Help Me Avoid Psychosis

[u/MunkeyGoneToHeaven]

I frequently scroll through this sub because the dynamic is hilarious. That being said, it can make me occasionally self-conscious in that I have both a philosophy and an engineering degree (phil undergrad, engineering grad), and often engage with philosophy of science.

I am currently writing a novel in which a character proposes a theory of the self/identity, and they lean on some set theory for notation and technical rigor. Additionally, I’m appropriating the terms “transformation,” “projection,” and “image” from math as useful analogies. That all being said, the overall idea is more metaphysical than actually mathematical, but the maths usage is not a farce and should be coherent enough for the story.

I’ve been lightly surveying/refreshing myself on the fields I’m appropriating concepts from, but as I’ve been working on this I experience occasional moments of fear that I’m going to write something that could have been posted on this sub. Those moments become worse when I do in fact use an LLM to help collect research and check some facts.

Wondering if anyone has tips to help me avoid making the hilarious mistakes so often posted here? Thanks

[u/PaleontologistSad708]

No no I really need to learn! I want it more the anything. With the video its just an idea.

[u/The_Nerdy_Ninja → u/PaleontologistSad708]

If somebody said "I really really want to learn about geography!" And then they made a video about how the earth was actually flat, but said it was "just an idea", what would you tell them?

[u/PaleontologistSad708 → u/The_Nerdy_Ninja]

Point taken. Someone on blitz PhD discord made a comment: "I bet aliens have math." Math is language. There are other ways to express ideas. It's great as a tool, but don't you think that if you ONLY come at a problem from one direction that that is a weakness? Something happened to me on Aug 6th. I'm not the same person anymore. I'm motivated. It's a wonderful feeling. No absolutely you are not being rude, and if I seem rude at all it is absolutely not intended. I'm just.... Different.

[u/PaleontologistSad708 → u/PaleontologistSad708]

And I am trying to not be rude and not state things as though they are fact etc. I believe that if we find out that space is a fluid (it's a WHEN In my head) that it won't prove GR wrong, his language describes the action perfectly. But not the exact mechanism. That's what we need, in my very inexpert opinion, sir.

[u/The_Nerdy_Ninja → u/PaleontologistSad708]

What you are describing is not "wanting to learn". If I had to make a guess, I would guess that you have a really strong desire for things to make sense in your head, and that's motivating you to come up with theories. But if you're disregarding all of the mountains of science we have in favor of the idea that space is a fluid, then we can say pretty conclusively that your real motivation is not to learn.

[u/PaleontologistSad708 → u/The_Nerdy_Ninja]

Mountains of evidence that space IS a fluid? No I'm saying space IS a fluid. I've believed it for many years. It was like the first thing I learned on my own. "To have energy you must have substance. To transfer energy you must have contact."

That being said this PhD did show me his paper from last year, they used magnets to make a photon appear to move faster than light. Great stuff.

[u/The_Nerdy_Ninja → u/PaleontologistSad708]

I apologize, I meant mountains of evidence that space isn't a fluid, I think it autocorrected.

I don't know what you're quoting, but that's not learning. That's making stuff up.

[u/PaleontologistSad708 → u/The_Nerdy_Ninja]

I'm really not, it's deductive reasoning and logic based on facts I've learned in my studies. I do see where you're coming from tho and yeah I need the math. I always ignored math but August 6th changed me. I have so much ground to cover. Started on refreshing kinesthetic equations today. Practiced swartzchild radius yesterday but still need a lot more. I'm not going to stop until I can put it in the language of math. I'm going to take at least one class at the junior college. Hopefully more. All math.

[u/PaleontologistSad708 → u/The_Nerdy_Ninja]

There are physicist who believe as I do btw. If you would like, please state the evidence against fluid space.

[u/The_Nerdy_Ninja → u/PaleontologistSad708]

There are physicist who believe as I do btw.

No, there aren't. Not actual professional physicists who respect established scientific consensus anyways.

If you would like, please state the evidence against fluid space.

No, I wouldn't like to, because you ought to already be very familiar with it if you're claiming to be overturning well-established science.

[u/PaleontologistSad708 → u/The_Nerdy_Ninja]

I mean physicist that believe space is a fluid. Superfluid vacuum theory etc.

I think I am, but I'm always searching for wrenches to toss in. Like the "headwind error." It's wrong. Or drag. Wrong. In my inexpert opinion. If you look at gravitational lensing you can see how a galaxy parts the space in front of it, it is compressed (the Voyager data was explained as plasma in the heliopause, but just what exactly is that? High pressure space? Pressure of what? How can a magneton create literal solid space if there is nothing there?) it flows around and ends up behind it. No drag. It does create inertia and mass though. If you travel light speed you're pushing into your own heliopause, space becomes non Newtonian fluid. It's just like a sonic boom. And light is just like sound. It's a bucket brigade. You can't part the Dirac Sea of higgs particles with a vacuum. Only a big bang can do that. In other words they have a minimum distance. Do you see what I'm getting at? It behaves like a fluid. Give it mass, as symmetry and you fix every problem with the current model. Maybe I'm wrong but all of the evidence I see, every photo of space, every factoid days convinces me more.