I agree that adding a tag or warning might be useful. But it’s also an option to just block it for a week or so. Like you would do if you read the webcomic directly on their website. Hope you’re doing well in any case!

Reply to self: really not that useful. That would be the same as just throwing all variables/coordinates of the solution in a set, forgetting their names and then filling them back in as some kind of madlibs experiment. And multiple solutions don’t grow with the exponent on x, that is just an odd/even thing. Don’t know shat I was thinking…

Haha I got that :) @Urist@lemmy.blahaj.zone is right, I was halfheartedly looking for a logic system in which it could make sense. Still, I would have major issues with the first step as it is shown, but I am wondering about systems where, say, each x <- {..}, then what would be the set, and the probability of the correct solution.

Something I need to be more awake for, and it may be easier to solve without resorting to powers and roots, haha.

Would it be a rabbit hole to try and find any merit in this solution when interpreting it as: “if x is in a superposition of 2 and -2, the x + 2 = x - 2 would be true in 1/4 of the observations”, or something like that?

It is the closest thing to a “solution” that I can imagine, but doesn’t fit any laws that I know of or understand, and would probably break down on any scrutiny, but it feels like something is there.