Just before death you are granted one truthful, understandable answer to one question. What would you want to know?
Just before death you are granted one truthful, understandable answer to one question. What would you want to know?
Obviously a hypothetical scenario. There is no way to pass on the knowledge to anyone else. Time freezes for you only, and once you have your answer you are out of this world.
The question can allow you to see into the past, present and future and gain comprehension of any topic/issue. But it's only one question.
Edit: the point isn't "how to cheat death". You can't. Your body is frozen and there is nothing you can do with this knowledge other than knowing it, and die. So if you would rather be frozen in a limbo just thinking of numbers for eternity, be my guest.
Such a variety of replies, it's been really interesting to read them!
What would you want to know? Personally I'd want to see a timelapse or milestone glimpses of humanity's future until the end of Earth's existence (if we survive that long)
When is going to be the year of the Linux desktop?
I am interested to see what 2024 has in store for the Linux desktop.
Immutable distros seem to be the new cool thing, and for once I buy it, they greatly increase stability and reproducibility. It's about time we see the rule 34 of Linux desktop configuration, if you can think of it there is already a GitHub repository with a configuration for it.
Also, gaming has greatly improved! If a few years ago you said to me I could buy a PS5 controller to play games on my Linux machine, I would lose my mind. Well, the order is arriving on Thursday!
Some governments are making honest efforts to go full open source, investing in the libre office and other tooling they deem necessary.
Last but not least, nowadays most apps are browser based, they are cross platform by default.
3303
20xx
What’s “the Linux desktop”? New distro?
What was life like for ever human that has ever existed? I'd like to see every single day start to finish from their perspective, sorted as randomly as possible.
The worst part of traditional immortality is being stuck as you, I'd like to experience the entire library and range of human experinces. It would eventually know how it started and how it all ended, while seeing every perspective that got us there. They'd be a lot of days toiling in a field, a lot of days in office cubicles toiling in excel, but most importantly I'd see the small victories and tragedies that make up every life. I think that'd be the real beauty.
I don't want to ruin your idea, I think it's kinda neat. But I think that you may be monkey pawing yourself.
A tremendous amount people have suffered so much, that I'd probably not want the experience in its current form. The horrors of the holocaust, unit 731, and a lot of wars springs to mind, from just the last century.
IDK how you could modify the question, but "no violent deaths" could be a starting point.
I don’t think there is a short clear way to avoid potential centuries of suffering. Living in pain could be worse than a violent death.
Imagine a life time as a comatose patient who is still conscious and can hear but not respond?
Years of nearly starving to death. Years of physical abuse? Slowly dying in a hospital from cancer / some other slow painful death.
Hiker trapped alone on a mountain.
In short no thanks.
I'd modify the question to specify that each life is presented as a unique and compelling motion picture, each between an hour and four hours in length, of the sort that would be likely to win either critical acclaim or box office success (or both) at some point in the late 20th to early 21st century - and that I get to watch them in an unending variety of well-staffed and enthusiastically-attended movie theaters, with interesting companions who I can discuss the movie with for as long as I want to afterwards, with endless credit to spend at the concessions, and with no bodily needs like discomfort or fatigue.
For folks who haven't read it before: Andy Weir's 'The Egg'
https://youtu.be/h6fcK_fRYaI?si=BaLe05ZiIdVmnQ1c
There's a Kurzgezagt animated version of it as well
hey me
Woah
Oh, well okay, into the egg cycle then.
why limit the playback to human life? how about the vagaries of past/future speciation?
seems like a special hell to me either way.
"...no"
I also think this is the only fair version of reincarnation. If we are all everyone. If everyone has to live every life.
I like this
It's the Kang the conqueror paradigm
I'd pick an irrational number, say pi, and ask for every decimal digit of it. Then, I have infinite time to walk around the world in explore mode (i.e. I can't die, and hence don't need to eat etc..., and am effectively an infinite energy source, and can interact with objects) while time is frozen. This effectively makes me a god, but only for one point in time, with the ability to create a discontinuity in the world state at that point. I'd travel around the whole world (even if it involved swimming oceans) and try to make it so that the infinite sum of each action I take while the world is frozen converges on a world that is in a much better state infinitesimally after the moment compared to infinitesimally before.
But if you actually had infinite time, then that would mean that the world for all intents and purposes has ended. It would never continue, ever. No matter what you do, it would have absolutely no impact at all.
Furthermore, I imagine if you actually had to wait infinitely long for the answer to finish, that would be like hell. There is only so much you can look at in a frozen world, assuming you would even be able to move at all. I can hardly imagine any happiness after some billions and trillions of years of no new stimuli in a frozen world.
That's how you trigger a blue screen.
No death for an infinity is a torture in itself.
And in a moment you'll learn, that at your scale, for the practical purposes, the universe rounds pi to n numbers. E.g. ~3.1416. Check & mate.
it would be like a detective game, figuring out intent between non-verbal, static people and deciding what is the right course of action
Well I guess my bad for not being more explicit with my question, but your body is frozen as well. Only your mind has the ability to absorb the knowledge of one answer, and then you are gone. I've seen many asking for infinite answers in hopes of stretching time in a limbo, which wasn't the spirit of my original post.
Was I ever a good impact on someone else's life?
Simple and sweet. Let's you go to the next thing either with your head held high or knowing for sure if you just lived and died.
I'd rephrase this to "was I ever a good impact on someone else's life that I was unaware of?"
Because most people are fairly confident they've had a good influence on "someone's" life. My partner has told me as much, and I've said it to them. Even if just their parents or something, there's typically obvious answers to this question.
I'd want to know the non-obvious answers.
I like this one. Even better. "Who are the people I have positively influenced and what were the key interactions we shared?"
It would be a flashback of loving moments of humanity.
I'd love to see a reel from someone like a social worker, teacher, nurse etc
How is the entity or power that has the ability to grant me such knowledge connected to the existence of the universe?
Magic
I want stats like the end of a game. How many red lights did I run, did anyone die by my actions, how many hours did I sleep, how many meals did I eat. Things like that.
You might like this short film then it's in line with that and it's honestly pretty similar to this post in general.
Haha love this
is p != np
I thought of asking that one, but then if the answer was no, my last thought would probably be that I was really worried about what happens when the living humans figure it out.
Probably a lot of encryption would fail. That would be bad.
I guess that depends on whether n != 1
What was the point?
To quote King Missile, "there are no points"
There is no point to life
There is no point to death
There is no point in continuing our meetings
There is no point in not continuing our meetingsThere is no point in going out
There is no point in staying in
No point in gaining weight
And no point in staying trimThere is no point in answering the phone or opening the mail
There is no point in getting drunk or doing drugs
And there is no point in staying soberThere is no point in needing someone
And no point in being alone
There is no point in doing nothing
And no point in not doing nothingThese are all good points, yet none of them lead anywhere
None of them are points at all
There are no points
There is no pointTo exist.
What an awful thing to do to someone
There can't be a point unless you make one.
Just "Why?" Leave this magical answers being confused and questioning humanity, like the rest of us.
Just 'because'
Because 42
In ASCII, 42 is an asterisk, which is a common computer placeholder for "whatever you want it to be". The computer in Hitchhikers wasn't just pooping out a random number, but in the most computer way possible it pretty much just said life is what you make of it.
So yea, 42.
I would like to know the detailed life history of every human that was ever born...
Start taking I'll wait :)
Sounds like a nightmare when you're dying and probably in pain... It extends that painful state for a virtually infinite time.
The prompt said that time freezes. No time = no pain.
Im not sure if there would be pain, but it's a possibility. When I thought of the question I figured everything but your mind would freeze, perhaps I should have been more explicit when I phrased it. I understand those asking to experience the lives of others - even strangers- but I can't understand those asking for an infinite answer such as a number in hopes of.... What? Staying in a limbo doing nothing but absorbing a number?
By what mechanism did the universe come to be, or if it simply always existed, why does it exist in this particular way with these particular laws?
I was going to say “are we in a simulation” but this would work too.
Because of it didn't it wouldn't, but it does so it is.
Because all possible universes with all possible combinations of particular laws exist.
Maybe even the impossible ones exist.
And they all came to be the same way the number 3 "came to" exist.
Why do hotdogs come in packs of ten while hotdog buns come in packs of six?
Good news! Due to shrinkflation, hot dogs now come in 8-packs. Even better, the downsized buns fit standard dogs - no need to buy bun-length skinny hot dogs!
So, I figured it out. Why hot dogs come in packages of ten and hot dog buns come in packages of eight. See, the thing is, life doesn't always work out according to plan. So be happy with what you've got, because you can always get a hot dog.
Assuming other implications (existence of an afterlife and God) with this scenario I would have but one question. Why? Why everything? Honestly I would be mad furious if there was an afterlife. More so if there was a God.
"In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
What if the afterlife was universally accessible like a participation prize and relative to each individual such that there wasn't a single idealized version of happiness?
Is that still fury invoking?
The afterlife is your consciousness continuing in a nearby parallel universe where, for whatever reason, you didn’t just die.
As you get older and older, and your death becomes more and more likely, the scenarios that must occur to prevent your death get more and more outlandish.
Eventually, the fulfillment mechanism evolves into some kind of radical transformation away from human life. Like, you can’t be 10,000 years old and your story be “I’m a human”. By then your story must be something like:
- I am strakthos the eternal
- I got uploaded into a computer in 2045
- They got really good at science and my body has practically eternal youth
This will happen. Your subjective life will never encounter death. Your consciousness will continue to hop to the nearest universe where you survived, and you won’t remember the hop. Your subjective experience will just be an ongoing set of circumstances that keep extending your life. Just pray you’re not one of those unlucky ones who are the only one in their universe to live forever.
Most of us, no doubt, will be encountering circumstances that apply to other people as well, and hence will have company in their millionth year and thereafter.
Personally I wasn't assuming either the existence of God or an afterlife when I posted but I left it open to interpretation on purpose. I would totally agree with you if such was the case, it's a valid question worth asking. I'm not sure if I'd be mad at an afterlife, that would depend on the answer to "why", and what the afterlife was all about.
If I die today, as in stop existing completely, I wouldn't have any questions. When I die I will no longer be, there will be no conscience, no memories, nothing. That is the death I desire.
If I exist after death, even for a moment, that means death is not the end. Who am asking questions? Why can I ask one last question? How can I get one question / request fulfilled this one last time? I can't really separate these things that easily.
Did she ever love me?
If you need to ask, then probably not. If she really did, you wouldn't have to ask, you'd know.
Nah. The thing about this is that people who are insincere don't know how to act sincere. People who are sincere also don't know how to act sincere.
Aargh fuck
I'd like to see the details of the events from Nefertiti up through the end of the 19th dynasty and the activities of the sea peoples with a special focus on the figure of Muksus, in an interactive format where I could sort of scrub the timeline to fast forward or rewind and instantly move around the Mediterranean to observe the different events in different places in parallel.
I wouldn't mind having the same for the 1st century CE too, but that would be a secondary priority.
What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
African or European?
I... I don't know that...
AAAAHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!
20-25mph, if you want the full Monty.
What is the diagnosis and cure for the disease that has ravaged me for the last 13 years?
Thanks.
With how the universe and its sense of humor works, it would probably end up being something simple like “you didn’t clean out your faucet aerator and the bacteria growing on the scum caught inside was poising you”.
In a related note, this is a reminder for everyone to clean out your faucet aerators if you haven’t done that this month.
Given that God is infinite, and that the universe is also infinite, would you like a toasted tea-cake?
Yes Mr lister sir
Smeeeegheeaaad!
I would want to know if I could have accomplished anything different that I did. Could I have been a super successful NFL quarterback? Could I have been a lawyer? Could I have been president of the United States? Could I have been a rockstar or a movie star? Could I have been a bodybuilder? Could I have been a New York times best-selling novelist? I would like to know all the possibilities of what I might have been. I would like to see them lived out, what it looked like, what steps were taken, what decisions were made. Given the limited raw intelligence I had, the genetic potential of my physical body, what was the most I could have done with it?
Wouldn't that be awful? Just sitting back and watching all your wasted potential when you're in a position to do nothing about it?
I don't feel that, I lived the life I had, it would be like a very long movie starring me doing cool stuff.
yeah, I think I would ask what I need to do to be the happiest possible instead.
You want to see your personal Everything Everywhere All at Once map! Love this
Personally I'd want to see a timelapse or milestone glimpses of humanity's future until the end of Earth's existence (if we survive that long)
I'd ask for the same thing, but not a glimpse, I'd ask for an immersive first person view, and not a timelapse, I'd want to see it in realtime.
And just like that, I'd be reborn.
You'd have no agency though. You'd be a passenger in someone else's mind, unable to communicate or intervene. I understand the appeal but personally, without agency I'd be bored quickly. I'd rather satisfy my curiosity in a shorter timeframe and be gone.
Jan 1st 2024 pic 1 of house
Jan 1st 2199 pic 2 of same house
Jan 1st 7019 pic 3 of same house on a piece of earth's crust shatterd by by the destruction of earth.
Hope you enjoyed your time-lapse!
Silly mortal, the earth ends in 2036 with the impact of Apophis. You can have the first one
I wouldn’t ask anything. I’m gonna die and that knowledge would be lost. Just play me out Ricardo
You get stuck in a waiting loop, due to not asking for the be all question and have achieved immortality!
Loophole achieved
How does one use the three shells?
This guy doesn't know how to use the three shells!
Scoop the poop
Is the answer really 42?
No. I'd tell you what and why, but you didn't ask.
Yes
What is the universe?
"So god, we cool?"
“Hey god, do you exist?”
“Nope!”
?!?!
"No, I don't exist." but that may not be understandable.
Did my childhood dog really go live on a farm in the country?
When I was younger, we lived on a little farm outside town. Some people from town couldn't take care of their golden any longer, so the dog came to live with us.
About a year later, they asked if they could bring their kid by to visit, because he found out that "went to live on a farm" was usually a lie.
I'm sorry, your dog is on another farm.
No :(
Good.
As the chemicals worked their insensate magic on her diaphragm, and her mind winked out leaving her head blank, she fell into a waiting blanket held by God. And the blanket surrounded her, and showed itself to her as a farm, pristine in its morning dew and limitless splendid smells.
Why
"it was just a prank, bro"
Why not
God's voice: "idk i was bored ig"
"What's next?"
What do I need to do from now, until the day I die, to be the happiest possible?
Well in this scenario you are already on your last breath so perhaps ask to know something that will make you as happy as you could ever be?
My bad I didnt see that. I like what you wrote, if you are in your last breath, might as well enjoy your last seconds and leave with a smile.
Starting right now, how can I preserve my personal conscious existence until I'm ready to no longer exist?
"You can't. You had literally all of eternity to ask your final question, you could've used some of that time to come to terms with your death, but instead you immediately used up your question(and your remaining time) trying to cheat death. Goodbye"
You cannot.
[fade to black]
Well, you could in theory build as accurate as possible a recreation of both yourself and the entire universe in simulated form that wouldn't be dependent on a body with an expiration date.
You wouldn't have much benefit from this, but the copy would benefit a lot.
Unless...you already are that copy.
(There's actually a group in antiquity that claimed this was the case - that souls which depend on bodies are screwed but that we all are actually copies of a first humanity which brought forth an intelligence in light which tried to save them, couldn't, and thus recreated them within its light in a copy of the universe. That it's actually the future, we just don't realize it, that the evidence for this can be found in the study of physics, and that those who understand its sayings about it being better to be a copy of what existed before will not fear death.)
What is the formula of everything that perfectly fits the description of our universe or multiverse?
If Miura didn't die, how would have Berserk ended?
Edit: NM, looks like I'll find out one day.
Has Morocco rejoined the Eurovision Song Contest?
What is the fundamental nature and purpose of the universe?
This one's easy, it's a succession of random events without purpose and it's random luck that made it so we developed enough intelligence to be here to talk about it today.
Not all things need a nature or purpose.
Not all things need a nature or purpose.
This is just an easy way to avoid the question...
While that very likely describes the origin, it doesn't necessarily describe successive layers of creation.
And assuming that we are in fact currently in the origin and not a successive layer of recreation of that origin seems like an increasingly difficult argument to make as each year passes by.
Just like the new layers we are starting to build right now have processes by which continuous functions convert to discrete units in order to track interactions by free agents, the smallest building blocks of our own existence convert from being modeled as continuous to discrete based on interactions with them - and perhaps even more oddly go back to continuous if the information about those interactions is erased from existence (as if memory optimized to require the least degree of quantization to model the interactions of free agents with the universe).
We have a trillion dollar company that has been granted a patent on resurrecting the dead using AI and leftover social media data investing billions into AI companies with early models built on social media data claiming they want to experience being human. Another trillion dollar company named after the concept of a virtual parallel world is attempting to improve AI by virtually embodying it as closely to subjective human experience as possible.
And these are developments growing over the course of only a few years. Do you think these kinds of efforts will end? Or will we continue to push these boundaries as far as we are capable of doing so?
And given that the quantization of matter into a specific sized building block is one of the key limiting factors in how far we are able to push these boundaries, how confident should we be that a world without the same building block size limits might not have pushed the boundary much farther than we might conventionally imagine ourselves doing so?
TL;DR: Just because things begin in chaos does not mean creation and existence will remain chaotic and without purpose.
Whatever you want it to be.
Darn it, wasted it for nothing 😒.
What caused the bronze age collapse and are we socially overdue for a similar one?
“Why?”
Because
What's really the meaning of life - like are we really just a cosmic roll of the dice going through an at most ambivalent universe?
The meaning is whatever you make it, and really no pressure; it doesn't have to be anything at all if you don't want.
That's what we make of it, yeah... but I want an answer from the universe itself
To get to the end, also, don't be an asshole.
Where were you, when everything was falling apart? And all my days were spent by the telephone--
How does priority work in MtG?
In actuality though I'd probably kick up a reincarnation loop by asking for the full experience of every living and inanimate thing the universe has to hold, starting with everyone/everything I ever interacted with and branching exponentially from there.
Priority in MtG works based on who is able to find a Google result supporting their argument first.
Nice
Is there an afterlife in this scenario? Do I ask my question and go to heaven? Or is this just asking a question, getting the answer, and your consciousness blinking out of existence at the moment of death?
Because if it's the latter, frankly, I don't think I'd care that much about anything because nothing will matter in a moment. What good is knowledge without a mind to keep it? The concerns of the material world are ultimately irrelevant to void that I will soon be a part of.
I'd probably ask something stupid like "I lost my copy of Pokemon Blue when I was a kid, where did that end up?" and then disappear into that sweet, sweet nothingness.
If there's a heaven...I'll just ask people what they asked when I get there.
LoL people would end up a jibbering mess if they came up face to face with a cosmic deity that could answer any questions that they would absolutely end up accidentally asking something like, "Oh no! Did I leave my car running?" "Did I remember to feed Mr. Mittens?" Or just "Oh, am I dead then?"
I left it open to interpretation on purpose. I didn't want to shy anyone because of their beliefs. The point of the scenario is experiencing one bit of potentially unattainable knowledge, just for the sake of knowledge itself and not to make any profit or practical use of it. I was curious to know what would others want to know. For me there is no god or afterlife, yet if given the chance I would still ask about something non trivial, even knowing fully well that I'd blink out of existence after I get the answer.
Is the Standard Model correct or is there a single fundamental particle/string/anything that we haven't discovered yet?
There are a million fundamental things everywhere that no one will ever know.
What is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything?
What religion is correct, and what do I have to do with the short time I have left to ensure that I get into the best version of the afterlife possible?
What are the 23 flavours in Dr. Pepper?
- Cola
- Cherry
- Licorice
- Amaretto (almond-like flavor)
- Vanilla
- Blackberry
- Apricot
- Caramel
- Pepper
- Anise (licorice-like flavor)
- Sarsaparilla
- Ginger
- Molasses
- Lemon
- Plum
- Orange
- Nutmeg
- Cardamon
- All Spice
- Coriander
- Juniper
- Birch
- Prune
It's been a pleasure knowing you DumbKid.
Lol. Is this for real? I had no idea.
Interesting that anise is described as similar to licorice. The plants are indeed very similar and related, but the flavour is very different. I love anise but can't stand licorice. I wonder if it's a thing like parsley vs cilantro, which some people find disgusting but others can hardly tell the herbs apart.
Nah, I'm good
How much lost money have I walked past in my life and not noticed.. can also include gold.
Did i make a positive impact?
I want to know what the best version of myself would have been like. What did I miss out on.
Will humanity ever stop repeating tired old jokes from monty python and Douglas Adams?
If yes I can die happy that things get better, if no I can welcome oblivion with joy
What was the single thing I did that had the last direct impact on myself, that had the greatest lasting impact on anyone else?
Things like spending the extra time one day making a cup of coffee made it so this specific person was stuck behind my slow-ass speed limit driving, averting what would've been a multi-car pileup or some shit like that.
Why cut yourself short with single? I'd surely want to know if there were more things like that in my life
I mean, ideally I'd want a ranking of every decision I ever made in my whole life on that scale, so I could thumb through it.
My favorite concept for an afterlife is being handed a magic book that contains the answers to every question like this where it'd be impossible to track the data, and it would be able to display it in any way you want.
What is the mechanism for qualia?
Ahh scratching that itch before going must be good
It's the only question with an answer that would settle literally all of ethics.
How might entropy be meaningfully reversed?
What happened to the other species of humans? Would they like metal? The first question can be ignored if both are not allowed
You could ask to see and know everything that happened to the other species of humans in a parallel universe identical to this only with birds that sing metal ( if that's the metal you talk about)
You might be onto something
I feel like it would probably be something about Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem. That thing is really annoying.
Although I feel I might get stuck in a recursive answer if I ask the wrong thing. So maybe I would ask something about a loved one, that I already know the answer to.
Probably go something like this:
Do it squirt?
It do
Will our efforts in philosophy ever lead to a non-circular answer to the worth of life? I.e. will mankind ever create or find its purpose?
Well, we can prove that a system of axioms can never be both consistent and complete. So for the former, I'd wager not. Would be better to directly ask for it instead, so you get it by fiat at least.
For the latter? I'd wager I'd rather not think about it. What if we found our purpose circa 1300 BCE and have actually had it ever since? I don't think I'd want to risk knowing that :D
What is the fastest most efficient way to populate other planets in the universe, and ensure that we can communicate and visit each other?
After i ask this question how can i obtain your powers?
You can't, after you ask this question you're dead.
Is that what my answer will be? Didnt know u could answer any question?
After I'm gone, how would everyone I've loved remember me?
When I die my first question to the Devil will be: What is the meaning of the fine structure constant?
— Wolfgang Pauli
I would probably ask the question to whoever give this option to me. Probably something like "Tell me about yourself in the most detailed way".
Over or under?
Over. Bye!
Over and out.
Over
Compared to many different lives I could had chosen to end up with, from a scale of 1 to 10 how happy were I, could have been, and how happy were the people that surrounded me.
I would rather have one wish granted and live just long enough to see it happen.
How many of these can I try to answer before my shift ends?
I don't know but how dare you beat me to the African or European swallow question >:(
😜
Overnights at work give me a lot of time to kill
How'd I do?
How can I achieve immortality right now?
You can't ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Hey, gotta shoot my shot.
dont ask - times frozen until you get you answer
I'd count that as a win.
You cannot
