You have ultimate power over everything for one day.What do you do?

[roboosh]

Make days last 5,000,000,000,000 longer.

Create an inter-cosmos railgun and take out nearby planets with it.

And then think of something else to do.

You mean so we live longer?

I'd make myself a fortress out of skulls, shoes made of stardust, and of course create an army of the undead. Then play Tonka in peace.

 

[Uncompetative]

I'd discover the meaning of life and not tell anyone.

Hmm, on second thoughts I'd probably be more useful to discover the question to the meaning of life...

I've been telling people about the meaning of life on this forum for ages and nobody has reacted to the shocking revelation.

I don't know why I bother sometimes...

Care to share?

Spoiler

from the thread "Meaning of Life":

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.62930#538882

I never claimed I knew, sir. I even stated that no one can know...Thus, I believe the meaning of life is to understand oneself.

Here is my repost from the Thread for Random Statements. Rather than say "no one can know" or "know thyself" I chose to explain WHY the question was flawed, and WHY philosophers, theologians, mystics and politicians had such difficulty coming up with a definitive answer...

Here's the way it works. I throw a random statement out there, and you answer it with another completely random statement that has nothing to do with the previous statement. We keep on going until somebody says something sensible or we stumble upon the meaning of life. Whatever comes first.

YOUR TOMATO IS RUDE

It is really very simple. I don't mean to spoil the fun by saying something sensible relating to the 'meaning of life', but to keep my insights on this topic to myself whilst everyone continues to stumble around in the dark trying to answer the Ultimate Question seems to be the better course of action.

Before I tackle the Ultimate Question, I should issue a warning. Do not read any further if you do not wish your spiritual, religious, socialist, communist, capitalist, humanist or deeply held philosophical point of view to go fundamentally unchallenged. I do not intend any upset of any person, communities or cultures and I would like it recognized that what follows is not my opinion or belief, but inescapable fact. Don't think I'm any happier about it than you are after reading it. However, suffice to say that I have lived with the truth for many years now and have found reassurance despite suffering periods of personal turmoil (as is quite common to all of us who have been around for a while), that I am living, to the best of my knowledge, in actual reality (i.e. no Heaven or Hell, no God, no Jesus, no Allah, no Buddha, no Tao, no life after death, no reincarnation, no spiritual plane, no metaphysics, no future of humanity, no harmony to recapture a lost Eden, no Aliens to answer your existential questions, nothing, nada, zip)...

Okay then, here goes:

When people ask the question "What is the Meaning of Life", they can mean many things when they refer to "Life"; in fact, they are actually asking multiple questions. People sometimes factor the question into a number of sub-questions, such as "why are we here?", "is there a supreme being/creator?", "what is the future of the human race?", or merely the more personal: "what SHOULD I do with my life? (even if I don't actually feel like it... tell me the real answer, I'd like to know the extent to which I am 'wasting' my life...)". All this complexity has encouraged 'logical' philosophical debate and 'emotional'/'spiritual' religious adherence, the questions have also formed themes for artists and writers, whose work has had a more derivative effect on television drama, motion pictures, animation, even video-games. All culture.

Yet, "Life" does not need to be factored in order to answer the question. "Life" does not even need to be properly defined. What I think you mean by it in the phrase "What is the Meaning of Life?" may be quite different from you know you meant. This mismatch is not a problem, as it is overshadowed by a far bigger semantic problem that has hitherto been overlooked.

Philosophers have been blind to the fact that they have made an erroneous assumption that there is an extrinsic meaning of life. Yes, there may be many intrinsic ephemeral meanings that we can personally apply to our lives, espouse in the community (such as "Don't kill babies"), enshrine in law (either secular, religious, or both), promulgate through culture (including educational institutions), or attempt to reinforce by positive feedback (for example, celebrating birthdays, baby showers, etc.) to the extent that we sometimes collectively delude ourselves that the common things humanity strives to do have real objective meaning, rather than just being a nicer way to be before death ends our the continued appreciation of 'Life, the Universe and Everything' by our inherently soulless emergent solipsistic consciousness.

To use a simple analogy, imagine you are asking a similarly structured question about something far less expansive and divisive:

"What is the colour of this shoe?"

Clearly, "shoe" is the object under consideration. When asked everyone will agree on the colour. The colour is a quality pertaining to the shoe. The shoe has colour. The colour does not have shoe. With me so far?

"What is the meaning of life?"

Ask yourself: is this the same kind of question...

I'll wait while you ruminate on it for a bit, because the truth is much better arrived at yourself, rather than being flat-out told.

Okay, enough waiting. If you've got this far, or even if you are an undisciplined reader prone to reading the final paragraph of a post, it doesn't really matter. For the conclusion you should have reached was that although a shoe has colour you cannot say that life has meaning in the exact same objective terms. This is because the concept of "life" is so vast it includes multi-coloured shoes that give meaning to women's lives, everything else you can think of and more besides that. Although by its nature it contains all meanings they are all judged subjectively. Therefore, there is no objective frame of reference to 'stand in' and pose the question "What is the meaning of life?", for to be objective to life one would have to be outside of it (physically, conceptually, semantically). Note: those thinking that there is a loophole involving Jesus being outside of life spiritually and therefore being in an objective position to tell us the true meaning or "Way" on his resurrection has one small flaw - and this isn't religious bias - even if Jesus occupied an objective frame of reference vis-a-vis LIFE he was not in an objective state of MIND, in other words he was a ghost at the time as wasn't looking at anything straight. [ Oh, I recognize I have a responsibility to prevent the spread of depression and suicide that could result from comprehending these facts about the nature and limits of semantics within the envelope of what language adheres to. Just because I have proven that there is no meaning to life does not mean that there is no point in any of us carrying on living. I have. I like the fact that there is no important thing that I really should be doing, that the consequences of my actions are only limited by society and my own desire to not leave myself with bad memories of things I have done to people. I am very keen on etiquette. I know, manners are totally unnecessary and often unreciprocated, but I like knowing that at least I made the initial effort. In a way it gives my life some small ephemeral meaning, but I'm not saying "Be excellent to each other" is in any way the Ultimate Answer, just something nice to live by as you mark the days to your hopefully natural demise. There really is no point in killing yourself, you're not getting reincarnated, you're only going to be alive once and you might die before you hit seventy, so things have got to be really bad (and stay really bad) for you not to JUST WAIT. ]

I know, it is very pretentious to quote oneself, but after I've said ALL THAT, this indiscretion of etiquette seems quite mild.

Note: I said "I've been telling people about the meaning of life..." not "I've been telling people the meaning of life", as there isn't one. I think the reason why people haven't reacted is that they all really yearn for a REASON, even when they say that they want the Truth. I suppose it can come off as sounding like a tease, but it isn't intended as such. Religion is the tease.

So basically there is no meaning, no question and therefore, no answer.

...and that is no bad thing.

 

[PhantomCritic]

I may go back in time to when Sonic the Hedgehog 3 was released with all the world's armies and storm the SEGA offices, then everyone's future would be very bright indeed.

 

[Zersy]

I'd discover the meaning of life and not tell anyone.

Hmm, on second thoughts I'd probably be more useful to discover the question to the meaning of life...

I already figured out the meaing of life.... i'll only say it if someone ask....

and i would make the ultimate soceity ! and i would have sex alot and i wold pretty much do whatever i want...

how about surfing across the universe on a board made of calculators with the hottest girls dry humping my leg all while i have a mic and shout across the cosmos some badass quotes and amazing songs then make life on every planet but they will all be laugable...

oh and i will be wearing my favirote shirt !

 

[Fingerprint]

I'd discover the meaning of life and not tell anyone.

Hmm, on second thoughts I'd probably be more useful to discover the question to the meaning of life...

I already figured out the meaing of life.... i'll only say it if someone ask....

and i would make the ultimate soceity ! and i would have sex alot and i wold pretty much do whatever i want...

how about surfing across the universe on a board made of calculators with the hottest girls dry humping my leg all while i have a mic and shout across the cosmos some badass quotes and amazing songs then make life on every planet but they will all be laugable...

oh and i will be wearing my favorite shirt !

Well Uncompetative has recently told me the question (or lack of it) so... Well as you've just suggested the single greatest idea I have ever heard, and I don't see a copyright logo anywhere, then you can now expect to have a second surfer in the universe. Bet you won't see me.

 

[EMFCRACKSHOT]

I would make myself emporer of the moon and found a new jedi order on the moon

 

[GoldenRaz]

Give myself the Ultimate power for all eternity.
OR find out what the Ultimate question of Life, the Universe and Everything is, since I already know the answer (no price to the one who figures out the reference, since it's too easy).

 

[Inarticulate_Underachiever]

Turn everybody purple to eliminate racism.

And DDoS attack all the chans.

 

[Daniel Cygnus]

If this is assuming that everything can and will be done, then I'd take control of all the armies of the world and disband them. I'd order all nukes to be dismantled.

Then I'd do an MIB style mind wipe on everyone, with the target being war. From there, I'd set a plan in place for the US to send food to starving countries, using the enormous region of farming land to fuel it. (I know it's got a name, I just can't remember it now.)

I would take the enormous amounts of money being put towards the military and redirect them towards things like science, medicine, and education.

Finally, I'd mix up a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster and relax in Hawaii.

 

[Easykill]

For the sake of convenience, I will imagine that it is a finite but very large sum of a power that is constantly and harmlessly escaping from my body in amounts I could not possibly use no matter what I did; where the only difference between using power and not using power is that I shape what I use. That avoids troublesome issues like making the day last forever, you merely run out of power after around 24 hours.

As to what I would do with it; I would speed up my consciousness to a rate worthy of the power I have, and only then decide what else to do. Without proper understanding, any changes I make would be in vain. Before the time was up, I'd bring my consciousness back down to (almost) where it was before and program the destruction of (almost) all the memories I gained in god state. I'd probably take the opportunity to increase my own physical attributes as well (no, not that), but that depends on what god-me thought.

 

[Zersy]

I'd discover the meaning of life and not tell anyone.

Hmm, on second thoughts I'd probably be more useful to discover the question to the meaning of life...

I already figured out the meaing of life.... i'll only say it if someone ask....

and i would make the ultimate soceity ! and i would have sex alot and i wold pretty much do whatever i want...

how about surfing across the universe on a board made of calculators with the hottest girls dry humping my leg all while i have a mic and shout across the cosmos some badass quotes and amazing songs then make life on every planet but they will all be laugable...

oh and i will be wearing my favorite shirt !

Well Uncompetative has recently told me the question (or lack of it) so... Well as you've just suggested the single greatest idea I have ever heard, and I don't see a copyright logo anywhere, then you can now expect to have a second surfer in the universe. Bet you won't see me.

There is a copywright logo !

zoom in.....

 

[AbsoluteVirtue18]

Give someone else the ability and will to give me ultimate power after my day is up. So I would have it permanatly.

Then, as tears of bubbling pitch stream down my face, my dark work will begin. I will open one of my six mouths, and I will sing the song that ends the Earth.

 

[buddee1]

i would build a giant slingshot and build 8 men out of titanium then i would launch the men onto all the other planets to see if there was life there and if there was i would have them kick the aliens ass making me ruler of the universe then after that i would do it again but attach the big rubber band to Mars and to Uranus conquer galaxies with my slingshots getting bigger and bigger!

 

[NeutralDrow]

I'd fix my external hard drive so I could play WoW. I'd get an Arcueid Brunestud figurine with her in her normal clothes, as well as figurines of all seven servant spirits (and possibly Rin, Sakura, Shirou, Shiki Tohno, and Shiki Ryougi). I'd locate my Japanese recipe cookbook so I could learn to make friggin' gyuudon, already. I'd organize a repeat concert of Dear Friends: Music From Final Fantasy, and foot the bill for everyone myself. I'd make sure Arcana Heart 2 gets a North American and European release (and make up the projected loss to the localizing companies), and procure translated print copies of Fate/Zero, the Haruhi Suzumiya novels, and the Ninnin Ga Shinobuden manga. And I'd play around in Yokohama's video arcades for a bit, while complaining about how the arcade scene in America is shot (and thus game turnover rate and variety is unprofitable).

Then, as an afterthought, I'd locate a better treatment for cancer and credit it to someone else, come up with an affordable renewable energy source usable for electricity and credit it to someone else, make an affordable water desalinization treatment method and credit it to someone else, spontaneously reverse the effects of malnutrition and dehydration in anyone everyone in the world suffering from them, trap a small portion of our atmospheric greenhouse gases and relocate it to Venus, reverse as much water pollution as I can think of, and debate with myself whether I should write an escape clause in the second law of thermodynamics.

 

[JohnSmith]

Create an AI and put it in charge of the world.

 

[Fingerprint]

I'd discover the meaning of life and not tell anyone.

Hmm, on second thoughts I'd probably be more useful to discover the question to the meaning of life...

I already figured out the meaing of life.... i'll only say it if someone ask....

and i would make the ultimate soceity ! and i would have sex alot and i wold pretty much do whatever i want...

how about surfing across the universe on a board made of calculators with the hottest girls dry humping my leg all while i have a mic and shout across the cosmos some badass quotes and amazing songs then make life on every planet but they will all be laugable...

oh and i will be wearing my favorite shirt !

Well Uncompetative has recently told me the question (or lack of it) so... Well as you've just suggested the single greatest idea I have ever heard, and I don't see a copyright logo anywhere, then you can now expect to have a second surfer in the universe. Bet you won't see me.

There is a copywright logo !

zoom in.....

Damn it. Its the dot of the exclamation mark. O.K. well to get around that I just won't wear my favourite shirt.

 

[Tharwen]

I'd make random people grow tits just to see what their reaction is XD

Edit: I mean guys, because it wouldn't be so surprising to a girl...

 

[sorry user name taken.]

to be happy..just for a little while

 

[Zersy]

I'd discover the meaning of life and not tell anyone.

Hmm, on second thoughts I'd probably be more useful to discover the question to the meaning of life...

I already figured out the meaing of life.... i'll only say it if someone ask....

and i would make the ultimate soceity ! and i would have sex alot and i wold pretty much do whatever i want...

how about surfing across the universe on a board made of calculators with the hottest girls dry humping my leg all while i have a mic and shout across the cosmos some badass quotes and amazing songs then make life on every planet but they will all be laugable...

oh and i will be wearing my favorite shirt !

Well Uncompetative has recently told me the question (or lack of it) so... Well as you've just suggested the single greatest idea I have ever heard, and I don't see a copyright logo anywhere, then you can now expect to have a second surfer in the universe. Bet you won't see me.

There is a copywright logo !

zoom in.....

Damn it. Its the dot of the exclamation mark. O.K. well to get around that I just won't wear my favourite shirt.

But that doesn't make it as awesome...

unless your wearing your faviroute jeans.....