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Easy. First you survey the existing literature for your theory. Chances are, somebody already came up with it, or, more likely, debunked it. If that’s not the case, you write up a paper, presenting your theory together with its supporting evidence and submit it through the usual channels. I know that sounds pretty discouraging, but the chance of some rando contributing something meaningful are pretty close to zero
Pretty close to zero multiplied by billions of people yields results sometimes.
These people went through the process I described above. I’m not saying you need a degree to do scientific work. I’m saying you need to do scientific work to achieve scientifically relevant results.
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These aren’t coming out of nowhere however. They are obviously being exposed to new material through their education and then extrapolating into some new tangent. These aren’t epiphanies that just happen later in life unless you are working to understand these concepts. Not saying it can’t be done, it just hasn’t been done yet, and every generation builds upon the foundation of what came before it.
And this would be larger with better education.
Because it’s not always about the “potential of the student” if there’s no support or validation.
Finland didn’t have a gifted program, you’re not supposed to be better at anything than others. Except in sports, where it’s the whole thing.
There were special programs for slow kids. But none for fast ones.
First grade teacher put me in an empty classroom to read by myself when everyone else was just learning what sounds different letters make.
Nothing kills my motivation more than discovering something new in math and then finding out some dead guy beat me to the punch by several centuries lol
Then again sometimes it’s worse when I expect there to be literature on a topic and then discovering there isn’t even a wiki page for it.
Hell, most recently it was bi-intuitionistic logic. Originally studied in the 40s by one German guy who took bad notes. Main body of work done by a single math grad in the 70s (Rauszer) culminating in her PhD. Turns out there were errors discovered in her proofs and it was proven inconsistent in 2001. Only for two relatively young mathematicians to clear up that there are two separate versions of bi-intuitionistic logic which are consistent. This discovery and proof are found a paper that was published only this fucking year.
I asked a simple question about dealing with uncertainty in a logical system and instead of finding a well studied foundation of knowledge I was yeeted to the bleeding edge of mathematics.
Edit: in case it isn’t clear, by “new things” I mean new to me not new to the world; hence the aforementioned dead guys with published works on the topic. And when I say I was yeeted to the edge of math, I should mention that edge is well beyond my capacity to further. I had to learn a lot about notation for logic just to parse the paper, and I’m sure I still don’t fully understand it.
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You’re right, we build on the backs of giants. The issue is, typically, anything I discover myself is typically very far below the level where new science can be done OR it is far enough above my current knowledge that I just don’t even know where I’d begin.
Bi intuitionistic logic is the latter category. I was expecting truth tables and instead had to add a ton of words to my vocabulary like “Heyting Algebra” and “Kripke Frame” etc. just to understand what the paper was saying (not that I do fully understand what the papers are saying lol)
This is the entire point of academia though. If you were in a math PhD program you would have much better access to the resources to build the background knowledge you need to explore this topic, and then you would literally be paid to research it, and then possibly paid to manage a whole team of people interested the topic, and paid to teach classes on it and publish book chapters, and so on. People have this misconception (not saying you do, but this is a very common sentiment) that academia is this ivory tower which gate keeps knowledge, when the reality is that it’s just a framework for enabling knowledge discovery. The reason most people outside of academia don’t publish original research isn’t some conspiracy. It’s because engaging in original research is a full time job which often requires a lot of money and resources normal people don’t have.
I know :( the issue is I’m in ME and school is fucking expensive. Oh and I am working in a research lab getting paid for my work, not much though.
I would love nothing more than to stay in school and get like 82 different degrees in various topics. I would love to do a PhD in math, and one in physics, and one in cs, and linguistics, and psychology…
But the world forces me to specialize if I want to have enough money to live well. I chose ME because I knew it had a lot of overlap with a bunch of different fields. And yeah I’m taking grad level math and cs courses, but like you said, lots of the stuff I’m interested in is PhD level stuff.
Also Idk if you’re in America, but the money for research here is getting scarcer every day. It could likely be more effective for me to sell my soul to a defense company and then build my own personal lab with that blood money to do research I want to do than it would be to get a PhD and be a professor and simply hope the projects I want to work on will get funding.
Of course that’s assuming the country doesn’t fully collapse (or kill me) before I enter the job force. And assuming I could work for a defense company without deciding to kill myself out of guilt of building civilian killing murder machines.
Anyway, point is that you are right but I lack the financial security to justify trying to get a PhD in math right now.
Yes but what if they feel REALLY clever??? U expect me 2 go thru all dat work? Ffs smh rn ngl u cap I swear.
Someone give them the Nobel price already!
He’s got my vote.
Ongod ending wars is a habit of mine fr fr
I would love to know how many peer-reviewed papers have been published from independent authors with no degree or university affiliation, if any.
It definitely happens.
Give one example not published in a predatory journal.
Does this guy count? He’s been peer-reviewed a bunch I reckon.
Depends if you count undergrad. One that comes to mind is the RWKV paper.
They have some chance if they wrote code to find a counterexample to some obscure math conjecture
submit it through the usual channels.
Here is the problem. These channels are heavily gatekeeped (gatekept?). Non standard theories are pushed to fringe publications and not read.
(See continental drift, hand washing and heliocentric model, big bang, etc.)
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Einstein polished his theories from the work of others, who also worked off the ideas of those who came before them.
and it’s not uncommon to have 2-3 labs worldwide have exactly the same idea.
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How is a lay person supposed to discover “the usual channels?” Or do you basically have to go to community college at least?
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Oh you’re a programmer? I have this app idea…
No! I’ve seen this Rick and Morty episode!
This but my boss is talking to me without passing through management
Write letters to the press. Ripped from Control:
Dear New York Tribune,
Airplanes aren’t real. I figured out how they do it.
The windows are TV screens. The whole thing moves on big tracks like a rollercoaster that moves through underground tunnels in the Earth. Airports are more like train stations.
They do this because the sky is full of monsters that they don’t want us to know about. The planes we see in the sky are the monsters. The government made the Earth-trains look like the monsters so they could lie to us better.
Don’t contact me.
Not real, obviously, but clearly the most effective tactic when no one takes your 100% legit theories seriously.
AMAZING game. The Dead Letters department might be my favorite section of The Oldest House
Absolutely, although I’m a Containment/Panopticon fan myself. Langston’s dialogue is great, especially in the AWE dlc. Dead Letters is close behind though. The fish letter is excellent.
Playing AW2 right now after having watched a Quantum Break playthrough, so I’ve got the Remedyverse on my mind constantly and see it in everything. Such a dope company, can’t wait for the next control. I think it’s next on their development list, so hopefully soon!
Totally valid. The AWE DLC is the only one I didn’t fully complete. I wasn’t as into Alan Wake at the time (although AW2 fucking changed that). I own the ultimate edition on PC now anyway (originally started on PS4) so I might as well. Sam Lake is my gaming development god…
I find the best lore raises more questions than it answers, and Lake and his team do that in spades. And you absolutely should give it a play with some more Alan Wake under your belt. Even outside the DLC they have lore connecting the two games all over. And of course, it only leaves me with more questions than I had. Another dead letter:
To the Esteemed Members of the American Psychiatric Council,
I am writing you to inquire about the significance of dreams in relation to one’s mental health? I am aware that there are many books purporting to contain the True meanings of dreams, but I have reservations about their legitimacy.
I understand that this is not usually done, but if I would greatly appreciate your thoughts on my Condition. Ever since I was young, I have had intensely-vivid dreams. They only occur sporadically, but in them I witness very strange events. I understand dreams can seem real at the time, but these feel markedly different. They do not occur often, perhaps only one or two a year.
Last night I had one. I saw a small, empty town. It was utterly dark. There was a Lake at its center. Shadows of people moved around me, muttering odd things. A bright light woke me up. I was screaming in my sleep. My wife had been shaking me for minutes before I woke.
Because of this recent incident, I have decided to seek help. The doctor says I am physically fine, but I wanted to consult your Expertise. Thank you for your valuable time.
Yours Very Sincerely,
Richard Bowker
Like, how many people did this event affect? It clearly wasn’t limited to Bright Falls and close associates of the artists the Dark Presence is feeding off of. This is some unrelated schmuck living who knows where, and he’s having dreams of the Bright Falls event. And this wasn’t even in the DLC. The Lovecraftian web of influence of other planes of existence in these fictional games fascinate me so damn much.
I’ve just gotta get more hard drive space to open it up.
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the show Fringe but I love it. Has a lot of Control vibes/flavor but came out years before. There’s an episode of it where a guy is able to sort of ‘predict’ certain events that are about to happen. Some level of precognition. Gets these vividly intense visions of a particular event and has to make it via a diorama or some type of artistic expression. Episode explains what is going on with him and why he can hear it. There are also a few other letters scattered throughout the Bureau that seem to suggest there are some inate abilities in a lot of people. I don’t know if I made this theory or read it in the game but I started to think that there were ‘psykers’ or something that the Bureau were keeping an eye on to be able to detect/notice various anomalies. Wondering if that poor fucker could be one of those.
Control had me begging for more and, luckily, it gave me more. The game having as many text docs as it does pissed off a few friends but made me ecstatic. SO MUCH LIVING IN THAT WORLD!
Kind of a lackluster ending, though. I don’t know why, but it kinda felt like very much not an ending.
Oh we had different opinions there. I was blown away
Guess it was just me. The game is amazing either way, though.
That makes me want to go listen to REM.
You convinced me.
All the flavor text in Control is fantastic.
I’m a plaid suit in a pinstripe world. I’m a plaid suit in a pinstripe world. I’m a plaid suit in a pinstripe world. I’m a plaid suit in a pinstripe world. I’m a plaid suit in a pinstripe world. I’m a plaid suit in a pinstripe world. I’m a plaid suit in a pinstripe world. I’m a plaid suit in a pinstripe world. ███ █ █████ ████ ██ █ █████████ █████ I’m a plaid suit in a pinstripe world. I’m a plaid suit in a pinstripe world. I’m a plaid suit in a pinstripe world. I’m a plaid suit in a pinstripe world. I’m a plaid suit in a pinstripe world. I’m a plaid suit in a pinstripe world. I’m a plaid suit in a pinstripe world. I’m a plaid suit in a pinstripe world.
First of all, if you have a theory they rejected, clearly its because they are afraid of your massive intellect, pure jealousy to the point of refusing you entirely. So that means your theory is 100% fact, and you should write a book all about how you are a genius ahead of their time, and sell it on Amazon becoming a number 1 best seller and use that to propel you into micro-celebrity status and live off the royalties because thats what smart people do. Duh.
And go on the Joe Organ podcast ofc
No no no you don’t understand, lobsters get a massive jolt of oxytocin after fighting cause men are supposed to fight! Or whatever the fuck Xanax Peterson was going on about.
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Love that testosterone argument those idiots bring up all the time. Like I got the shit coming out my ears! I’m not like styro pyro high, but I went bald in my twenties and have irritating hair in my INNER ear! And despite being lazy AF I’m still fairly well built. I would gladly give up half of my test to whoever wants it. Being irrationally angry about people driving around with their brights on is definitely not a fun pass time.
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“Laser hormone” is my new favorite two word concoction.
Graham Hancock moment
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There are 99 crackpots for every genius without a degree.
Probably more like 999.
But that 1 in a billion could change the world
Genius is what the ignorant call the results of dedication, a genius wouldn’t let that stop them.
Now, that dedication becoming obsession and breeding mental illness like rabbits, that’ll stop a genius.
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1705542 is a prime number. How can I get my proof published?
I appreciate that you chose an even number to claim as prime so nobody even has to check it.
Hey, not all primes are odd numbers! Give my man 2 some consideration dawg
Yeah but that would also mean that we would know instantly whether it was a prime number and wouldn’t need to investigate.
Just makin a joke
nono, I’d honestly love to see a proof in this case
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My brother in law was telling me about this amazing new tech called a Thunderstorm Generator which apparently filters out carbon from combustion engines. After seeing this… I just can’t… It’s too much…
That chart…
EARTH HAS 4 CORNER
SIMULTANEOUS 4-DAY
TIME CUBEThat wiki entry really does it no justice. That website was a raw stream of unhandled brain-gasm. It should have been preserved. Or maybe it was too dangerous exist.
Here’s the last archive.
CW: everything but misogyny, it’s remarkable how little misogyny there is in a schizophrenic screed against Jewish, black, queer, and educated people
Till You KNOW 4 Simultaneous Days Rotate In Same 24 Hours Of Earth You Don’t Deserve To Live On Earth
Yeahh, that’s the good shit.
Fuck sake not time cube again lol.
“I’m bi-racial”
“You’re WHAT?!”
The time cube is the most southern schizophrenic thing I’ve ever read
Does it really vary much by region?
You do seem to be right about him being from the southern US, his obit linked from the wiki says he was born and died in Alabama.
Yeah it does. Firstly, outside the former confederacy segregation wasn’t as sticky of an issue. That’s not to say we aren’t racist, we’re just less comfortable announcing it. In the Midwest people of his generation would be using euphemisms. Like I’m in my 30s and spend most of my life in Ohio and never heard an old person in that region call for segregation even when they’re shitfaced, instead they talk about drugs, crime, “inner city types”, and rap music when they want to be anti black.
American bigotry has very regional flavoring and southern is notoriously shameless.
The other big thing is that the Christianity he’s rejecting sounds like southern Christianity. Every region of the US has it’s vibes of what they mean when they say Christian.
So yeah it’s everything he reads as foreign to me as an Aussie. The mason Dixon line feels to many Americans as much a cultural divide as the border with Canada, though ontarians have always seemed more reasonable than southerners.
They put a lot of effort for that pdf…jeez, who wrote that should write more sci-fi or fantasy in general lol
Lmao it’s probably just sucking in air and diluting the exhaust
Hi. People contact me with theories all the time based on my published research. They tend to come from an oversimplified view of the problem.
Are there any exceptions to this rule?
The plumber who told bp how to fix their well leak.
It’s a special kind of stupid to be too stupid to understand that you’re stupid, to be so stupid you think you’re smart. Man, what a life that must be, blissful ignorance.
But you haven’t even heard the theories!
See Terrence Howard, he theorized that 1 X 1 = 2.
“not even wrong”
The maths department in my uni receives (or did when I was there) several proofs every year on general formulas to solve equations of degree >5.
physics crackpots: a ‘theory’ - Angela Collier
The biggest problem is that your theories are not going to equate to the depth, degree, and experience of people who’ve been over a decade in Universities studying their own, who receive grants and everything to do so. It may be a revolutionary theory, but every scientist has got their own. That’s what you are competing against. Hell, there are plenty of brainiacs at each other’s throats over whose theory they believe is right.
I have a personal theory that I believe can encompass a lot of phenomenon, but I lack the graduate level experience or the extraordinary intelligence to raise eyebrows, so it has to remain largely faith based. There are much more knowledgeable people who dismiss the basic core tenets of it. And unless you map it out onto some real math and start making predictions that can raise eyebrows, it will remain that, faith-based. Society doesn’t give a shit about ideas, they give a shit about implementations of those ideas.
The theory? 1x1=2
ITT: Science and Engineering users debunking others attempts to contribute from an entry level
And then there’s Maths where all you need is a fresh pair of eyes.
Operative word “attempts”
Please do not downplay attempts.
The world is built on attempts
By the competent
“I failed school, can I still study maths?” His voice echoed across the empty lecture hall.
Nobody likes idea guys. They disappeared for the most part since they figured out they can type their braindead ideas into genAI, but if I had a dollar for every “what if AAA game, but VR/other bad twist” ideas people wanted me to make, then I’d be a millionnaire.
Professional (Successful) Idea guys are worth their weight in platinum. I’ve only ever worked with a couple of those. It’s the armchair ones that hurt so damn much.
I’ve seen a guy take a bland game/engine, a few devs/artists, a whiteboard and make a really successful AA game in about 6 months.
