42. The answer to life the universe and everything

aggroed (78) in meme • 8 years ago (edited)

The true meaning of 42...

8 years ago by aggroed (78)

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lukestokes (75) · 8 years ago

Heheh. I love this and shared it on Facebook a couple days ago... unfortunately, it's probably apocryphal.

"The answer to this is very simple. It was a joke. It had to be a number, an ordinary, smallish number, and I chose that one. Binary representations, base thirteen, Tibetan monks are all complete nonsense. I sat at my desk, stared into the garden and thought '42 will do' I typed it out. End of story."
-- Douglas Adams

via Wikipedia

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builderofcastles (64) · 8 years ago

And we don't know how powerful our subconsciousnesses are.
That there is a good example.

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lukestokes (75) · 8 years ago

Or your comment is a good example of confirmation bias. We like an answer, so we go with it and justify it, even if there is direct evidence against it (i.e. a quote from the author).

Yes, it's possible his subconscious came up with 42 because he had recently been thinking about ASCII tables and then forgot how much he liked the * symbol's meaning... but it's also possible that didn't happen.

To say something IS should require evidence beyond our own assumptions if we want to have an accurate grasp of reality (IMO).