• Nemo Wuming@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Someone actually was once offered the opportunity to ask such a question. Here is the question that was asked:

    • What is the content of the pair in which the first half is the best question I can ask, and the second half is the answer to that question?

    Here is the answer received:

    • The best question you can ask is the question you just asked, and the answer to that question is the one you are receiving now.
    • AeroLemming@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      If you want to game the system, the best way to do it would be to ask something that has a ridiculously long answer so you can get the most information possible out of it. For example you could ask, “what are the full contents of the largest, most useful collection of knowledge humanity will ever have, condensed down small enough for us to process?” That’d probably get you a futuristic multi-petabyte hard drive that can still plug into your computer and has a version of Wikipedia from like 10,000 years in the future.

        • stoicmaverick@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Yeah. A lower limit was never set in the wording of the question, so the answer would likely be “Perpetuate your species as long as possible”

          • AeroLemming@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            How is perpetuating the species useful? It serves no real purpose and doesn’t really help people much. True utility comes from the mitigation of suffering.

    • catsup@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      Considering the asker didn’t get any benefit out of the answer to that question, this is definetly not “the best question” he could ask. So your proposed answer to this question is wrong. The question itself though, is the best one I’ve heard so far.

    • Brainsploosh@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You could easily modify that question to qualify “best” in a more useful way.

      “most beneficial for my well being”

      “most beneficial for humanity’s long term well being”

      “maximally beneficial to human progress”

      “maximally conducive to bring about the total destruction of reality by the Old Ones”

      “best way to a smoothie”

      Etc.