 as being 1+5, and 1+8, 6*9 would actually equal 54, but it would have calculated is as (1+5)*(8 + 1). It would have multiplied the 8*5, then added 2, hence getting 42. When the REAL answer to Life, the Universe and Everything is 54.

Im a genius!!!

Without the lengthy mathematical proofs and geometric demonstrations...

Trust me on this, I spent the first couple years of my "retirement" thinking on just this subject and had several hundred pages written before I lost my hard drive.

The number 42, both in it's current pop culture infamy as well as it's pre-Adams roots in the western psyche divining off majikal series like (3, 7, 11) and oral traditions (think what comes after 40 years lost in the desert), is the linear thinking, western equivalent to a more Eastern, almost Zen understanding of the limitations of existence.

It's our (almost subconcious) understanding of the falsehoods in rigourous, dichotomous, black and white thinking.

Eastern understanding portrays the assumed dichotomies of existense in the Yin & Yang.


Prima facia, half Yin and Half Yang. But not so. Even within the polar opposites of Yin and Yang (or male and female if you prefer) there are elements of the other. Look at the "eyes" or holes of each. It's the opposite, or in a manner a "third" thing altogether given the relationship.

So the whole in this case is not 50% Yin (for example) as there's always something lacking. Maybe 1, 2...or 8% perhaps.

The exact percent doesn't matter in eastern philosophy, but it so does to perfectabilist us. Whether technically correct or not, what we ascribe to this "maximum" half of defining qualities is a sense of the understood "42" or what I like to consider the common man's infinity.

Finite infinity, if you will, of a discerable and graspable nature.

Example: Gender is a concept that requires a basic familiarity with it's subsets, male and female. But also more. Interaction, deviation, etc. It all relates. So while it may be accurately said that one knows both components making up 100% of gender by knowing the two halfs, knowing each alone does not begin to approach 50% of the knowledge required to comprehend gender.

In shorthand, the most one can achieve from any single perspective is 42%. Again, it's just shorthand. More than the big numbers in the bible meaning "alot" like raining 40 days and 40 nights, but less than the precise mathematical truism of 50.

42 is then merely describing the process of approaching knowledge, but it also quite accurately and completely describes the human existence of flawed godhood.

Would love feedback if anyone even remotely gets where I'm going with this. I may dust off my notes and try penning that pop culture philosophy book one more time.

42 was just one number I delved into. 3 is the biggest.

RANT you are smart... I just finished reading Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy and was wonderign what the question was... and somehow I understood what RANT was saying. Probably my non standard way of think LoL

Originally posted by cpr12r
RANT you are smart...

I wouldn't go that far. Maybe a little obsessive compulsive, like Rain Man without the math skills, but I have spent alot of time working on this subject.

42 was my favorite number as a kid, years before the HHGTTG series, so I just always wondered about our fascination with it. Not give it a life of it's own or prove it really is "the answer" or something. Just trying to understand our minds a bit better.

I think we actually think in a replicating series of threes, and this is but one extension and manifestation of that human condition. Knowledge (understood as both a building and reductive process of sets, subsets, supersets and relationships) happens in the expanse between 3 and 42 defining points. Beyond that (in either direction) the "returns" are substantially diminished.

I should probably learn more about binary computer programming to draw some better analogies, but we think in trinary IMHO.

[edit on 30-1-2005 by RANT]

what you all fail to realize is that your not going to find the answer to the meaning of life and all this other stuff while your still on earth. the answers will be revield to you when you die and pass on from this world. you are all wasting your time.

Originally posted by KrazyIvan
what you all fail to realize is that your not going to find the answer to the meaning of life and all this other stuff while your still on earth. the answers will be revield to you when you die and pass on from this world. you are all wasting your time.

I think the theory I asserted that the "answer" of 42 represents an inherent imperfection of man to be incapable of fully knowing anything is in harmony with your premise if not your conclusion.

I think the "waste of time" striving for the definitionally unattainable, however, is the point of life as we understand it.

We're all just killing time before the funeral Ivan.

[edit on 30-1-2005 by RANT]

Episose 42 of the X-Files (known for it's frequent placements of the number 42) is called Fearful Symmetry and features an invisible elephant. Original airing date 2/24/95.

There's no good reason for the title as relates to the story of disappearing zoo animals. It's just another clever homage.



Chris Carter is a fan.

[edit on 30-1-2005 by RANT]