- #1
C David W
I have Asperger’s syndrome (high functioning autism). I didn’t know about it until about two years ago, I’m 28 now, and I feel I have to admit I dropped out of high school when I was 19. I would feel bad about it but that place made me really depressed; I had a guidance counselor that said, to my face, that I was like water because I would seep to lowest place of wherever I was put. I was told I couldn’t take any more science classes (a physics class was just started) because I had all my science credits; a smart-ass friend of mine that got to take the class asked, “is time relative to the speed at which you move?” the teacher said no…he asked to go read the class’s textbook alone in the hall, we both hold our heads low thinking of that moment and in retrospect I’m glad I couldn’t take that class. My chemistry teacher failed me because I didn’t take a single note and therefore had no notebook to turn in WITH my semester exam. The notebook was literally half the grade; I got three points from an A on the exam. It didn’t feel right then, it still doesn’t now, to punish a mind that can’t find a way to stomach pictographic representations (written notes) of the wonderfully detailed, three dimensional, interactive, models which that mind can visualize. I’m autistic. Yeah I’m different, I’m also not sorry about it. The last straw came from having to write. Simply put, for me, writing involves frustration from not being able to express my ideas and anxiety that what I’ve expressed will go over poorly. I buckled down because I had to write some essay but I genuinely commit to doing it well. I let that same smart-ass friend mentioned earlier copy me (we had the same subject to write on), he paraphrased most of what I had and turned in a much less convincing argument but he got graded significantly above me. For an English credit and gym, they were going to fail me…again. I sighed inwardly and resound myself to the fact that I just wasn’t good enough and stepped aside so that I wouldn’t take up space.
Now I’m here, on my own I’ve been able to run so much further and faster than in such a confined system catering to so many but I’m afraid I’ve found myself at something of an impasse and having taken the course I have (abandoning formal education) I feel many paths to resolve this are inherently closed to me given the myriad of crackpot defenses that have rightfully been erected. That’s why I’m here, well, that and my anxieties about communicating with people in person. My mind works in visuals so let me explain it in this way, I just wondered out of the crackpot forest and every similar situation leads you to think this may go bad very quickly and so you all are rightfully on edge. My plan is to move slowly and in ways that don’t in anyway suggest crackpottery because *sigh* I have a theory, an idea, a concept, whatever you want to call it and it could be something. I’ve done my best to tear it apart for months now and feel it’s solid enough to need you all to continue further.
First, let me just establish that I believe at this point in science the only acceptable stance is interpretation NOT revision. What I mean here is that it cannot be reasonably accepted by any stretch of my imagination that what is known to be true could be wrong at this point; too much fits with too many skilled minds looking over all of it for too long for me to believe what is already agreed upon could be wrong. I would even go so far as to call crackpots both harmful to those still learning and insulting to those that have given so much of their lives learning what any mind could pick up if they commit the time. That being said, only if an interpretation doesn’t alter anything fundamentally known to be true can it be entertained under the explicit understanding that it must make sense with everything else thus managing to avoid creating more problems than it solves.
My second attempted anti-crackpot assurance is to say that I whole heartedly believe in philosophy’s attitude toward one’s argument being proven wrong. The only proper response is a genuine sense of gratitude that, though truth wasn’t found, a path of failure, infinite and lonely, was avoided and a far better path, one rich with those willing to walk alongside you, was offered. I’ve read about crackpots just not accepting that they’re wrong and them keeping up ridiculous fights. I know I’m dumb. I can’t think of what to say except that I would feel terrible if I bugged you guys with dumb stuff. I just need to see that I’m wrong so I can do better. I promise to run right back into the crackpot forest at the first sign of eye rolling and never bother any of you again.
For my third point, I’d like to address the importance of “how” and “why”. I consider them the two most important concepts outside of initial perception. “How” sets up a causality chain which is the basis for all observable patterns. “Why” is simply a modified form of the first that attempts to isolate the “how” of each link or piece of a pattern. For an idea to be oriented toward acceptance it needs to serve a practical function or utility. So, if a new theory can serve a nontrivial purpose, though validation is still a long way off, the proper response to “how is this idea supposed to be what you say it is?” should be “because it can do the following:”. With the response to “why do you think this is so?” resting in what this new idea can successfully explain; with most of that area’s weight being an explanation of what is currently unexplained without, of course, adding any inconsistencies to what is already accepted.
My final point would be an attempt to show that I’m anything but committed to this idea as by its very origin it shouldn’t be true. It came solely out of a desire for it to simply sound plausible; I was just looking for a little suspension of disbelief when trying to come up with some goofy physics I could use for a story or game. I wanted it to make some sense like how star trek does their thing but I found things I had never heard of falling right into place and making perfect sense, then some things weren’t working in my head just to find, in reality, they don’t happen or the thing I was imagining was unstable. When I started finding explanations for things even physics didn’t have answers for I got a bit worried like I should be raising my hand in class but didn’t want to look stupid if I’m wrong. After I could explain all the isotope stabilities alongside their binding energies (up to titanium-50 at least) and all the decays therein I got some courage.
I think it was Dirac that somewhat famously said that his theory was smarter than him when it predicted things he had never thought of at the time; well, what I may have found seems far smarter than me and that’s why I need all of you. I can’t find any more ways to stall so I’ll just have to say it. Please understand that I too feel this must be impossible but I have no other way to say this. I think I may have found the how and why to the four forces being effects of space-time; Einstein showed gravity IS an effect of space-time (it might be “affect”, sorry) but could never explain its how and why. Also, trying to set it in the most logic I could I think I may have even walked it back to a Theory of Everything. I know, sounds dumb. But with everything I said before I’m hoping someone is willing to risk humoring me enough to ask “how and why could this possibly be so?” I won’t get into the idea immediately I’ll just go over the how and why I feel it’s justified. I’ve already written it up, 26k words from standard model to black-holes. It does so much, like explain the mass patterns in the standard model and what the subatomic flavors actually are. It covers everything from chromodynamics to temperature, Unruh effect to the shapes of orbitals, the origin of mass to explanations of wave-function collapse and uncertainty, Dark matter and energy to how and why the different charges exist and behave the way they do. It does so much and it’s all built on derivations of three readily accepted principles; the anthropic principle applied to energy (that may need explaining), two ideas from Einstein (Energy is mass, and space-time), and the second law of thermodynamics used to address energy’s behavior. They combine into a rule that can be set at the heart of every physical law, the Entanglement rule, “Energy shares its existence with its surroundings”.
The introduction area isn’t for any of this so if anyone is interested in hearing me out please let me know and if any admins or moderators think continuing with this wouldn’t be appropriate on ANY section of the forum, I’ll certainly refrain. Thank you for your time.
Now I’m here, on my own I’ve been able to run so much further and faster than in such a confined system catering to so many but I’m afraid I’ve found myself at something of an impasse and having taken the course I have (abandoning formal education) I feel many paths to resolve this are inherently closed to me given the myriad of crackpot defenses that have rightfully been erected. That’s why I’m here, well, that and my anxieties about communicating with people in person. My mind works in visuals so let me explain it in this way, I just wondered out of the crackpot forest and every similar situation leads you to think this may go bad very quickly and so you all are rightfully on edge. My plan is to move slowly and in ways that don’t in anyway suggest crackpottery because *sigh* I have a theory, an idea, a concept, whatever you want to call it and it could be something. I’ve done my best to tear it apart for months now and feel it’s solid enough to need you all to continue further.
First, let me just establish that I believe at this point in science the only acceptable stance is interpretation NOT revision. What I mean here is that it cannot be reasonably accepted by any stretch of my imagination that what is known to be true could be wrong at this point; too much fits with too many skilled minds looking over all of it for too long for me to believe what is already agreed upon could be wrong. I would even go so far as to call crackpots both harmful to those still learning and insulting to those that have given so much of their lives learning what any mind could pick up if they commit the time. That being said, only if an interpretation doesn’t alter anything fundamentally known to be true can it be entertained under the explicit understanding that it must make sense with everything else thus managing to avoid creating more problems than it solves.
My second attempted anti-crackpot assurance is to say that I whole heartedly believe in philosophy’s attitude toward one’s argument being proven wrong. The only proper response is a genuine sense of gratitude that, though truth wasn’t found, a path of failure, infinite and lonely, was avoided and a far better path, one rich with those willing to walk alongside you, was offered. I’ve read about crackpots just not accepting that they’re wrong and them keeping up ridiculous fights. I know I’m dumb. I can’t think of what to say except that I would feel terrible if I bugged you guys with dumb stuff. I just need to see that I’m wrong so I can do better. I promise to run right back into the crackpot forest at the first sign of eye rolling and never bother any of you again.
For my third point, I’d like to address the importance of “how” and “why”. I consider them the two most important concepts outside of initial perception. “How” sets up a causality chain which is the basis for all observable patterns. “Why” is simply a modified form of the first that attempts to isolate the “how” of each link or piece of a pattern. For an idea to be oriented toward acceptance it needs to serve a practical function or utility. So, if a new theory can serve a nontrivial purpose, though validation is still a long way off, the proper response to “how is this idea supposed to be what you say it is?” should be “because it can do the following:”. With the response to “why do you think this is so?” resting in what this new idea can successfully explain; with most of that area’s weight being an explanation of what is currently unexplained without, of course, adding any inconsistencies to what is already accepted.
My final point would be an attempt to show that I’m anything but committed to this idea as by its very origin it shouldn’t be true. It came solely out of a desire for it to simply sound plausible; I was just looking for a little suspension of disbelief when trying to come up with some goofy physics I could use for a story or game. I wanted it to make some sense like how star trek does their thing but I found things I had never heard of falling right into place and making perfect sense, then some things weren’t working in my head just to find, in reality, they don’t happen or the thing I was imagining was unstable. When I started finding explanations for things even physics didn’t have answers for I got a bit worried like I should be raising my hand in class but didn’t want to look stupid if I’m wrong. After I could explain all the isotope stabilities alongside their binding energies (up to titanium-50 at least) and all the decays therein I got some courage.
I think it was Dirac that somewhat famously said that his theory was smarter than him when it predicted things he had never thought of at the time; well, what I may have found seems far smarter than me and that’s why I need all of you. I can’t find any more ways to stall so I’ll just have to say it. Please understand that I too feel this must be impossible but I have no other way to say this. I think I may have found the how and why to the four forces being effects of space-time; Einstein showed gravity IS an effect of space-time (it might be “affect”, sorry) but could never explain its how and why. Also, trying to set it in the most logic I could I think I may have even walked it back to a Theory of Everything. I know, sounds dumb. But with everything I said before I’m hoping someone is willing to risk humoring me enough to ask “how and why could this possibly be so?” I won’t get into the idea immediately I’ll just go over the how and why I feel it’s justified. I’ve already written it up, 26k words from standard model to black-holes. It does so much, like explain the mass patterns in the standard model and what the subatomic flavors actually are. It covers everything from chromodynamics to temperature, Unruh effect to the shapes of orbitals, the origin of mass to explanations of wave-function collapse and uncertainty, Dark matter and energy to how and why the different charges exist and behave the way they do. It does so much and it’s all built on derivations of three readily accepted principles; the anthropic principle applied to energy (that may need explaining), two ideas from Einstein (Energy is mass, and space-time), and the second law of thermodynamics used to address energy’s behavior. They combine into a rule that can be set at the heart of every physical law, the Entanglement rule, “Energy shares its existence with its surroundings”.
The introduction area isn’t for any of this so if anyone is interested in hearing me out please let me know and if any admins or moderators think continuing with this wouldn’t be appropriate on ANY section of the forum, I’ll certainly refrain. Thank you for your time.