'conjectures' and writing.

i feel like i spent today reading raven's bones, or shaking a bag of runes.

apart from a little writing, most of today's thinking time went to making guesses pertaining my research, and on a whim, i called some of them 'conjectures.'

i don't really know what makes a conjecture, in the same way that i don't know when a fact is a proposition or a theorem. i suppose i've never asked anyone before.

a conjecture sounds to me something deep, a really good guess based on good evidence, or one of a few possibilities which exhaust the known methods and tricks but which still eludes proof.

random guesses should not be conjectures -- not without a great deal of contemplation first.

so today, i made guesses: guesses which 'feel right,' but i cannot determine how prove them, or even how to begin to prove them.

it makes me feel like a crackpot, or less unseemly, i feel like i'm playing 'grown-up' and making 'conjectures,' pretending to do what research faculty actually do.

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this writing feels like 'pretend' as well. it began some days ago, when i felt the need to codeify the progress of my research in some final, clear form.

in the past few months i've been following several threads which are loosely related; they wind in some common directions and fray in other directions. my mind isn't very good and i cannot keep all of it straight in my head.

week after week, i make claims and form arguments of proof between mental doldrums, and they change depending on new insights or discovered errors.

the 'big picture' has never been easy for me, and complexity is not my strength. so i write and i clarify in hopes that some things become obvious,

.. much like how i keep a personal journal in order to avoid seeking a therapist .. well, among other reasons.

if i were clever enough, or if my memory were better, i wouldn't write so much and my notes wouldn't be so neat. maybe it's a crutch and does me both harm and good, or maybe it's like a prosthetic leg and lets me keep up with the herd.

i don't know. but it makes my research easier.

i have four pages of "progress" and part of a page of these guesses. i haven't done any problem-solving today, proven anything new, or exhausted a line of argument. my guesses aren't even conjectures yet.

if it weren't a weekend, it would be a waste of a workday. then again, progress is rare and most research days are days wasted.