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)
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'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.
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.
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?
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.
What is the universe?
"What's next?"
This kinda just feels like "what single question would you ask ChatGPT if it was omniscient" so my mind is just getting lost in the arcane and complex structuring and restructuring of the question to get the answer you want rather than one that literally answers the exact question you asked.
Assuming though that you actually do just get the answer to the intent and spirit of your question the only rational one I can think of would have to be some variation of:
"What answer could you give me that would offer me the most peace, contentment and sense of resolution to my life?"
Otherwise I'd spend an eternity (or however long I'd have to consider my question) pondering how to ask that question without getting an accurate and correct response like:
"A really good one."
Has Morocco rejoined the Eurovision Song Contest?
If Miura didn't die, how would have Berserk ended?
Edit: NM, looks like I'll find out one day.
What is the formula of everything that perfectly fits the description of our universe or multiverse?
How much lost money have I walked past in my life and not noticed.. can also include gold.
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.
Nah, I'm good
What caused the bronze age collapse and are we socially overdue for a similar one?
Where were you, when everything was falling apart? And all my days were spent by the telephone--
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.
After I'm gone, how would everyone I've loved remember me?
I want to know what the best version of myself would have been like. What did I miss out on.
I would rather have one wish granted and live just long enough to see it happen.
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.
How might entropy be meaningfully reversed?
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".
When I die my first question to the Devil will be: What is the meaning of the fine structure constant?
— Wolfgang Pauli
What is the fastest most efficient way to populate other planets in the universe, and ensure that we can communicate and visit each other?
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.
Probably go something like this:
Why 42 ?
How'd I do?