[hexagonal]

  The first meaning: if you’ve conceived something in your 
  mind, decide to do it, and are willing to put in the work 
  – nothing can stop you.

Pfft. What if I conceive to build a perpetual motion machine, or conceive to disprove Special Relativity?

[donall]

If you conceive to build a perpetual motion machine then you will have taken the first step. The second (more difficult) step will be to conceive how a perpetual motion machine might actually work, or to come up with a plausible way of re-writing the laws of thermodynamics.

The point of the quote is not some wishy-washy "you can if you believe you can". Rather, it might be phrased better as "If you have the vision to see how something might be achieved and the drive to actually achieve it, nothing can stop you from achieving it".

[joelrunyon]

This should be at the top.

It's not about "just think and you can do it." Vision is key. If you can't conceptualize how something could possible be created, then you're not going to be able to do it, but being able to first conceive the idea takes you to the next step of actually attempting to create it.

[makomk]

Lots of people conceive of ways in which a perpetual motion machine might work - it's why so many people have tried to patent them that the US Patent Office has a specific ban on perpetual motion patents. They don't work, of course, but it tends to require a deeper level of knowlege to figure out why exactly (for instance) any of the magnetic perpetual motion machines won't work than it does to conceive them in the first place.

[donall]

I feel like we're arguing semantics at this point.

[natep]

I think this kind of snarky, rediculous pedantry is exactly one of the things that Russell Kirsch doesn't want people doing, even if you only meant it in jest.

[ChuckMcM]

When I read it I think this person might be in pain. This particular message, like "you can do anything you set your mind to" which was recently pilloried on HN [1] combines that thought with a belief in God which also gets the "you must be stupid if you believe ..." treatment.

I've observed it can be the transient signal of some deeper disappointment. Those things eat at people, and in a success focused society it can be hard if not impossible for people who have decided to measure themselves against other people's success to come to grips with that. If emotional damage had a unit of measure it would no doubt be the snark.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4320368

[lukeholder]

I really appreciate this comment.

Many times I have felt the need to write something snarky in response to an article on HN, but what it really comes back to is my own pride or sense of inadequacy.

I need to learn to be positive and less dismissive.

[StavrosK]

Hey, he never said you'll succeed, just that nothing will stop you.

[DigitalSea]

You can't succeed if you don't fail.

[ThePherocity]

That's just factually inaccurate.

[dlss]

And if you conceive to be stopped by something?

[saraid216]

That'd a fresh conception. Nothing stopping you from doing that, either.

[Selfcommit]

Then clearly, you have not conceived to do either of those things.

Or do you often just accept the concepts of others as true and therefore beyond refute?

(Really though, the flaw in your comment is that its an impossible statement. It's like asking "If God is all powerful - can he make a rock that even he cannot lift?" total nonsense.)

[ktizo]

Pfft. What if I conceive to build a perpetual motion machine, or conceive to disprove Special Relativity?

First one, liquids with zero viscosity, such as helium superfluids. - http://www.sciencemag.org/content/286/5438/213.summary

Or even 4 dimensional quantum time crystals (which surprisingly, doesn't appear to be completely mental) - http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.2539

Course, you can't take any power off them and you have to put them somewhere very very cold, but they will keep going, apparently.

As for the second, we know there are issues with the current physics and I think that might just be what stuff like CERN is for. Or to prove it really really well.