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Post by thrillchaser on Mar 1, 2020 20:57:07 GMT -5
If my solution turns out to be correct (big IF), I could divulge home of Brown and it would still take searchers more than a year to solve the rest, and I suspect many would still never do so. wouldn't that contradict the comment forrest made that if he told you the home of brown you would go straight to it? your solution sounds wrong under those conditions |
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Post by zaphod73491 on Mar 1, 2020 21:19:03 GMT -5
If my solution turns out to be correct (big IF), I could divulge home of Brown and it would still take searchers more than a year to solve the rest, and I suspect many would still never do so. wouldn't that contradict the comment forrest made that if he told you the home of brown you would go straight to it? your solution sounds wrong under those conditions No, because that reply to Jennifer (the reporter) was not a serious one. You've watched the video haven't you? Forrest wasn't being literal. Compare these two transcripts: completely different questions, but essentially the same response to each from Forrest:
Jennifer says, "In the poem, which you say has these nine clues, there are references to water, there’s references to Brown’s house. Who’s Brown?" FF: "There’s references to wood." Jennifer: "But you didn’t answer my question. Who’s Brown?" FF, smiling: "Well, that’s for you to find … if I told you that, you’d go right to the chest!"
Now #2: 1. Richard Eeds radio show (5/29/2015):
Eeds: "Okay. Um, how much does it weigh?" FF: "The gold in the treasure chest weighs 20.2 troy pounds. And the chest weighs forty, uh, twenty-two pounds. So the whole thing, I think, is around 42 pounds. It was heavy enough that I made two trips to hide it. I took the gold in one time, and then I took the treasure chest in the second time." Eeds: "What kind of shoes? What kind of footprints did you leave? What kind of boots did you have on?" FF: "Well if I told you that, you’d go out and find it."
Obviously knowing Forrest's particular choice of footwear that day is NOT going to even reveal what state he hid the treasure, let alone the precise spot. So ... knowing how he answered this question should provide some guidance for how much stock to place in his answer to Jennifer.
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Post by davebakedpotato on Mar 2, 2020 2:09:26 GMT -5
Eeds: "What kind of shoes? What kind of footprints did you leave? What kind of boots did you have on?" FF: "Well if I told you that, you’d go out and find it"
I always wondered if he was avoiding having to say 'waders'. |
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Post by Jenny on Mar 2, 2020 10:21:30 GMT -5
wouldn't that contradict the comment forrest made that if he told you the home of brown you would go straight to it? your solution sounds wrong under those conditions No, because that reply to Jennifer (the reporter) was not a serious one. You've watched the video haven't you? Forrest wasn't being literal. Compare these two transcripts: completely different questions, but essentially the same response to each from Forrest: Jennifer says, "In the poem, which you say has these nine clues, there are references to water, there’s references to Brown’s house. Who’s Brown?" FF: "There’s references to wood." Jennifer: "But you didn’t answer my question. Who’s Brown?" FF, smiling: "Well, that’s for you to find … if I told you that, you’d go right to the chest!" Now #2: 1. Richard Eeds radio show (5/29/2015): Eeds: "Okay. Um, how much does it weigh?" FF: "The gold in the treasure chest weighs 20.2 troy pounds. And the chest weighs forty, uh, twenty-two pounds. So the whole thing, I think, is around 42 pounds. It was heavy enough that I made two trips to hide it. I took the gold in one time, and then I took the treasure chest in the second time." Eeds: "What kind of shoes? What kind of footprints did you leave? What kind of boots did you have on?" FF: "Well if I told you that, you’d go out and find it." Obviously knowing Forrest's particular choice of footwear that day is NOT going to even reveal what state he hid the treasure, let alone the precise spot. So ... knowing how he answered this question should provide some guidance for how much stock to place in his answer to Jennifer.
I'd be cautious of making such finite conclusions, Zap. I'm sure you love your 'solution' for the home of Brown, but that doesn't make it correct. Forrest seems very protective of the Home of Brown and doesn't offer much on it at all. As so with many clues, but I think Forrest could have been serious, based on the Q/A's below...one about the first few clues, and one on how other times he's been quiet about the home of Brown. You may say, well we can't base one answer by the way he answers another...... and I would agree. Which would be the same about the shoes. Sure, maybe he was joking about one, but that doesn't suggest he is joking about another just because of similar wording. In the following quote, Forrest says if you can solve the first few clues (if you think hoB is in the first few, then what you are saying about revealing the hoB seems wrong, like ThrillChaser warns against) “If the person reads the poem over and over and are able to decipher the first few clues in the poem, they can find the treasure chest. It may not be easy, but it certainly isn’t impossible. I could go right straight to it.”And then his unwillingness to offer anything...not even a joke or clever response on the hoB... dalneitzel.com/2017/02/08/forrest-gets-mail-13/We were also wondering if you could tell us anything about “The home of the Brown.
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Post by zaphod73491 on Mar 2, 2020 20:19:17 GMT -5
Jenny: as a reminder, I don't think home of Brown is a clue. I think "Put in below the home of Brown" is a clue. My contention is that knowing the identity of home of Brown does not solve that clue. It is a waypoint, nothing more (as far as I'm concerned). I believe simply identifying hoB is about as helpful as solving WWWH as far as "knowingly" solving line 8 of the poem.
I think figuring out hoB is similar to solving WWWH without the benefit of the keyword.
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Post by Jenny on Apr 3, 2020 12:20:48 GMT -5
Figuring out the home of Brown, and 'knowing it', would seem to be very helpful in solving the rest of the poem.
In the past I had felt the 'home of Brown'- could be Denver, the mile high city, and so 'put in below' was at the mile marker....
But with Forrest saying- that if he told someone the location of the home of Brown, they could go right to the treasure, it seems unlikely.
To me, if you know where the home of Brown is 'for sure', then you could find the treasure, like Forrest said.
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Post by zaphod73491 on Apr 3, 2020 17:54:36 GMT -5
Jenny: I think knowing -- truly knowing -- home of Brown would be helpful, but far from sufficient for solving the rest of the clues. All it would do is put you in the right general geographic area and keep you there, but WWWH already does that, in my opinion. So I would say knowing -- truly knowing -- Forrest's WWWH is just as helpful as knowing hoB. Yet we can't truly know either one with complete certainty, so the point would seem to be moot. Certainly having WWWH is nowhere near enough to solve even the 3rd clue, let alone the 4th through 9th.
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Post by Jenny on Apr 4, 2020 9:11:41 GMT -5
Certainly having WWWH is nowhere near enough to solve even the 3rd clue, let alone the 4th through 9th. I'm not sure I agree with that part..... if you have confirmation of WWWH, then it greatly narrows down the search area to that specific area......and evidently from statements by Forrest, even gives/confirms the canyon down because it is 'right there'. If you KNEW you had those solved, like Forrest says, you are supposed to be half way there.... metaphorically speaking......and the rest are easier. I understand there are several who have 'solved the first two clues' according to Forrest, but didn't know it. Well that's not actually 'solving it' in my opinion. Solving it to me means without a doubt. And this 'without a doubt solution' seems to have changed in Forrest's mind to 'not until the chest is in hand'. I realize you are going with the premise you have it most if not all solved ..... but you are basing your comments on 'knowing' what you might not really know..... and you are dismissing discussing other options that are legitimate possibilities because of it. Can you offer any evidence that the home of Brown is not actually the treasure location? (other than the fact your solution, with all your interpretive confirmations of that solution, just doesn't 'fit' with that idea)? There might be a quote or something out there that can..... I don't know for sure. Please know I'm not trying to be argumentative...just thinking that in this time of 'pause', other options should be discussed as if they are possible. Or why a forum? Are we all just here to say I know where it is, but you don't? My thought is let's discuss options instead of saying that's wrong because my solution is right and doesn't involve it......... if options discussed can be discounted, then maybe searchers can be more confident of current solutions (if they follow all the known facts).... ... but if they can't be discounted, then maybe one should consider those options. We each have our 'solutions'...... but that doesn't mean we shouldn't discuss legitimate options, even though we choose not to apply them. What if it is one of those options? What if we don't have it right? |
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Post by zaphod73491 on Apr 4, 2020 13:37:40 GMT -5
Hi Jenny:
"I'm not sure I agree with that part..... if you have confirmation of WWWH, then it greatly narrows down the search area to that specific area......and evidently from statements by Forrest, even gives/confirms the canyon down because it is 'right there'. If you KNEW you had those solved, like Forrest says, you are supposed to be half way there.... metaphorically speaking......and the rest are easier."
In my mind there are only two possibilities based on the Chase results to date:
1. It is possible to know with high confidence that you have the correct WWWH, but clue #3 is NOT easier than clues 1 & 2
2. It is NOT possible to know with high confidence that you have the correct WWWH
Either of these would explain why searcher collective progress was stalled at two clues for YEARS. But notice that in either case, having WWWH correct (whether you know it or not) was no slam-dunk for solving the rest. All I'm suggesting is that since this is clearly true for WWWH, I claim it is likely also true for home of Brown. If it took only a couple years for, say, a pool of 10,000 searchers to solve the first two clues, and yet hundreds of thousands of searchers have not been able to solve all the remainder in the subsequent 7-8 years, isn't that evidence enough that the clues do NOT get easier?
"I realize you are going with the premise you have it most if not all solved ..... but you are basing your comments on 'knowing' what you might not really know..... and you are dismissing discussing other options that are legitimate possibilities because of it."
I try not to let my own progress (or lack thereof) provide anything more than anecdotal evidence. Yes, my opinions about home of Brown are going to be internally biased, but when I see people making declarative statements about hoB based on the flimsiest of evidence, I feel it's appropriate to comment. The most famous example of this is the "If I told you that you'd go right to the chest" comment to Jennifer, and some searchers seem completely closed to the idea that that comment could have been sarcastic. I've produced some evidence that the statement likely WAS sarcastic (Richard Eeds show) based on an analogous answer that was more clearly absurd.
"Can you offer any evidence that the home of Brown is not actually the treasure location?"
Well, first off the top of my head is that if hoB was the treasure chest location, then the 8th line of the poem would be impossible to solve. How can you "put in below" that which you don't yet know? You would be in effect solving the clues out of order, which Forrest claims is not possible. But even more problematic is that if one believes hoB is the chest's location, then they probably are also of the opinion that Forrest's reply to Jennifer was NOT sarcastic. In which case, if you know home of Brown, why wouldn't you just go right to the chest and be done? And if you ~could~ do this, why do you need 9 clues? Seems like you're done after the first 3 or 4, depending on how you count them.
"Please know I'm not trying to be argumentative...just thinking that in this time of 'pause', other options should be discussed as if they are possible."
Ahh, but Jenny, "argumentative" is good: I mean that in the sense of "presenting arguments," not being disagreeable. ;-) And yes my "arguments" are somewhat guided by the logic that led me to my interpretation of the clues' answers, but I like to think that I can compartmentalize those solutions and critically assess other ideas based only upon the poem, deductive reasoning, and the wealth of additional statements and writings that Forrest has provided since publishing TTOTC. For instance, I've tried to do that here w.r.t. home of Brown, quite independent of my own solution.
So let me propose a counter question to explore your hypothesis: If home of Brown is the location of the treasure chest, and the clues must be solved in order ("there is no other way"), then why does home of Brown show up just three lines after the first clue in the poem? Your answer will help steer the conversation in a more productive direction, rather than me trying to guess what you (or others) are thinking.
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Post by Jenny on Apr 4, 2020 16:51:49 GMT -5
In my mind there are only two possibilities based on the Chase results to date:
1. It is possible to know with high confidence that you have the correct WWWH, but clue #3 is NOT easier than clues 1 & 2
2. It is NOT possible to know with high confidence that you have the correct WWWH
Forrest has said: They get progressively easier after you discover where the first clue is. So it would seem it should be your #2 reason that searchers aren’t moving past the first two clues.
Either of these would explain why searcher collective progress was stalled at two clues for YEARS. But notice that in either case, having WWWH correct (whether you know it or not) was no slam-dunk for solving the rest. All I'm suggesting is that since this is clearly true for WWWH, I claim it is likely also true for home of Brown. If it took only a couple years for, say, a pool of 10,000 searchers to solve the first two clues, and yet hundreds of thousands of searchers have not been able to solve all the remainder in the subsequent 7-8 years, isn't that evidence enough that the clues do NOT get easier?
No, I think you are missing the ‘option’ I’m trying to suggest. Most feel they NEED to find/know what the home of Brown is at this point.
What if…. They don’t. Maybe that is why those who solved the first two clues didn't go further. They were looking for a home of Brown, or a put in based on that, and there isn't a home of Brown to find/know precisely at this point of the poem.
That could be the issue no one has moved on because they are reading the poem incorrectly. Not because the clues are more difficult to solve. (more on this later)
"I realize you are going with the premise you have it most if not all solved ..... but you are basing your comments on 'knowing' what you might not really know..... and you are dismissing discussing other options that are legitimate possibilities because of it."
I try not to let my own progress (or lack thereof) provide anything more than anecdotal evidence. Yes, my opinions about home of Brown are going to be internally biased, but when I see people making declarative statements about hoB based on the flimsiest of evidence, I feel it's appropriate to comment. The most famous example of this is the "If I told you that you'd go right to the chest" comment to Jennifer, and some searchers seem completely closed to the idea that that comment could have been sarcastic. I've produced some evidence that the statement likely WAS sarcastic (Richard Eeds show) based on an analogous answer that was more clearly absurd.
The evidence is extremely weak to me, and is basically just an opinion to support your belief he was being sarcastic. Maybe he was being sarcastic, but ‘he might not have been’. When you say so confidently, ‘he’s being sarcastic’, it seems you are dismissing the alternative, which remains a real possibility.
"Can you offer any evidence that the home of Brown is not actually the treasure location?"
Well, first off the top of my head is that if hoB was the treasure chest location, then the 8th line of the poem would be impossible to solve. How can you "put in below" that which you don't yet know? You would be in effect solving the clues out of order, which Forrest claims is not possible. But even more problematic is that if one believes hoB is the chest's location, then they probably are also of the opinion that Forrest's reply to Jennifer was NOT sarcastic. In which case, if you know home of Brown, why wouldn't you just go right to the chest and be done? And if you ~could~ do this, why do you need 9 clues? Seems like you're done after the first 3 or 4, depending on how you count them.
Not at all true.
Where you ‘put in’ could be known by ‘not far but too far to walk’, and this is ‘below the home of Brown’ of which is the treasure site. To which we are being told is ‘above’ where we put in (based on the previous clues direction). Do we have to ‘know exactly what the home of Brown is at this point of time to do this?’ No. But….we did solve it as the twist of the poem and know it is the place we need to go to; we just haven’t traveled there yet.
Forrest has said the little girl from India can solve the first two clues- and yet not be on location. So solving, in Forrest's mind, has nothing to do with physically being there.
We would be solving the clues in order. It’s just the home of Brown is more of a foreshadowing of what will become known. Maybe part of the mysterious story only the finder will discover. We have solved it to be the treasure location, and once there it will help us recognize it as such.
"Please know I'm not trying to be argumentative...just thinking that in this time of 'pause', other options should be discussed as if they are possible."
Ahh, but Jenny, "argumentative" is good: I mean that in the sense of "presenting arguments," not being disagreeable. ;-) And yes my "arguments" are somewhat guided by the logic that led me to my interpretation of the clues' answers, but I like to think that I can compartmentalize those solutions and critically assess other ideas based only upon the poem, deductive reasoning, and the wealth of additional statements and writings that Forrest has provided since publishing TTOTC. For instance, I've tried to do that here w.r.t. home of Brown, quite independent of my own solution.
So let me propose a counter question to explore your hypothesis: If home of Brown is the location of the treasure chest, and the clues must be solved in order ("there is no other way"), then why does home of Brown show up just three lines after the first clue in the poem? Your answer will help steer the conversation in a more productive direction, rather than me trying to guess what you (or others) are thinking.
Thanks Zap.... appreciate the discussion. To me, it is still an option the home of Brown is the location of the Chest, from the perspectives given. Is it correct? I don't know, but so far there isn't anything saying it isn't a possibility.
Matter of fact, I think it is becoming more likely. OR at least as good as any other path towards a solution. It does offer a reason for why searchers haven't moved on...they might be reading the poem incorrectly.
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Post by Jenny on Apr 4, 2020 17:02:43 GMT -5
(and I should add... my current home of Brown 'solution' is not the treasure location....) But I wonder if it should be....
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Post by seannm on Apr 4, 2020 18:45:46 GMT -5
All,
If you compare the following three mentions from Forrest it might paint an interesting canvas:
The Jennifer London video mention from Forrest about the home of Brown and if told her that she would go right to the treasure.
The TFTW book signing video where Forrest has said that if one could decipher the first few clues they could find the treasure, it may not be easy but it certainly isn’t impossible.
And the Columbia podcast audio where Forrest reads the first two stanzas and says that that is the first few lines and first few clues in his poem.
What all of these then possibly point to is that the first few clues may end at Brown and that if one could figure those first few clues out the could find they treasure.
Just my opinion.
Seannm
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Post by goldilocks on Apr 4, 2020 19:10:24 GMT -5
All, If you compare the following three mentions from Forrest it might paint an interesting canvas: The Jennifer London video mention from Forrest about the home of Brown and if told her that she would go right to the treasure. The TFTW book signing video where Forrest has said that if one could decipher the first few clues they could find the treasure, it may not be easy but it certainly isn’t impossible. And the Columbia podcast audio where Forrest reads the first two stanzas and says that that is the first few lines and first few clues in his poem. What all of these then possibly point to is that the first few clues may end at Brown and that if one could figure those first few clues out the could find they treasure. Just my opinion. Seannm But some HAVE mentioned/figured the first few clues and still no treasure... |
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Post by seannm on Apr 4, 2020 19:32:09 GMT -5
All, If you compare the following three mentions from Forrest it might paint an interesting canvas: The Jennifer London video mention from Forrest about the home of Brown and if told her that she would go right to the treasure. The TFTW book signing video where Forrest has said that if one could decipher the first few clues they could find the treasure, it may not be easy but it certainly isn’t impossible. And the Columbia podcast audio where Forrest reads the first two stanzas and says that that is the first few lines and first few clues in his poem. What all of these then possibly point to is that the first few clues may end at Brown and that if one could figure those first few clues out the could find they treasure. Just my opinion. Seannm But some HAVE mentioned/figured the first few clues and still no treasure... Goldi, Per Forrest’s known public comments, no one has knowingly correctly solved any of the clues in the poem. Some may have mentioned or arrived at the first two clues, but as Forrest has said they didn’t know it, even those that may have solved the first four, because they arrived within 200 feet of the treasure, Forrest admits that even he is uncertain that they even knew it. Seannm |
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Post by zaphod73491 on Apr 4, 2020 22:45:35 GMT -5
Hi Jenny: okay, now we're getting somewhere! But let me respond to your points in order...
"Forrest has said: They get progressively easier after you discover where the first clue is. So it would seem it should be your #2 reason that searchers aren’t moving past the first two clues."
Forrest has indeed said that, but you're a puzzle-designer. You know that what you think is easy can be extraordinarily hard for the would-be solver, and similarly things that you think are difficult may be more trivial than you might guess. As far as I know, Forrest has never designed a puzzle of this kind before, nor did he confide in anyone else in order to independently assess its solvability. So his assumptions about the relative difficulties of the clues may not be valid. The fact is, he doesn't know. Or more accurately, he can't know.
I think people expend a lot of energy pondering the semantics of "knowing" the answer to a clue vs. having a preponderance of evidence that supports a particular clue's solution. It's like establishing guilt or innocence in a jury trial. The jurors don't KNOW that someone is 100% guilty -- they weren't eyewitnesses. They reach a verdict based on witness testimony and other evidence presented, but always leaving some sliver of doubt, however small. As searchers, we're in the same boat. If a searcher won't put BOTG without "certainty" of at least the starting location, they will never put BOTG because that certainty can never come. So I don't think we should be concerned whether the early two-clue solvers KNEW they had solved them, because of course they didn't. But they were confident enough to make the trip, so I think it's unrealistic to believe they all simply got lucky. I'm confident at least some of them were there by design and very sure of themselves.
Regarding the Jennifer comment, I concede there is a chance he was being serious, or at least semi-serious. But in my triaging of his hundreds of statements, and comparing his answers to similar questions, I choose to allow this one to fall into the "not serious" basket. So I counter that searchers *depending* on the statement to be factual is potentially far more dangerous and limiting than simply ignoring it.
Now, to the meat of our exchange. It was not clear to me until your most recent message that you were considering the possibility that the mention of home of Brown in line 8 of the poem was possibly *foreshadowing* of things to come. THAT is perfectly acceptable in my mind, in which case your home of Brown is not clue #3 (or clue #4) at all, and therefore proper execution of "Put in below the home of Brown" (i.e. "put in below the treasure location") would be entirely dependent on correctly solving WWWH, canyon down, and NF, BTFTW. And with that, I happen to 100% agree. In essence, we would both be in the same camp that "home of Brown" is basically useless for solving the "put in" line -- just for different reasons. And I also agree that under those circumstances, the only thing you learn from line 8 w.r.t. hoB or the treasure location is that it is "above" wherever you put in.
The funny thing is, with my solution I have no issue at all with "home of Brown" being the treasure location, just so long as it isn't counted as a clue.
"Forrest has said the little girl from India can solve the first two clues- and yet not be on location."
I realize you're paraphrasing, but just a reminder that Forrest has never said she could solve those first two clues. Personally, I think absolutely she can (assuming we're using the definition of "solve" that means "reach a verdict" per my jury example, not "solve" as in "know with certainty"), but Forrest hasn't directly opined on that.
It seems you share my view that solving "Not far, but too far to walk" is essential to success. My theory is that Forrest thought that if a searcher was in the right location having solved the first 2 clues, it would not be too difficult to figure out what he was doing with #3. I think that was his biggest miscalculation -- that clue may seem pretty obvious to him (just as it seems obvious to me), but it really depends on thinking the right thoughts if the answer is what I think it is.
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