Are you actually on HN arguing that alchemy is some kind of real thing, a skill that we lost? Different senses? Is this a joke?
My understanding of alchemy is that its practitioners tried to transmute matter from one kind to another, e.g. lead to gold, because they didn't know enough about how matter worked to know they'd always fail.
Yes It really was and is a thing. There are lots of people on Hacker News that are not in the place of dismissing things they don't understand. And yes it was a skill that was lost. The only joke is the fact that people lost touch with a lot of ancient knowledge and think everything revolves around this so called accepted "Scientific Method" belief that has dominated our world for way too long.
Being that you didn't back up your claim about alchemy with anything, I don't believe you have any idea what you're talking about. Turn off the Ancient Aliens, or whatever YouTube series has given you these ideas about lost ancient knowledge. Work on your epistemology. People will tell you literally anything sensational if it's supported by advertising and makes them a buck. All the content I've seen about ancient lost knowledge is chock full of easy to debunk claims and willful misrepresentation of what we know about ancient history. It's content that preys on the curious but uneducated.
You don't need evidence to understand something, and most importantly, I don't need to prove to you or anyone else that I have studied alchemy to understand that is a thing that most people don't really understand. Your just someone on the internet, like everyone else. Because you bought into the belief that there is only one "Scientific Method" doesn't make you special.
My understanding of alchemy is that its practitioners tried to transmute matter from one kind to another, e.g. lead to gold, because they didn't know enough about how matter worked to know they'd always fail.