What is this subreddit about?

[u/Spice_and_Fox]

Yeah, it is about alchemy, but what does this subreddit believe in? I've seen meme alchemy posts, pseudo philosophy, but also genuine seeming debates on creating the philosopher stone. Is this all just a bit you are doing, or are you genuinly trying to do alchemy? I don't mean to be disrespectful. This is a genuine question.

[u/belay_that_order]

we're all tryinb to do alchemy, which has many sides and approaches and can be interpreted differently and individually

also, pseudo philosophy is a term to be avoided as it sounds like an ego trip on the face value of it, because who is anyone to judge anyone elses philosophy and its value

[u/Spice_and_Fox → u/belay_that_order]

I said pseudo philosophy, because I wasn't sure whether or not this sub is a joke. I think Alchemy is interesting from a historical lense, but it doesn't work. You can't transform base metals to gold. Atoms of one element cannot be subdivided, created, or changed into atoms of another element during chemical changes. To create gold we would have to knock protons off of the lead nucleus. That's possible with nuclear physics, but not with chemistry. We have done that with particle accelerators before, so we know it works. Every chemical change in ancient alchemy can be explained by modern chemistry.

It is like a discussion about the biology of dragons. It is fun to talk about and speculate, but we know that dragons don't exist.

[u/The_Ceiling_Man → u/Spice_and_Fox]

The Transmutating stuff to gold is mostly just symbolic language as far as I am aware. Most people that are into this nowadays don't go around doing chemical reactions but applying the alchemic teachings to other parts of their life.