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My favorite is still "How many times has the Universe been restarted," though I think, "Pick a number, any number," is also good. Both work as potential fan theories of what the ultimate question actually is without just being one of the options that's explicitly brought up as a potential question.

@ShadowyZephyr Including spaces of course.

Underrated answer

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@evergreenemily The probability is either 0 or 1, but maybe it's 42% in bistromaths.

@JimHays Is there an explanation for why this should be the Ultimate Question, and why 42 is the answer?

@JosephNoonan Mugs aren’t only for coffee. They’re for tea, too.

@xyz Another one that actually makes sense to have 42 as the answer, but I like "How many times has the Universe been restarted?" better because it fits specifically with the joke from the Hitchhiker's Guide series about the Universe restarting when someone discovers its true purpose.

@levifinkelstein Oh, I didn't notice this answer. This definitely fits the "sounds profound" criterion (although I believe it is much less profound than people make it out to be), but it doesn't really fit any of the others.

I just thought of one potential argument for this option: Maybe 6 times 9 really is equal to 42 if you use bistromathics.

@JosephNoonan
"It has been noted that in base 13, 6 multiplied by 9 will equal 42, Douglas Adams later joked, "I don't make jokes in base 13.""
https://h2g2.com/entry/A4288584

@Birger All life that replicates and mutates moves to fit environment better over time. That is in fact what it means for something to be better or more valuable. And better/valuable is the foundation to meaning

@Birger Sounds like you're trying to give an answer to the ultimate question, rather than the ultimate question itself. Besides, that's only an explanation of why life exists in its current form, and says nothing about the "Universe and everything" part. And unless you are using the words "better" and "valuable" in a completely different way from how most people use them, better fitting the environment is definitely not what it means to be better or more valuable.

@JosephNoonan I do use 'better' differently, but most people use 'better' in the same way that they use 'gravity' in a non-physics way. And I think the reason you believe my answer doesn't address the question is that you may not have thought deeply about what a question actually is. Evolution is not merely about current life forms; it is a universal principle that explains how anything can model reality. And yes, I am using very broad definitions here. If you have questions and you want, we can talk about what i mean :D

@Birger are you sort of talking about the question and the answer being different formulations/compressions of the same thing? As in the question and answer form a combined object QA and it's asymmetric complexity to compute Q and A individually to separate them out

@Birger nicely put - "it is a universal principle that explains how anything can model reality"

@Birger When I said evolution only explains why life exists in its current form, I just meant that it explains why life is the way it is (adapted to its environment). I guess maybe "current" was the wrong word to use there, since it also explains why life has existed in its past forms. But the point still stands that evolution is really only about the "life" part and not "the universe and everything". As far as we know, the Universe has no environment to adapt to, and "everything" certainly doesn't have an environment to adapt to. And it still isn't a question, let alone one to which 42 could be the answer.

The meaning behind "What is the funniest two digit number?" is that this is basically the question Douglas Adams asked himself after he decided the Answer should be a two digit number but before he picked 42.

Maybe I should resolve this market five minutes early so the vogons don't destroy the Earth first.

@JosephNoonan Or on a random Thursday

@firstuserhere 42 in ascii is *

It is the wildcard symbol we use in many programming languages to mean "EVERYTHING"

@firstuserhere But "*" isn't a question. If the question is meant to be "What is the ASCII code for a symbol often used to represent 'everything'?", then I suppose the correct answer is 42, but I don't think the Ultimate Question would depend on two somewhat arbitrary conventions used by hairless apes. Plus, it's only connected to "everything", not life and the Universe. At best, I would say that this tenuous connection is just a symptom of human programmers unwittingly playing a role in the Earth's calculation of the true Ultimate Question.

@JosephNoonan does the question have to be different from the answer?

@firstuserhere btw i think that Deep thought knowing that it CAN get the answer, instead of shrugging and going idk lemme compute first, was about P/NP?

@firstuserhere also lol

@EzraSchott That can't be it. The answer to this is clearly 69.