THE HINTS- VITAL TO SUCCESS

[fundamental design]

Yep, I had another episode over on Dal’s which I thought might as well explain here, lol.

So, the discussion was about if the first stanza in the poem includes hidden and critical information to help solve for the first clue or clues in general...depending on your solve. Shocker, I was of the opinion that the first stanza has a hint that helps solve for the correct wwwh. Some others were saying to me why do you discredit that f just talked about the Chase in a straightforward fashion in that stanza and there’s nothing more to it. To them, the first stanza is nothing but an introduction to the Chase/poem. I was like, I never said that f didn’t write it as an introduction but tell me how come you discredit that there could be something more important lurking in there too.

I woke up this morning with this gem, lol...

Hello Forrest,

If in 500 years all a person has is the poem, and no back story: they don’t know “in the rocky mountains north of santa fe” or that there are 9 clues etc. Could a person reasonably just use the words in the poem and find your treasure chest?

Thank you ~Nope
Thank you Nope. Nope. f

F can take this hypothetical scenario and make sure the poem matches the questions’ conditions and then answer. The conditions say no backstory. The searchers who say stanza one is nothing but an introduction or it only talks in detail about f hiding the tc before the Chase started are equating that to some of the backstory of the Chase.

This means that their theory of it’s only part of the backstory dooms them when f answers nope since f had to eliminate all the backstory from his reply. By happenstance, f just also eliminated any potential hint/critical information in that stanza that anyone can use. Remember, the last part of the question is they can only use the rest of the words in the poem. Since f replies that a person can’t reasonably use the rest of the words in the poem to find the tc then, of course, there’s something in stanza 1 that is critical to figure out, like a hint. Because before f has said the (whole) poem is enough to find the tc.

I'm not sure I like this line of reasoning, if I've understood you. You're saying that if the first stanza doesn't contain clues then it is "backstory" and would be ruled out by the conditions of the question? I think "poem" includes all 24 lines no matter if they are clue/hint/or whatever.

That being said, I personally agree with you that there is a clue or so in the first stanza but I don't quite know how to get there, given Forrest's statement that "Begin it where warm waters halt" is the first clue.

His statement about "contiguous" was not about the ordering of the clues. It was about the process of writing the poem and how that resulted in nine clues. In other statements he's said words to the effect that you have to follow the clues consecutively and/or in the right order. That would seem fairly obvious. The question then as to what constitutes the right order becomes important. If "BIWWWH" is the first clue, then what loops you back to the first stanza?

I was more saying that I think the first stanza has a hint in it. The other camp was saying the first stanza just has backstory info in it and nothing else. So my reply to them essentially was why couldn’t f have hidden an important hint in the backstory of stanza one. That’s basically hiding critical information in plain sight and undercover at the same time.

I don’t think there’s a clue in stanza one. I think f defined clues and hints as two separate things. I do realize that he has intermingled the two terms occasionally but I think his later statements on that have separated the two terms by way of f’s definitions for them.

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Hello Forrest,

If in 500 years all a person has is the poem, and no back story: they don’t know “in the rocky mountains north of santa fe” or that there are 9 clues etc. Could a person reasonably just use the words in the poem and find your treasure chest?

Thank you ~Nope
Thank you Nope. Nope. f

Again I agree regarding stanza on containing hints. I am not sure that the questions and answer for FF make this premise definitive. For example, if a similar question were asked of the writer of the Twelve Days of Christmas: Without knowing anything other than the words to the song could someone two hundred years in the future figure out the hidden meanings you placed in the verses? The only correct answer is no. At the very least the future person would have to know that there is hidden meaning. They would also need to know who wrote it.... The way the question was asked of FF he could only answer no. If his poem were published 500 years in the future without any back story, meaning that the reader was not told he buried a treasure box, they would not be able to guess because the poem dosen't say it. Even if they thought it did refer to a hidden treasure without reference to the Rocky Mountains etc. it would not be reasonable for the reader to have any chance of figuring out the clues...

So in the end I think the best logic for determining that stanza one contains hints is that without them you can never be certain of WWWH and without that you have nothing....you just can't jump to HOB... If it is solvable with the poem and a good map then the hint that designates WWWH must be in the poem itself.

You still need to reconcile that with f’s answer to this question... Will the (whole) poem lead you to the treasure? Yes, if you know where to start.

Which is what f always hinges what the focus should be on when asked. You got to nail down the first clue, biggest mistake is not spending enough time on the first clue, Canasta. I don’t have all the quotes handy right now about that.

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The easy way to look at it is to see that the only difference that f has had to deal with between the two questions is to remove any backstory from the poem for his nope reply. And that only difference has made the poem, that was once sovable and able to lead one to the tc, now unreasonable to just use the words in the poem and find the treasure chest. I’d say that’s proof that the first stanza has a hint in it.