Does anyone else feel like the Cicada puzzle has effected them in anyway or feel like they’ve learned something simply by the process of attempting to solve it or even simply lurking?

My Own Thoughts Below*

Tbh I do thinking I am “intelligent” so when I first heard about the Cicada puzzle It of course caught my eye.

Yet when I found out that the puzzle clues were being solved primarily by Cryptography I was honestly a bit bothered by this because I didn’t know anything about cryptography at all.

The truth is my whole basis on me being “smart” is because that’s what I’ve been told by other people and from my experience growing up, so long as I paid attention in class I wouldn’t have much of a problem grasping what was taught in school. That said I also started rebelling at around 16 and pretty much stopped going to school so I am not a high school graduate (have a GED lol)

Regardless I still do read a lot and I admit I am no scientist or mathematician, my only accomplishments or area of expertise I consider to have to some degree (not going to claiming to be equal to any degrees) is in Java programming and Philosophy. I did learn Java programming on my own time and was able to make pretty decent Android games (though I lost interest), but ultimately I’m primarily some kind of at home philosopher with some interest in psychology/sociology. Still I am by no means a certified professional.

What I did realize is that I really don’t know if I am “intelligent” or what that is but more importantly why does it really matter. The reasons I had for wanting to solve it was to prove I was intelligent band getting a reward from it and perhaps maybe end up being part of some group of smart people who changed the world but of course that was the initial fantasy.

Point is I didn’t know cryptography and yeah maybe I could learn it (maybe not) but in the end I just didn’t want to. It still kind of bugged me because I felt I was smart in other ways and I even had taken an IQ test and was reassured by the results.

So I was pretty ecstatic when I saw that some of the questions asked by the questionnaire and some of the content of Liber Primus and perhaps the initial messages were very similar to the philosophical/existential topics I was researching myself.

At least for me what I found was of some significance, although my philosophical approach yeilded philosophical results. While I did get some positive responses, I also had people tell me Im simply wrong or perhaps stupid. In turn I began to think that these people were wrong for not at least considering my view and In my mind I thought they were stupid.

In the end none of my findings would probably help in solving Liber Primus and neither do I know cryptography or have the motivation to learn to contribute much to the remaining pages. However if it wasn’t for the work done by the cryptographers in the community It would not have been possible for me to read what is so far deciphered by Liber Primus to which I owe my philosophical findings to. I could just be a mooch in the end, but at least I’ve found some meaning to the puzzle even If I never find the solution.

So thanks 😁