Discuss The Creator here

[Tahnan]

This isn't actually solveable, is it. I mean, I believe that there's an answer, but I'd bet there's no way for a solver to get from where we are now to that answer.

[Ctorj]

I agree with the Dred Pirate Wesley (Iokane powder! ). I've actually never heard of the Scarlet Thread and now you got me interested. I wonder if jesus_saves has anything to add to this.

I think the answer may actually have something to do with the creation of the planet by the ages. (i.e. Bronze Age, Silver Age, etc.) The Bible answers just don't seem to fit no matter how many ways I try to make them work.

I think we need some massive hints or the answer needs to be revealed. Either way, there hasn't been an update since May 28 and its almost a month. Where are you MatthewV??
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[MatthewV]

I've been traveling since the first Friday of June.

In all honesty, I think this one will be solved by the right person. I would never be able to understand it very well myself.

Let me just say 'The Creator" is a real person who created the work.

[Tahnan]

[Samadhi]

The "right person" is a larger group than that, and includes many on this site.

[Ctorj]

All of a sudden, this puzzle went from possible theology to the Arts. Perhaps an artist drew this some time ago and this is the modern representation of it? It doesn't look like a Van Gogh or anything popular to me, but what do I know? I took one art class in college and that was it. Perhaps a google search on the symbols and artists will reveal more? I'm too lazy to do this right now. Perhaps the right person is someone "artsy"? In that case, I'll sit on the bench for this one.
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[No-body]

Or maybe "The Creator" refers to an author?

[Tahnan]

A week later, I don't feel much reassured about its solveability.

[Logain]

[3iff]

I agree...I can't solve it and ideas seem to have dried up. I feel we need at least another clue or hint. Something to make us look in the right direction...

[Turtle*]

I think I see something...maybe

[Protected]

You people seem to be having fun (... not)

I came here to give a hint, but it seems like Matthew already gave one:

* Let me just say 'The Creator" is a real person who created the work.

That said, I would also like to point out what Matthew wrote in his front page announcement, when the puzzle was added:

* That there are no hints for this puzzle, meaning the poem in the flavortext is irrelevant.

Some more information:

* It is true that this puzzle may not be solvable to everyone. However, (Hint - big spoiler) there are many hints in the diagram that may lead you to the solution, even if you have to do a little research first. Look at the diagram and dig it out of your mind. What does it make you think of?

* So far, some of you went too deep, others not deep enough. For what I mean some of you are thinking too much, or concentrating too much in a single aspect of the diagram. Many things written so far are true. It surprised me how fast some conclusions came out.

* (What the answer is not) It has nothing to do with Dr. Who or the Bible. The Creator is not God, as in the God of the Bible, or Jesus, or the Holy Spirit or anything like that. And I don't know anything about Dr. Who ~_~

I hope this will make it a little less hard. I apologize for overestimating you people. I promise that if I ever make another puzzle, I'll try to make it so the answer can be gradually discovered.

[3iff]

Well, despite the comments (hints/guidance) the diagram doesn't suggest anything to me.

It's full of detail and I would have expected the detail to be important. There are subtleties of some symbols being different and the connecting lines 'adding up', as previously discussed.

I still can't decide whether the answer is extremely obvious or extremely obscure. As I still have no idea what the answer might be, I have to go with the latter option.

[Foggy]

Some additional thoughts

The diagram does suggest five works that surround a larger work, and that the symbols are perhaps characters in the books.

Gulliver's Travels only had three lands/one books.
JRR Tollkein seemed like a better choice, but I can't find any justification that works (how many rings were there given out? It wasn't 26, right?)
Wizard of Oz has too many books/lands.

If the center represents the author, then perhaps the similarly colored circle in the upper left might represent an autobiographical work. Again, nothing really comes to mind.

Protected refers to it as "the work" which to me suggests that perhaps it's not a book, or series of book. It also suggests that it might be a painting of some sort.

We were told earlier that the relation of the symbols/colors is important, as opposed to the actual colors themselves. The problem is though that the colors shown don't really relate (one isn't lighter than another, for example). Dark blue does suggest water, green forest, and brown earth, but what would the other two be?

There are one or two lines missing from the top circle.

Protected, help us narrow this down: are we dealing with a book?
Are we dealing with a painting?
Are we dealing with a TV series? (I'd hate to think this is Star Trek)

[Tony Gardner]

[Tahnan]

[Wrongway]

A couple more thoughts, some new some old:

We know the Creator is a person. Maybe then this represents that person's entire body of work, not just a specific work or world. In that case, we're looking for someone who created 33 (or 26) plays, or albums, or books, or some other kind of work. The red lines, as previously said, help determine the order in which they were created, and the six circles are some category that each piece falls into. Eg, if it were Shakespeare each item would be a play and the circles would represent tragedies, comedies, etc. Can't figure out anything that quite fits, though.

I especially like the idea of it being a musician or composer of some sort, because the center circles look a lot like a CD to me.

[Ctorj]

Maybe it's the works of someone who has done a lot of different kinds of music like Billy Idol or Barry Manilow??? (I gots nothin)
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[Ctorj]

Another thought...Michael Jackson? (He's got a lot of family, lots of music in different time periods and stuff.
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[DropOfaHat]

OK, i think there was a hidden clue in the phrase "dig it out of your mind". Perhaps it has something to do with archeology? There are quite a few PYRAMIDS among the symbols, and some of the others look like buildings, don't they? Maybe it's a history of architecture? And it all stems from one original source, like Atlantis or something.

OOPS, NEVER MIND - "CREATOR" IS A REAL PERSON...

Charles Darwin? Theory of natural selection in diagram form, perhaps?

Leonardo Da Vinci? Sorry, I have nothing to back up that guess with...

[DropOfaHat]

Charles Darwin? Theory of natural selection in diagram form, perhaps?

[Protected]

Tahnan, no one is forcing you to solve this. It's not like your life depends on it. I hope. So if you're not happy, go and do something better with your time. I only made this for fun, in a couple of lunch times at the university, and it is my first puzzle, so it is natural for it to have (many) imperfections.

* There was information in your quote, because (repeated hint) even though you did tell what the diagram reminds you of, you're thinking of it too much like a diagram. Both of those two points you quoted are related: You look too deeply at it. Begin with the whole, and look at the details afterwards.

* I wanted to give you all some more weeks, but if you insist... (new hint) almost everything wrongway wrote is correct.

[DropOfaHat]

Maybe we're talking about someone like Norman Lear, or Gary Marshall, who each created (and/or executive produced) quite a number of TV shows. (More candidates: Stephen Bochco, Stephen J. Cannell); or maybe it's a movie Director/Producer, like Spielberg or Lucas.

(Another silly thought that occurred to me, I'll probably delete it when it turns out to be wrong - the puzzle, if you only look at the center circle and any two outer circles, looks a little like... Mickey Mouse. Maybe it's Walt Disney? Naah.)

[Logain]

Protected, don't take any bad criticism from Tahnan too hard. No one likes hearing about their puzzles' deficiencies, but if you hope to learn and improve on things for the next puzzle you create, it'll only help in the long run.

I can't count the number of bad feedback posts from Tahnan and Dave10K I've gotten over time (that I also let get to me and my ego, lol) before tweaking future puzzles enough to hopefully satisfy the majority

[Logain]

It could represent The Eagles. Each outer circle representing a singer who went solo and produced studio albums, while the center represent group albums. Albums wouldn't include greatest hits, and possibly live albums.

[Foggy]

It's not Vivaldi's Four Seasons, is it?

[sergio_27]

26 tracks on the Beatles "Red Album".
6 Star Wars episodes.

[No-body]

Maybe it has to do with a series of books?

[DropOfaHat]

Anybody else bored with this guessing game, since we don't seem to be getting anywhere?

Before we give up - I still say there was a clue of some kind when Protected said to "dig it out of your mind" - that's such an odd choice of words, it has to mean something (who uses that kind of phrase??). Maybe "dig it" means "digit" - there are five fingers on a hand, after all. Where to go from there? I have no idea. You use a digit for hitch-hiking - Douglas Adams, maybe? Five books in the Hitch-Hiker's Guide "trilogy". There was some time-travelling back and forth among the books.... I have no more.


And by the way, Protected, I don't think you over-estimated us; I think you underestimated the difficulty/obscurity of your diagram/puzzle. And as far as having to do "research" goes - ok, fine, but how can we do research when we have NO IDEA what or whom (or even what field) to look up? I don't mean to knock you or your puzzle, really, but when you start with the person (whoever it is), it must be easy to see how this diagram (I know, stop thinking of it as a diagram...) fits that person perfectly, but from our perspective, without any hints as to what field this person is in, it does seem more like a guessing game than a mental exercise.

[warpdragon]

dig it out of your mind
digit out of your mind
finger out of your mind
mind's hand
psychic abilities?

Who was that psychic that used to have the commercials on tv? What was her phone number?

[jja]

It seems that a Bulgarian discussion forum has picked this up:

http://www.setcom.bg/news/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=21956

I can't read it; perhaps someone here can tell if they're making any better progress than we are...
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"Sancte," inquit, "quare, quaeso, rapis arborem festam?"

[Tahnan]

[mikeamok]

i'm pretty sure i've got it, although i'm not familiar with the subject. spoiler ahead:

the diagram represents Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of novels. i haven't read any of them (yet), so i can't explain all the details.

according to the Wikipedia article, "The novels can be grouped into several story 'arcs', with characters or themes in common". so each circle represents an arc, starting at the top and going clockwise: Rincewind, The Witches, Death, The City Watch, and Tiffany Aching; the center circle is Miscellaneous. each individual symbol represents a book, with 33 books total published so far. you can follow the red lines in the order the books were published, i think.

so there you go.

[Tahnan]

Good heavens. OK, I think Mikeamok is right--and I'd love to know how he got to the answer.

Incidentally, I am familiar with the subject matter. And I still feel not at all bad about not being able to solve it; it still looks more like a guessing game than anything else.

I suppose: what real information is there to go on here? In retrospect, we have: 33 of something: triangles that represent wizard hats and witches hats, though they could be anything else; gray things that are skulls, but which I thought were robots...I'm not even sure what the other symbols represent. There's the finer points of the symbols--two of the skulls have purple bottoms (Mort? Death-as-human?), but, again, these things are only useful in retrospect.

There's the red lines that give us the order of the books--but not very clearly. since we don't know which line to follow when. Heck, even knowing now what it's about, all I can see is "there are three Death books that come either right before or right after a Watch book"; that's not especially useful at all. (Come to think of it, weren't the first two books Rincewind books? Is there anything that indicates "stay on this disc"?)

There's also the fact that there are six sets; since one is "other", that's not very helpful.

I think in addition to knowing how Mikeamok got the answer, I'd be interested in knowing how the author of the puzzle imagined the solution process would run.

[mikeamok]

when i considered "could it be a series of 30-some books?", Discworld came to mind pretty quickly and seemed fitting considering that it would be something popular among GLers (from Samadhi's "many on this site" statement). that's it, i guess. i happened to hit upon the right thought.

i mean, i'm not completely unfamiliar. i've heard a good deal about it, from, you know, people.

[Guest]

[DropOfaHat]

Oops, sorry, that's me above, I wasn't signed in, it came up as "Guest", and now I can't delete it...

Tahnan wrote:

[superbrainer88]

I don't know anything about the Discworld but I thought about the earilier posts from Protected. probably "Look at the diagram and dig it out of your mind" means ONLY look at the diagram and digits are not so important? (like 33, 26)

[Foggy]

I imagine Protected probably thought, hey big discs, must be Discworld. If the red lines represent publishing order, and the Wikipedia article is correct, then the red lines near the end fall apart, and there's one extra miscellaneous book, and one too many Tiffany Aching books. The rest seem to bear out however.

That having been said, I don't think this would have been impossible had the cluing been better. A lot of the puzzle aspects are confirmatory aspects...that is, once you know it's Discworld, you can go back and confirm what the different elements. But other than large circles for the groups, there's really nothing here to lead you to the Discworld series, or even that it's literature as opposed to say songs, movies, or something else altogether.

[DropOfaHat]

Just for kicks, I decided to try to retro-actively solve this puzzle, to see how one could possibly arrive at the answer, without prior specific knowledge of Discworld. (Heck, even those WITH knowledge, like Tahnan, had a hard time!!) But anyway...

We guessed it might be a series of books, so I tried a Google search of the phrase "33 books". (I did something like this earlier, before it was solved, but I don't remember if I hit the eventual answer - if i did at the time it didn't help.)

Of course, "26 books" could have been just as valid a search, but it would yield nothing helpful; neither would a search for any other type of creation (artistic or otherwise), since we really didn't know what field we were looking for - but that comes with the territory, wrong guesses lead, at first, to wrong answers. But one would hope that eliminating wrong answers might eventually point in the right general direction - although, of course, with a diagram puzzle, one doesn't know one is wrong until AFTER a lot of footwork has been done trying to fit the parameters. But that also comes with the territory...

Anyway, guess what? A search for "33 books" yielded NOTHING! Not one hit on the author's name or the name of the series!! Not ONE!!
Which means that you would just have to KNOW that that's how many books were in the series to even have a STARTING point (i.e., even the fact that this series had that many books was not particularly common knowledge).
Just to be fair, I also included the word "disc" in the search, because, hey, those shapes were there, it might mean something. Admittedly, there was ONE hit about 4 pages in (that hit was Discworld monthly, the only people who seem to know that there were 33 books) - so I suppose, once I eliminated the other 4 pages of "books with 33 in a series", I might have stumbled on it. But still, it really leaves a non-Discworld-er completely in the dark. But we knew that already...

What's my point? I don't know. I mean, I don't mind difficult puzzles; I envy members of this site who can figure them out before I can, and the answer is usually pretty satisfying. But this time - even those who did or could have solved it seemed pretty unsatisfied with the result.

I certainly don't want warnings posted on puzzles saying that "This Puzzle is Only for Those With Certain Specific Knowledge", but a few more clues might have helped, at least here on the boards...