r/HitchHikersGuide

I know this is just being picky about semantics and I don't write it to criticize anyone (myself maybe actually).

"A line that has crossed into hitchhiking slang as in, 'Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is. ' Sass means know, be aware of, meet, have sex with... Hoopy means really together guy, and frood means really amazingly together guy."

I understand that the Y at the end makes it an easy mistake, and I also accept that language changes as time goes on by its very nature. That said, every time I see someone say, "you're a hoopy frood" I get my panties un a bunch because there is literally a definition.

I have had people argue that I am wrong on this. That blew my mind. I will die on this hill if pushed.

The more important thing is that people have vocabularies that are shaped by and pay homage to DNA. If you use it as an adjective, I am not calling you out. I am offering the canon because I have nothing better to do.

I already figured out where all my biros I lost got to. Open to suggestions on how best to spend my time.

xlii 4 life

We all know the joke. Deep Thought thinks for seven and a half million years and says 42. The crowd is outraged. The computer says the answer is fine; they just never knew what the question was.

I've come to think that's not a joke about a number. It's a joke about how we ask the question.

The answer with no one in it

They asked about Life, the Universe, and Everything. That's a question with no one person in it. No stakes, no context, no one the question is for. So it got an answer with no one person in it. 42 is correct and addressed to nobody. (ERROR 42:PERSON_NOT_FOUND)

Every real question carries the asker. "What should I do with my life?" means something different from a 19-year-old, a new parent, and a retiree. Same words, different questions. Take the person out and you get 42.

And look at what the mice actually want by the end. Not the question. Something good to say on talk shows. They're holding an answer and shopping for a question that will sell it.

Everyone frames the question for you

Deep Thought is just the most literal version. In real life the framing comes from everywhere: school (questions arrive pre-written, one right answer), careers (here's a ladder, the next rung is your goal), ads ("how should I live?" becomes "what should I buy?"), news, family scripts, even language. Some of that is inherited wisdom. Some of it is a cage.

The dolphins: the frame you can't receive

Humans thought they were smarter than dolphins because of the wheel, New York, and wars. Dolphins thought they were smarter for exactly the same reasons. Same evidence, opposite verdicts.

Then the dolphins saw the demolition coming and tried to warn us. We read it as tricks. The message was right there. We had no frame to hear it.

The whale: the questions with no frame

The whale is Deep Thought inverted. It pops into existence miles up with no past and no context. Pure questions. Who am I? What's that thing rushing toward me? It starts naming the world from scratch and decides the ground might be a friend.

Deep Thought is an answer with no question. The whale is questions with no frame and no time.

Neither survives. You need both, and you need time to move between them.

The puddle: frames all the way down

Look closely and every frame sits inside another. Noticing frames is a frame. This post is a frame. There is no view from nowhere.

Adams knew. In a 1998 talk he described a puddle that wakes up, notices how perfectly its hole fits it, and concludes the hole was made for it. Then the sun comes out. The puddle mistakes its frame for the universe right up until it evaporates.

The Total Perspective Vortex is the opposite trap. Show someone the entire universe and it destroys them. Zaphod survives only because he's standing in a universe built for him.

So there's no escaping frames. No frame at all leaves you nothing to stand on.

The trick is knowing you're in one, and being able to step out.

Where, who, may I

If 42 is the answer, I think the missing question breaks into three:

1. Where am I? Which frame am I standing in right now? Whose hole is this puddle sitting in?
2. Who's asking? Is this my question, or one somebody handed me: a parent, a boss, a feed, a mouse with a talk show?
3. May I? Am I allowed to change the question? To step out of this frame and try another?

The answer to the third one is always yes, even if you think it isn't.

Frames are real, but they're temporary. Frames are scaffolding. You build with one, take it down, and build the next floor. A trap is the frame you cannot leave.

42 is what you get when you hand off the part that is supposed to be yours.