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)
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 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
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 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.
Honestly, those are all selling points. I’d love to understand how a coma patient thinks a few months in, a few years in and a few decades in. What it’s like to die in war in the year, 700, 1700 & 2700. To die as a newborn and then eventually see how those very parents are affected. So long as it is randomized and I’m statistically likely to see something radically different tommorow, I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of the human experince.
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’
why limit the playback to human life? how about the vagaries of past/future speciation?
seems like a special hell to me either way.
Bro this is already what’s up. We’re all the same stardust!
I like this
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
“Can I see the moments when I made other people feel good/better?” or to know what people i helped and how
Leaving on a positive note, I like that
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
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.
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.
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.
it would be like a detective game, figuring out intent between non-verbal, static people and deciding what is the right course of action
Given that God is infinite, and that the universe is also infinite, would you like a toasted tea-cake?
What is the universe?
“What’s next?”
“So god, we cool?”
“Hey god, do you exist?”
“Nope!”
?!?!
“No, I don’t exist.” but that may not be understandable.
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 pointWelcome to existence, where everything is made up and the points don’t matter.
Nihilism is based, and if you ever feel down because there’s no point, just watch Gurren Lagann and embrace the potential for a better tomorrow through nihilism
There can’t be a point unless you make one.
Maybe, you get to choose the point. What were the moments that made it all worth it?
What worthwhile moment never faded into oblivion?
You need thinggs to be eternal to matter to you? Tall order.
Petting my cat
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.
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.”
I agree with the god part, but why the afterlife?
I don’t want it. I have invested all of myself to the existence that I am. Why would I need to bother with it if there is afterlife.
Life is only as meaningful as it is fleeting. As soon afterlife comes into the equation it nulifies all of that. Then you must invent God as an arbiter that gives meaning to your life.
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.
Well- it’s a fantasy scenario. And the question happens right before death, not after. Your reasoning makes sense taking the situation literally, but in essence the post is about gaining knowledge just for the sake of knowledge, without any practical use or impact in your life.
