[cm127]

Seriously? Bringing up a researched subject is trolling because I don't know all the answers you're postulating as if I've studied this extensively for years..?

Is this how "scientists" treat new theories? Unless they're bundled into a nice package the theory is completely untouchable?

Please don't tell me that's true because that would mean "science" is a joke. It literally means the community can't think for themselves: they need a leader to prove their understanding.

Pathetic. Call me a troll all you want, but I will never be that pathetic.

[danbruc]

Seriously? Bringing up a researched subject is trolling because I don't know all the answers you're postulating as if I've studied this extensively for years..?

I didn't call you a troll, I just considered the possibility because that would explain pretty well the way the discussion happened, but I may return to this later. And yes, I expect you to have answers. You are defending this theory, you say that this theory should be taken serious and you dismiss all the objections brought up, you better have reasons and answers to support this.

But let's back up, I will give you the benefit of doubt and assume you are not trolling and that you really can not see why this theory is nonsense. I will take the position of the author of the theory and I will try to put you in my position by making up the following scenario.

Imagine we meet for the first time and talk a bit about the internet. At some point I say that I want to explain to you how the internet works. You know, there are those trucks with wings. They are loaded with high-pitched blue bananas every time you press a key on your keyboard. Then that guy in China walks into the store for hexagonal green steel fish and...

You may never have studied computer science but you are now certainly questioning my sanity. You may yourself not exactly know how the internet works, but you are damn sure that it does not work the way I am trying to tell you. Even my sentences don't really make sense, high-pitched describes sounds and I am using it to describe a color. And blue bananas? Maybe genetic engineering, not totally impossible but as far as you know that is not a thing.

But I insist, yes, that is the way the internet works, at least consider the possibility. You may give it some more thought, maybe if we are living in a really messed up version of the matrix and the machines enjoy trolling humans, maybe in such a world the internet could work with trucks with wings. You would suggest to drive around SD cards or hard disks on those trucks, but maybe blue bananas are just fine in that world.

A fraction of a second later you are back with your thoughts in the real world, may explanation of the internet is obviously complete utter bullshit. You are not sure what makes me say what I said about the workings of internet. Am I trying to troll you? Am I insane? Am I just really dumb? Anyway, you tell me no, that is not how the internet works.

You don't provide any explanation because what I just said is so obviously wrong to everyone with the slightest knowledge about the internet, there is no point in providing an explanation. I complain, you can not just dismiss my theory of the workings of the internet without any justification.

You don't even know where to start, how do you argue against things like high-pitched blue that don't make sense to begin with? After some thought you ask me about the guy in China. What is his name? And what do I mean with China, obviously the borders of China changed throughout history? At least these are some bits of the theory one can sensibly talk about and maybe you can build from there and demonstrate to me that my theory is not self-consistent or consistent with reality.

My answer? What the heck, do your own research, why do I have to explain everything to you in detail? But about China, maybe it was a guy from Japan, I am not yet sure about that. You still don't know how I came up with this bullshit and why I am telling it to you, but you are certainly not going to stick around any longer wasting your time in a pointless discussion that leads nowhere.

That certainly is a bit exaggerated at times but really not that much. If this doesn't help you to understand why I responded in the way I did, then I don't know what will, and I kind of doubt anything will at all. And because I have to consider the possibility that you are trolling me, sitting behind your screen and having a good laugh about how you just wasted another hour of the time of some random guy on the internet, I will not continue this discussion much if any longer. I actually don't even know how to respond not knowing whether you are trolling or whether you are serious and I don't know which one would be worse.

[cm127]

Let's take a step even further back: why am I defending this theory?

I only brought up what I was reading: a new theory that challenges quantum mechanics. Why did I bring this up? To add to the discussion. The responses I got weren't rational objections: they were pathetic insults that added no scientific value.

Then you got huffy about specific variables from my rough summary, and further upset when I couldn't offer more information.

Again, I don't care about your laziness and institutionally-taught bias: that's your problem. I'm just going to point it out when you brush off theories without research because you're not doing anyone any favors. It's lazy and slightly fraudulent: you're dismissing evidence without reviewing evidence.

Look, I'll be happy to agree that this theory can use more attention to prove or disprove, but I haven't heard any rational explanation as to why it shouldn't get any attention at all.

[danbruc]

Let's take a step even further back: why am I defending this theory?

You: Have a look at this theory.

Me: That is not a theory, the author is not even using a proven methods to develop it.

ajkjk: It's not right or wrong, the text is just random gibberish, it doesn't mean anything.

You: You guys are just ignorant and lazy and don't understand things.

So you say it is a theory worth looking at, we say the text is just random gibberish without meaning. How do we decide that? I know that some online journals are using text analysis tools to tell serious articles and crackpottery apart, but I have no such tools available and I am not sure you would accept that, wouldn't you suggest that those tools are biased toward mainstream thinking and writing?

The usual way would of course be to just tell you to read that stuff and see yourself that it is gibberish, but I have to assume you already read it and that you are unable or unwilling to see that it is indeed gibberish. So I have to assume that you at least believe that you are understanding the text at least to some extend and that it makes at least some sense. How would I try to show the opposite?

I could ask you to write a short summary of the theory or of some part of it in the hope that this would force you to realize that you are unable to actually express the content of the theory, that would probably work. But looking back at the discussion I would expect you to just refuse that because it is not your responsibility, the burden should be on us to prove to you that this is not a good theory.

And here I guess we are stuck. I don't know how to prove to you that the text is random gibberish in a way that you would accept it, you are refusing to cooperate because you think the burden should be on our side. So I think we are done here, we have to agree to disagree, unless you can suggest a good method to tell real theories and random gibberish apart or unless you are willing to cooperate and want to try to write a summary or extract a concrete falsifiable idea or prediction from the text so that we can work from there.