Philosophers are great at asking questions and although we all know the ultimate answer is 42, what is the Ultimate question though?
It’s a daunting proposal I know 
, but who wants to try at this? And “what is 6 X 7 is NOT the ultimate question”.
I guess we might have to start off with what would be the characteristics of the Ultimate question.
So anyone wanna try this? Later i’ll try to give my own answer 
What’s the Noumenon like?
(Pity the answer’s unknowable in principle…)
I’m betting that we’ll all find out after we are dead 
Although that is a good question, what makes it Ultimate though?
The Ultimate question cannot really have an answer so your question is on the right track. But the Ultimate Question should also have some kind of emotional/personal value to it.
It sounds odd but questions like where do we go after we die have an intrinsic emotional curiosity where it pays to know. But your question even though its fascinating to me and most people interested in philosophy, to the laymen it would just be another boring fact to know.
There is no ultimate question…
At least not in my opinion…
I think tha’s what Douglas Adams had in mind too…
According to him we are infinitely small specs on an infinitely small spec somewhere along the fleeting fault line of a probability wave in the general mish mash…
If you’re ever looking to define the word absurd, or give yourself a head ache,read the 5 hitchikers guide books in a week and a half. :-&
the Question: What do I do? There is never a firm solid answer for that question no one answer can anwer that question, For that question we can only guess and make that guess on experience and education, even still we may get it wrong because we can not know the full actions and reactions of what we do.
what if it makes no overall difference?
a more important question, what difference does it make to me?
lol well you got me there. I was referring to those books but ya I got so lost and annoyed by the third I stopped reading them, sadly i think i lost the books so i haven’t gotten to finish 
I went up to some part after the restaurant at the end of the universe and past when they travel back to prehistoric earth. Can’t remember specifics anymore 
Anyway my question now is:
What if “what is the Ultimate question?” IS the ultimate question?
What do we know?
Let me try to explain…
throughout the series we learn random and seemingly meaningless things. A lot of them.
At the time you stopped reading there are probably about a 100 un answered questions… some remain answwered, some are forgotten…
Reading through to the end makes you expect answers… All the real questions he poses lead up to the big finally…
And it comes about in a rather lac luster way… You see the pages dwindling, and you don’t know how he is going to wrap it up in such a short time (having took 1000+ pages explaining all kinds of seemingly meaningless stuff) and then it happens…
No ultimate question, just an ultimate end.
SPOILER ALERT.
Some crazy group of aliens that set out on a war before hyperspace travel was invented (requiring cryogenics) got hit by a meteor half way through it’s long ass trip, and through a series of unlikely events, they wound up not knowing who they are, and monotoring earth intensely and not knowing why (they only remembered fragmentsof their purpose because the computer that held their brains got messed up).
Anyway these aliens decide that the y don;t want to watch earth, because it’s stupid, but they cannot forget the fragment of info they have, so they use their mysterious weapon to destroy the second earth, aswell as the entire plural sector of space time…
(sector 9 J plural z alpha).
It turns out that the plural sectors exist on the fault lines of probability waves in the great mish mash, and whe the wave breaks so do we.
There is no ultimate question at the end of the book, only an ultimate end…
The last thing in the book are the vogons checking a box on a form, signifying that the plural sectors were successfully demolished, which was a long standing order…
Doug Adams probably thought that the ultimate question was in fact, “what is the ultimate question”
If there is an answer to that question, then the answer is the most important, and this question is the second most ultimate or important.
I think when douglas adams started writing, he knew he had nothing to answer by way of “ultimate”. why else would the ultimate answer be incomprehensible?
Marvin came to an end, a very intereesting end… Gods last message to the universe was this: “Sorry for the inconvenience”…
=D>
Wow very nice, I’m definitely gonna finish those books this summer … if i can find them 
By the way, that’s what I figured the ultimate question to be, but ya those books are amazing for those who like to make sense of nonsense 
What kind of fuckery are we?
Mrs Winehouse’s wisdom. 