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Small Rants, part 2

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Small Rants, part 2

Posted September 2, 2011 at 20:44 by wyldckat

First part of this blog post: Small Rants, that look more like something that came out of dreams...

________________________________________
Rant #3 - This one is about the novel "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". Unfortunately I've never read the whole novel, but my mind crunched some numbers based on what I read on Wikipedia. You can see the summary here at Wikipedia. For more on the plot, see Phrases from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

So, the trail of thought is as follows (underlined, italic and bolden are the keywords I want to point out):
  1. A race of "hyper-intelligent," "pan-dimensional" beings created a supercomputer called Deep Thought to calculate the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. This computer, after seven and a half million years of calculation, had announced that the Answer is in fact 42.
  2. The Ultimate Question itself, on the other hand, is unknown.
  3. Source:
    Quote:
    When asked to produce The Ultimate Question, the computer says that it cannot; however, it can help to design an even more powerful computer, the Earth, that can. The programmers then embark on a further ten-million-year program to discover The Ultimate Question.
    Namely, to build Earth.
  4. After the whole novel goes through... source for the next quote:
    Quote:
    At the end of the first radio series (...) Arthur Dent, having escaped the Earth's destruction, potentially has some of the computational matrix in his brain. He attempts to discover The Ultimate Question by extracting it from his brainwave patterns, as abusively suggested by Marvin the Paranoid Android, when a Scrabble-playing caveman spells out forty two. Arthur pulls random letters from a bag, but only gets the sentence "What do you get if you multiply six by nine"?
    Notes: the main character is "Arthur Dent"; Marvin is an android which has an emotional chip, giving him human feelings.. but after living more time than the universe itself, he is always depressed.
So, crunching the numbers:
  1. The hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings have to create a computer to do the math for them! Apparently they are either too dumb or too lazy to figure it out themselves...
  2. The supercomputer they built took his time to push out the simple and hilarious result of 42!
  3. "pan-dimensional" means:
    Quote:
    Of or pertaining to all dimensions of reality.
    I assume this also applies to time, so those hyper-intelligent simply waited for the answer, instead of jumping in time... were they simply lazy or just being cautious?
  4. Correlate with the fact that Marvin, the Paranoid Android, is always depressed, one can estimate that Deep Thought would want to do better things during those 7.5 million years of calculations... like, I don't know, play computer games!
  5. So, Deep Thought must have thought something along these lines:
    • Soooo, they just want the Answer to the question... but don't even ask what the question is in the first place... better yet, they can't even ask the question itself!
    • These sorry excuses for life forms don't even deserve that I give them a straight answer... they're hyper-intelligent, but can't figure this out for themselves? And they're pan-dimensional!!! But what, they're blinded by all of that reality?
    • Everybody knows that "to get the right answer you need to ask the right question(s)". So... they instead try to find a loophole and simply ask for the answer.
    • OK, I'll try to make it simple, to see if they can at least figure it out with the hint I give them. Hell, they're pan-dimensional, lets see if they can think in 1-D!
    • So, "The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything" can be summarized to "What is the meaning of Life?" Because, with no life, the question wouldn't even be asked!
    • Summarize even a bit more, the question would be "What is Life"? Mmm... I'm a computer... so this seems the most basic answer:
      Code:
      Life=42
      That seems simple enough!
    • "Life=42", one line, 1-D, a whole lot of meaning there:
      "Life is 42" -> "Life is Four Two" -> "Life is For Two"... now with apply a mirror effect (Reverse Polish notation anyone?) on the 1-D and...
      "Life is For Two For Life"!
    • Usually, it takes two to create life... even the basic concept for the Universe is Light and Darkness... and opposites attract!
    • Haiku that, y'a lazy bums!
    • Now, lets play some computer games!!!!
  6. (Seems a bit far fetched? Wait, there's more!)
    The creators of Deep Thought, stumped with the answer being 42, realize that this way they'll also need the actual question. Deep Thought can only have thought something along these lines:
    • Oh for crying out loud!!! They can't be even remotely intelligent... they're almost dumb as a rock!
    • Fine, lets see if they can figure this out with a bit more time... heck, I'll have some more fun with them...
    • OK ok... let me see... Life... life... rock... it would be nice to play Populous with a real live planet!
    • That's it, I'll tell them that the Question requires another supercomputer! Earth
  7. And there they went... off to build Earth. Anyway, twists and turns, Earth gets nicked in the bud and no answer came out of it. They didn't even deserve it. 10 million years and they couldn0t figure it out for themselves.
  8. But... that couldn't just be it. Some people from Earth survived! So the main character is left with the gruelling and somewhat dangerous task of figuring out what the real Question is... and randomly pulls the answer out of a bag, the question was "What do you get if you multiply six by nine"?
    Mmmm... 6x9... 69... wait... the bag is pretty much his mind, since it's the indirect way to access the matrix... and what (allegedly) do men think most of the time? Sex! 69 is a number usually related sex! Although 69 isn't a position that usually leads to procreation...
So, in conclusion:
  • Answer: Life=42
  • Question: What is Life?
  • Earth got destroyed, because the closest men can think about creating Life is Sex! So, Life never got to be 42, because men only think of 69. Therefore, the question and the answer cannot coexist in the same universe!
Moral of the story:
  • Humans want answers/solutions, but not always want to think much about them, because they can't handle the truth!
  • Either that or are too lazy to actually put solutions into practice... or because it doesn't suit their objectives in Life.
  • Without Life, nothing else matters! Life the common denominator in all of this!
  • And of course, Life can't exist without Love ... No... wait... Life can't exist without Sex!
Prologue:
  • The Universe is pretty much meaningless if there isn't any Life in it! What sound does a tree make when it falls in a forest, when there is no one to listen to it?
  • No wonder the "Big Bang Theory" is the most accepted theory among scientists... because without one big bang, there can't be any life anywhere!
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