USA Quantum Law Challenge

[BenRayfield]

Similar to how James Randi, years ago, offered some of his money to anyone who could prove paranormal things existed (still an unclaimed prize, and much bigger than it started), I will create the "USA Quantum Law Challenge" with some of my money... (after I choose the details of the offer and figure out how the legal parts of that would work)

I predict that other people will eventually donate money to this fund in a similar way James Randi's fund increased from 1000 dollars to a million dollars.

The following is one of my many ideas for how this would work and how somebody would win the money in the "USA Quantum Law Challenge". I'm not making an offer yet. The following is an example:



The first person to choose a specific time during the next week, and prove, accurate to the standards of science, that the quantity of laws in USA is an odd number, will receive the money, and the same offer is made for proving the quantity of laws in USA is an even number.




Why would I offer money for proving that?

Because my theory is that nobody knows, and if anybody proved it and we started to know how many laws there were in USA (just the last base-2 digit), then the USA government would have to become extremely more self-consistent and logical before it could be counted.

I predict that the first time this money is won (by anyone), many of Earth's big problems will quickly be solved after that, simply by proving its "even" or "odd" at any arbitrary instant in time in the future. I say that 1 qubit of information is in quantum superposition, and the entire Earth is multiverse-branched like Schroedinger's-cat, and whoever is the first to prove its not (by proving "even" or "odd" just once) wins the money. Its as simple as counting then seeing if its divisible by 2.

To everyone, would you donate money to this fund (which would be won by the first person to prove "even" or "odd")?


Or, I may add a few more rules to this "USA Quantum Law Challenge". I'll have to think about the most effective way to do it. I'm also thinking about varying certain amounts based on an exponentially increasing number, increasing as a function of time, or something like gambling with those numbers. Theres many ways to do this.


I'm not going to write it this way in the official version, but you could say I'm going to offer an increasing money prize to someone who can quantum-collapse the wavefunction of that 1 qubit (number of laws is even or odd at any 1 time in the near future).
:boxedin::boxedin:

[psychictv]

So your point is....? Laws change faster than we can count them? So what? The same can be said of the population for example. What's your point?

[BenRayfield]

My point is that "Laws change faster than we can count them" is true now and will soon stop being true because of a small amount of money I'll attach to a qubit.

That qubit is "even" or "odd" number of laws in USA.

The greed of the system can not resist. A small amount of money has an exponentially large effect.

[Dancing David]

Now what is your defintion of law?

There is legislation, and that includes many layers and levels of government.

So what defintions, and what levels of government?

Will you count city ordinances? How abaout townships and counties or neighborhood covenants?

[KoihimeNakamura]

Or judical rulings which are also laws (go common law systems!)

[Careyp74]

can I have the money by simply proving that Schroedinger's-cat isn't multiverse-branched?

[leftysergeant]

can I have the money by simply proving that Schroedinger's-cat isn't multiverse-branched?

You're cheating. We all know that Schroedinger's cat is dead.

[drkitten]

My point is that "Laws change faster than we can count them" is true now and will soon stop being true because of a small amount of money I'll attach to a qubit.

Why would it stop being true?

Why should I as a member of the Springfield City Council refrain from passing a law that my constituents badly need/want just because it will prevent some yahoo four states over from being able to properly count the number of laws in the USA?

The analogy of the number of people in the world is quite apt. Your desire for a million dollars will not prevent some woman in India from giving birth.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Or judical rulings which are also laws (go common law systems!)

And case law would be very difficult to quantify. One case might have more than one finding that can be treated as law in a new case. Also, with case law, depending on what level the precedent decision was made and how similar the facts are to another case, whether it applies (as law) isn't an all-or-nothing question. Same with dicta.

Other case law--landmark decisions in particular--are almost indistinguishable from statutory law.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Why would it stop being true?

Why should I as a member of the Springfield City Council refrain from passing a law that my constituents badly need/want just because it will prevent some yahoo four states over from being able to properly count the number of laws in the USA?

The analogy of the number of people in the world is quite apt. Your desire for a million dollars will not prevent some woman in India from giving birth.

For that matter, let's assume BenRayfield can collect a million dollars (though I doubt he'll collect anything) for this project.

Why would an entity like the U.S. Congress considering a budget bill (isn't that law? and how do you count it? each line item?) worth hundreds of billions (or trillions) of dollars pay the slightest attention to a million dollar consequence?

[Careyp74]

You're cheating. We all know that Schroedinger's cat is dead.

no, it is dead AND alive. Well, by now it is probably just dead :)

[Meadmaker]

no, it is dead AND alive. Well, by now it is probably just dead :)

I was very impressed that my 10 year old son, on hearing what the Schroedinger's Cat thought experiment was all about, asked, "So that means that as more time passes, the cat grows 'more dead'?"

As for the number of laws, it is 50% even and 50% odd. I want the prize money.

[BenRayfield]

Dancing David said:
Now what is your defintion of law?

There is legislation, and that includes many layers and levels of government.

So what defintions, and what levels of government?

Will you count city ordinances? How abaout townships and counties or neighborhood
covenants?

I havent decided how to handle that problem, but a possible solution is to have a separate money
prize for each kind of law, and make sure each definition of law can not be misinterpreted.

Example categories of law:

* Laws the president of USA is not allowed to break.

* Things written in any government paperwork, book, or other system, where I am supposed to be given a fine or called into a court room if I do the opposite of that thing.

* Any written and signed change in the legal system that must be approved by Congress (they think they get to defer that to their subdepartments, but that was a mistake)

Can you think of better definitions or categories of law that are not ambiguous (have more than 1 correct answer)?


leftysergeant said:
can I have the money by simply proving that Schroedinger's-cat isn't
multiverse-branched?

No. It has to be by counting the laws and proving that its an even or odd quantity of laws. Thats the purpose of the USA Quantum Law Challenge.

I don't think you could prove we're not multiverse-branched in any case, but I don't want to direct people's efforts toward that. Its just a good way to describe the problem.


I said:
My point is that "Laws change faster than we can count them" is true now and will soon stop being true because of a small amount of money I'll attach to a qubit.

drkitten said:
Why would it stop being true?

If I directly offered money to change the quantity of laws, people would say the force that creates laws is so big it can not be affected much.

If I offer money to count the laws (and only tell even or odd, so theres no national-security accusations on counting secret laws), then thats much easier.

The laws of USA can not be counted until the USA government becomes extremely more self-consistent and logical, something most people of USA do not care about, but that will change when I offer money for it, and then more people will add money and it will change faster.

drkitten said:
Why should I as a member of the Springfield City Council refrain from passing a law that my constituents badly need/want just because it will prevent some yahoo four states over from being able to properly count the number of laws in the USA?

You have a computer, right? Type the law into it for everyone in USA to read and count.

I'm not telling you not to create the law. When the people of USA realize the government can not even do basic arithmetic, the people of USA will be telling you what and what not to do with the laws. It won't be me.

drkitten said:
The analogy of the number of people in the world is quite apt. Your desire for a million dollars will not prevent some woman in India from giving birth.

Unlike population, laws can flow through the internet, and theres more reason for everyone to have access to the laws than to every member of the population.

For example, "ignorance of the law is no excuse". If you create a law and do not give me the ability to know that law, then you are requiring me to be ignorant of the law, to be a criminal. If you allow me to go to a room full of books or search slowly through an unorganized website of laws, that does not give me the ability to avoid ignorance-of-the-law because I could not possibly find all the laws that are relevant to me in a short enough time.

If you want to control the laws, count the laws. If you want to control the population, count the population. I'm only interested in controlling the laws, not any specific law, but I want to give the people of USA the ability to control the laws at any time they choose for any reason they choose, a "government by the people".

JoeTheJuggler said:
more than one finding that can be treated as law in a new case. Also, with case law, depending on what level the precedent decision was made and how similar the facts are to another case, whether it applies (as law) isn't an all-or-nothing question. Same with dicta.

Other case law--landmark decisions in particular--are almost indistinguishable from statutory law.

The "USA Quantum Law Challenge" will only be for certain types of law that can be unambigously (only 1 correct way to do it) counted. I have not decided which types of law are possible to count that way, but I'm sure a few unambigous categories can be thought of.


JoeTheJuggler said:
Why would an entity like the U.S. Congress considering a budget bill (isn't that law? and how do you count it? each line item?) worth hundreds of billions (or trillions) of dollars pay the slightest attention to a million dollar consequence?

Congress is not relevant. The other rich and powerful people are too greedy to resist my offer, and people that do not like the USA government's reckless disregard for knowing what itself is doing will add to this fund. Congress will do what the rich and powerful tell Congress to do. Thats how it has worked for many years. The only change I'm making is the rich and powerful will do what we tell them to do: count the laws and receive a money prize.


Meadmaker said:
As for the number of laws, it is 50% even and 50% odd. I want the prize money.

Even if you can prove it is multiverse-branched, you only get the money if you collapse the wavefunction so its not branched anymore. You have to actually prove that you counted the laws and that its even, or prove that its odd.

Also, I've not officially made an offer or defined the official rules yet. I'm still planning it in this thread.

[Dancing David]

Now just to be clear and use standard language:
-there is legislation (there are not a seperate category of laws the the POTUS can not break), these are the laws passed by bodies in pwoer, which would include any body of government capable of passing legislation
-- federal government
-- states
-- counties, parishes and sub divisions of states
-- townships and other divisions of the above
-- cities, towns, villages

Then each of those levels will have sub sectors and departments that write the actual policies and expressions of the vested power from various sources of legislation, this is the source of the infamous 'adminstrative law and many bodies have various rules about the implementation of adminstractive law with various kinds of review. But it can also be subdivided as well, to more local authorities.

Then as was pointed out there is 'case law'which is a huge body of work.

But to just simplify law is not that simple, unless you want to overide the ability of each body and level of government to pass and enforce legislation.

[drkitten]

If I directly offered money to change the quantity of laws, people would say the force that creates laws is so big it can not be affected much.

If I offer money to count the laws (and only tell even or odd, so theres no national-security accusations on counting secret laws), then thats much easier.

But no more effective. I don't care whether or not you offer money for someone else to count the laws.



The laws of USA can not be counted until the USA government becomes extremely more self-consistent and logical, something most people of USA do not care about, but that will change when I offer money for it,

No, it won't. That's the point. This prize will change nothing.


You have a computer, right? Type the law into it for everyone in USA to read and count.

Or not. We have an existing system by which laws and statutes are published that doesn't involve spending money or for a special purpose typist to break all acts down into unique "laws" according to your idiosyncratic system and publish them individually on the web.

You're asking for the Springfield city council to change its procedures -- which will probably involve changing its laws -- and spend a fair amount of money, for no gain whatsoever.

Not going to happen.


I'm not telling you not to create the law. When the people of USA realize the government can not even do basic arithmetic, the people of USA will be telling you what and what not to do with the laws. It won't be me.

Except that "the people of USA [sic]" will probably not be telling me any such thing.


For example, "ignorance of the law is no excuse". If you create a law and do not give me the ability to know that law, then you are requiring me to be ignorant of the law, to be a criminal. If you allow me to go to a room full of books or search slowly through an unorganized website of laws, that does not give me the ability to avoid ignorance-of-the-law because I could not possibly find all the laws that are relevant to me in a short enough time.

But you're not asking for "all the laws that are relevant to you." You're asking for all the laws, whether or not they're at all relevant to you. The laws detailing what kind of drugs a pharmacist must keep in stock and on hand, for example, are almost entirely irrelevant to you unless you're a pharmacist or are responsible for inspecting pharmacists. The laws detailing how many bandages of each size must be carried on an ambulance isn't really relevant to you unless you're responsible for stocking ambulances. The laws detailing the necessary font to use on drivers' licenses isn't really relevant to you unless you make drivers' licences -- and even then, the software probably takes care of that for you.


Congress is not relevant. The other rich and powerful people are too greedy to resist my offer, and people that do not like the USA government's reckless disregard for knowing what itself is doing will add to this fund.

The "rich and greedy" people aren't going to put in this much work for a mere million dollars. I can make or lose that in a week on the stock market.

[Fiona]

* Laws the president of USA is not allowed to break.

Are there laws the president is allowed to break?

[JoeTheJuggler]

Are there laws the president is allowed to break?
According to Nixon (and Bush), all of them. I'm pretty sure both of them said words to the effect that, if the president does it, it's not a crime.

[drkitten]

Are there laws the president is allowed to break?

Certainly. The Federal government has often exempted itself from laws it imposes on the rest of the country, and there is also a long-standing legal tradition that Congress cannot regulate the President.

As an example, the President (and Congress) are both exempt from the Freedom of Information Act (http://www.usimmigrationsupport.org/foia.html) although executive agencies generally are typically not.

[JoeTheJuggler]

The "USA Quantum Law Challenge" will only be for certain types of law that can be unambigously (only 1 correct way to do it) counted. I have not decided which types of law are possible to count that way, but I'm sure a few unambigous categories can be thought of.
It sounds like you're just re-defining law. Do you count the Miranda case? Do you ignore Roe v. Wade?

Congress is not relevant.
Well that's just absurd. Congress is the legislative body of the United States. When they pass a bill and the president signs it (as, for example, the annual budget), it is law.

Maybe you should watch this before you go any further:

mEJL2Uuv-oQ

Your rant about the undue influence of the rich and powerful on Congress is irrelevant to the question of what counts as a quantifiable law. Why doesn't the annual budget count as law? It actually is law. What about emergency budget allocations (such as the emergency spending that comprised most of the budgeted money spent in Iraq and Afghanistan). And again, if you're trying to enumerate these laws, do you count one document as one law, or each line item of a budget as one law? Seems like you have some serious problems with operational definition.

[BenRayfield]

To Dancing David and drkitten, you're both right that there are many categories and too much complexity in the laws for my plan to work.

Therefore I will make 1 small change to make it exponentially easier:

Instead of starting with the goal of counting all the laws, I will define a log_base_2 quantity of law categories, each with their own money prize, each having approximately the same prize amount, and each 2 times as hard as the last. The first one will be trivially easy. The next one 2 times as hard as trivially easy, and keep doubling the difficulty until my original hard even-or-odd question is answered. An exponentially easier path to the same thing.

As a software programmer, the difference between a thousand and a billion dollars to me is on the difference in a Big-O equation, not significantly more difficult to affect and calculate with.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_O_notation

The first "USA Quantum Law Challenge" will not include the smaller laws and things within subdepartments of the government, like the number of bandaids in an ambulance. It will be a very easy question to answer.

Each question will start to appear easy to answer only after the previous one is answered "even" or "odd" and that prize is won. I'll try to design it so that prize X being won implies a high chance that that prize X+1 will be won soon after that. I only need a log_base_2 number of prizes.


Fiona said:
Are there laws the president is allowed to break?

I don't remember which president(s) of USA did this, but at least 1 shot and killed someone and got away with murder. He said if the president does it, that makes it legal.

I disagree, and I may offer a prize to anyone who can prove things about the quantity of laws that apply to the president.

I've not made any offers yet. I'm still planning the "USA Quantum Law Challenge".


I said:
The "USA Quantum Law Challenge" will only be for certain types of law that can be unambigously (only 1 correct way to do it) counted. I have not decided which types of law are possible to count that way, but I'm sure a few unambigous categories can be thought of.

JoeTheJuggler said:
It sounds like you're just re-defining law. Do you count the Miranda case? Do you ignore Roe v. Wade?

I will define log_base_2 quantity of categories. Each category will be a kind of law, each 2 times harder to define than the last. I have to define these categories because no such categories have ever been consistently defined.

I said:
Congress is not relevant.

JoeTheJuggler said:
Well that's just absurd. Congress is the legislative body of the United States. When they pass a bill and the president signs it (as, for example, the annual budget), it is law.

Maybe you should watch this before you go any further:

(I don't have Youtube video ability currently, but I'll try to watch it later)

I think you're misinterpreting the subject of my plans. I am not paying anyone to create laws, to not create laws, to change laws, or to not change laws.

I'm simply going to ask a series of questions and pay money when they are answered in a scientifically provable way.

Congress is not relevant to the "USA Quantum Law Challenge". Congress makes laws. I'm asking questions about laws. Its not illegal to ask questions, even if the government does not want us to ask those questions. For the same reason, its not illegal to pay someone to answer those questions and prove their answer is correct.

JoeTheJuggler said:
Your rant about the undue influence of the rich and powerful on Congress is irrelevant to the question of what counts as a quantifiable law.

I did not mean it as a rant. I meant it as a mechanical statement of how things work. I don't care what people call a "quantifiable law". I'll just call it category_9_x_j or any other label. I don't have to use the word "law" at all. I'm talking about content instead of labels. I'll give a description of something then ask how many of those there are, and a proof of that will win the money. Theres no laws that say I can't do that.

Why doesn't the annual budget count as law? It actually is law. What about emergency budget allocations (such as the emergency spending that comprised most of the budgeted money spent in Iraq and Afghanistan). And again, if you're trying to enumerate these laws, do you count one document as one law, or each line item of a budget as one law? Seems like you have some serious problems with operational definition.

Those will be in the later categories, in the log_base_2 total quantity of categories. It will start trivially simple and double in difficulty with each next category and prize money.



I don't think I'm doing anything wrong or illegal here. I think I'm being patriotic, trying to cause the USA government to become more self-consistent and logical and efficient. On average, I expect members of the USA government to be against the "USA Quantum Law Challenge" and a larger number of people not in that government to work toward it and to win the money prizes. 2 heads are smarter than 1. 300 million heads are smarter than 300 thousand heads.

[JoeTheJuggler]

I have to define these categories because no such categories have ever been consistently defined.
And that's pretty much what most of us have been asking you about. How do you plan to go about defining what is a law and how to count them?

I think you're misinterpreting the subject of my plans. I am not paying anyone to create laws, to not create laws, to change laws, or to not change laws.
I think you're wrong. I understand that you're not paying anyone to create laws, not create laws, change laws or not change laws. I think you're proposing that it will be possible to count all the laws (or now, some categories of laws) to determine whether that count (or those counts) is an odd or even number. You seem to think that offering a cash award for solving the problem that the number of laws (even if it were operationally defined) changes too quickly to count them will somehow change things to make it possible to count them.

Congress is not relevant to the "USA Quantum Law Challenge". Congress makes laws. I'm asking questions about laws.
Acts of Congress are relevant. I've twice asked you how you plan to count the annual budget that is passed into law by Congress. (The YouTube video above was "How a Bill Becomes a Law" by Schoolhouse Rock. It's a primary level lesson on what Congress does. Basically, Congress makes laws.)

Its not illegal to ask questions,
<snip>
Theres no laws that say I can't do that.
<snip>
I don't think I'm doing anything wrong or illegal here.

Are you paranoid or something? (I mean that seriously. I don't mean to be insulting either. Have you considered the possibility that you might have a mental illness?)

No one has even hinted that what you're doing is wrong or illegal; it's just absurd and nonsensical. And your attempts to explain what you intend to do are becoming less and less coherent.

[KoihimeNakamura]

a president shot and killed somebody? Wow.

[Puppycow]

Sorry, I really don't get the point.

Now, with a good, unambiguous definition of (legal) laws, it may actually be possible in principle to count them all. But it sounds like you haven't settled upon a definition yet.

With an ambiguous definition it becomes impossible of course.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Sorry, I really don't get the point.



Well, he did say "quantum". . . . .

[JoeTheJuggler]

And why is it necessary to express the number of laws in base two to determine whether that number is even or odd?

[casebro]

I think Ben has spent too much time in the Rayfield.

Without his tin foil hat.

[BenRayfield]

I am responding to JoeTheJuggler, PuppyCow, and casebro...

My plan for the "USA Quantum Law Challenge" is to define my categories in the same style as functional-programming and in the Lisp programming-language. That style is based on content of your mind instead of the labels that you use to remember that content and talk about it with other people. The USA legal system normally uses labels as its main way of thinking. I am not interested in interfacing with that part of it. I am only talking about offering money for proving "even" or "odd" based on content of certain ideas, not any existing labels. I am almost certain that if I overuse the word "law" then I will fail to get anything done only because of that. I will try to stick to the ideas of what I want to do instead of that label. The ideas are similar to that label.

I wrote about that as if I was paranoid only to explain something to people who have also read things I wrote on other parts of the internet, specifically that I know enough science to be dangerous but I am not making any threats, as it may have mistakenly appeared to those people. I did not want to give them the wrong idea. I will make it very clear in the following sentence then be done with it in this thread. There is no connection between the "USA Quantum Law Challenge" and my artificial-intelligence research or any of my other projects.

Tin foil hats? I have worn one a few times, but I am an electronic musician, connecting the tin foil to the sound card of my computer as an audio input to detect the electricity on my heads skin like a simple EEG. Not everybody has enough money to buy an EEG machine.

The most relevant part of this to "quantum" is that its 1 of 2 things. even or odd. It can work without any quantum math, and it can work with quantum math better. Its not necessary.

[JoeTheJuggler]

My plan for the "USA Quantum Law Challenge" is to define my categories in the same style as functional-programming and in the Lisp programming-language.
Why not try defining what you mean by "laws" or "categories of laws" in English? What advantage is there in trying to use Lisp?

This makes no more sense than converting a number to base two to determine whether it's odd or even.


I wrote about that as if I was paranoid only to explain something to people who have also read things I wrote on other parts of the internet, specifically that I know enough science to be dangerous but I am not making any threats, as it may have mistakenly appeared to those people.
I assure you, anyone who thinks you know enough science to be dangerous is completely wrong.

I did not want to give them the wrong idea.
And the antecedent to the pronoun "them" would be the people who already have a wrong idea about you? You don't see a logical problem there?



The unanswered questions are piling up.

I will make it very clear in the following sentence then be done with it in this thread. There is no connection between the "USA Quantum Law Challenge" and my artificial-intelligence research or any of my other projects.
What?

Seriously, I think you should consult a mental health professional.



The most relevant part of this to "quantum" is that its 1 of 2 things. even or odd. It can work without any quantum math, and it can work with quantum math better. Its not necessary.
So "quantum math" means "binary"?

ETA: And why is this in the Politics forum?

[Beerina]

So your point is....? Laws change faster than we can count them? So what? The same can be said of the population for example. What's your point?

The point is that people go to jail for violating laws, so it's generally a good thing that people can keep up with it.


I once suggested all laws should be forced constitutionally to expire after, say, 5 years, and Congress would have to review and re-approve them. Someone else bleated, panicked, that there would be no way Congress could possibly review every law every five years.

Well, yeah, that's the point. How in hell are people supposed to obey them? People (i.e. the press) even have a hell of a difficult time just scanning the laws to look for secret handouts and whatnot.

[drkitten]

The point is that people go to jail for violating laws, so it's generally a good thing that people can keep up with it.

But people don't go to jail for violating local ordinances six states away.

I mean, it would be one thing, for example, to try to enumerate all the Federal laws. That's actually not that hard to do; all (public) Federal laws are enumerated as they're created (e.g., "public law 94-142," which is the 142nd law passed by the 94th Congress.) Similarly, there's a clear record of all Federal private laws.

But the OP is looking at the huge set of laws that no single person needs to understand.

[JoeTheJuggler]

My bolding:
The point is that people go to jail for violating laws, so it's generally a good thing that people can keep up with it.


I once suggested all laws should be forced constitutionally to expire after, say, 5 years, and Congress would have to review and re-approve them. Someone else bleated, panicked, that there would be no way Congress could possibly review every law every five years.

Well, yeah, that's the point. How in hell are people supposed to obey them?

But people don't go to jail for violating local ordinances six states away.


And you most certainly don't go to jail for not knowing if the total number of laws (arbitrarily defined) is an odd or an even number!

So obviously going to jail or getting into trouble (or doing something illegal or immoral) has nothing whatsoever to do with this very strange topic.

Sorry, Beerina, I understand you're making a point about letting outdated law clutter up the books (or maybe about how non-lawyers might not always know whether what they're doing is legal or illegal, since I don't think you're advocating erasing the history of case law--liking considering precedents older than 5 years old to be invalid), but is certainly not "the point" of this thread.

On your point, though, I think rewriting every law everywhere and re-deciding cases as if we'd never considered the legal principles involved every 5 years would be a nightmare. If you're concerned that non-lawyers can't know what actions are legal or not, what you suggest would certainly only make that problem worse. (Let's see is abortion legal right now? Can a school count on receiving funding from property tax for your child's entire elementary years? Since there's no such a concept as settled law, these things would be in greater flux than they are now.)

[BenRayfield]

JoeTheJuggler said
Why not try defining what you mean by "laws" or "categories of laws" in English? What advantage is there in trying to use Lisp?

This makes no more sense than converting a number to base two to determine whether it's odd or even.

Of course there will have to be some words, but most of it I will try to define in the style of lambda (the programming style normally done in Lisp). Its very important to define the categories and rules of the "USA Quantum Law Challenge" using the least number of words possible because every word is a security-vulnerability in the same way that the words "choose" and "consent" "underage" and "statutory" are security vulnerabilities. The USA government attacked that security vulnerability by redefining a law to include the word "consent" instead of the idea of "choose" and through its use of the security vulnerability was able to extremely increase the punishment for underage sex. Why change what the law says when you can just substitute a synonym (word that means the same thing) and redefine the synonym while most people are not paying attention. Every word in a technical statement, if applied to any important process in the government, will certainly be attacked as a security vulnerability, therefore I choose to use the least number of words possible when I write the official version of the "USA Quantum Law Challenge". In that way, the technical agreements and effects I will design will be significantly more secure than the laws that govern USAs National Security Agency (which appear to change whenever the rich and powerful people want them to). Lambda.

I do not care if the number is in base 2 or not. The "USA Quantum Law Challenge" will be a series of questions and a prize for each if its proven to be a quantity that is "even" or "odd", regardless of if you prove the specific quantity. I know of no way to prove its even or odd without proving the exact quantity, but things like that can be done in math sometimes, so I am not adding the extra requirement to prove the exact quantity. Prove even or odd, get the money prize, then we start the next harder question and money prize... 10 to 30 of these and everything about the USA government is counted, each money prize appearing easy to win only after the last is won.


JoeTheJuggler said
What?

Seriously, I think you should consult a mental health professional.

What I said is no more insane than people who say an invisible and all-powerful life form talks to them everyday but they are the only one who can hear it. I am not saying it does or does not happen, but what I said sounds much easier to believe.

JoeTheJuggler said
So "quantum math" means "binary"?

Quantum math includes continous changes between 2 things, and interactions between many sets of 2 things, each viewed as a dimension. I am writing it as "even" and "odd".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloch_sphere

My theory is that if there is any small thing in Earths past that extremely works against a future where all the laws and regulations etc are counted, then that small thing in Earths past would be changed as a result of the continuous multiverse branching (quantum wavefunction) so that it becomes possible a small amount more, but probably that will not be necessary because simply observing the number of laws (in 10 to 30 questions and prizes of exponentially increasing difficulty) will be enough to get it done without the need for any quantum math. If its needed, then quantum-observing the number of laws may quantum-collapse that wavefunction into a "reality" where the laws are counted (trivially true because somebody is directly counting them, but other things come with that action of counting). In summary, if you observe the quantity of laws in USA, then whatever is necessary to observe the quantity of laws comes at a lower cost than it would have cost without observing the quantity of laws, and if its extremely hard to create those things (that are necessary to count the laws) then the multiverse we currently occupy may be pushed in a small way toward becoming easier to create those things (something that happens all the time but is not noticed or controlled). My theory about quantum physics and multiverses is that the future can pull the past like that (and lots of other directions of pulling are also possible), but probably none of that will happen because counting all the laws is such an easy thing to do without it just by following the steps I will define.

Its just a theory. Can you find anything in quantum or multiverse math that contradicts it, something that has been proven true instead of is only another unproven theory? This is most similar to the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum physics, a continuous branching between them in all directions, if such thing is needed at all to do this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many_worlds

Most new theories about physics sound insane. Thats is a statement about the person who hears them, not about the theories.

It can work with or without quantum physics and multiverses. Thats just a possible optimization that it may or may not be able to test.


JoeTheJuggler said
ETA: And why is this in the Politics forum?

Because its about the USA government. Everything about government is politics.


Beerina said
I once suggested all laws should be forced constitutionally to expire after, say, 5 years, and Congress would have to review and re-approve them. Someone else bleated, panicked, that there would be no way Congress could possibly review every law every five years.

There was also a "Read The Bills Act" which required that Congress listen to a reading of every law/bill/etc they pass or they do not get to pass it. If they do not have time to read what they vote on, they should go to jail for the worst case ever of "ignorance of the law is no excuse", or at least not have immunity from those laws when themself violates those laws they did not read and passed.

But lets not get into the subject of what is wrong with the USA government. This forum would need a bigger hard-drive to store it all. The Constitution is good laws, but most of the other parts are not and are increasing in size and power and inefficiency at exponential speed. If we at least counted them, they would have to slow down to a speed that Congress can read before voting on.

drkitten said
But people don't go to jail for violating local ordinances six states away.

You are right that is not important to know the local ordinances (a kind of law) six states away for the purpose of avoiding jail. The most important part about counting the laws six states away is the USA government would become more self-consistent and logical and efficient. The increased efficiency of the USA government would save trillions of dollars per year. Obama does not know the first thing about fixing the economy, which is knowing how to count and other basic math.

I mean, it would be one thing, for example, to try to enumerate all the Federal laws. That's actually not that hard to do; all (public) Federal laws are enumerated as they're created (e.g., "public law 94-142," which is the 142nd law passed by the 94th Congress.) Similarly, there's a clear record of all Federal private laws.

Because its easy, that will be one of the earlier questions. Each question will have its own prize and be followed by a question 2 times as hard. Maybe the first question should have a 1000 dollar prize, and the prize approximately doubles (depending on how much money people donate to this fund) with each next question, ending somewhere around a billion dollars for the last question, a small price to pay to save trillions per year. Somebody will donate a billion dollars. Its not hard to get a billion dollar donation to this fund after half a billion was donated for the last prize.

(e.g., "public law 94-142," which is the 142nd law passed by the 94th Congress.)

Thats a good example of using logic to avoid security vulnerabilities in technical writing. A "security vulnerability" (as I wrote above) would be calling the it "that law we passed last june on a thursday". Lambda and unique labels are the most secure, and that is how I will try to write the official version of the "USA Quantum Law Challenge".

[drkitten]

You are right that is not important to know the local ordinances (a kind of law) six states away for the purpose of avoiding jail. The most important part about counting the laws six states away is the USA government would become more self-consistent and logical and efficient.

And the most important part about not counting the laws is the that the "USA government" will NOT become more self-consistent and logical and efficient if someone tries to count all the laws.

I.e. it's totally wasted effort.



The increased efficiency of the USA government would save trillions of dollars per year.

Except it wouldn't.

Obama does not know the first thing about fixing the economy, which is knowing how to count and other basic math.

Er,.... no. The first things about fixing the economy is getting the credit freeze dealt with (which has been done), getting a bottom established under industrial production (which has been done), and getting employment back under control (which has not been done but is apparently the project for December according to recent reports).

Merely "counting" things won't help at all, since counting does not by itself create change. You can certainly use the numbers that you get from counting to help motivate change (that's why the federal budget deficit, for example, is known to the penny and why the budget hawks keep trotting it out), but simply knowing the number does nothing.




Thats a good example of using logic to avoid security vulnerabilities in technical writing. A "security vulnerability" (as I wrote above) would be calling the it "that law we passed last june on a thursday". Lambda and unique labels are the most secure, and that is how I will try to write the official version of the "USA Quantum Law Challenge".

So in other words, they're already doing what you want (counting the Federal laws that are passed) and it hasn't helped. Indeed, they've been counting federal laws for a hell of a long time (I think the tradition may go back to Public Law 1-1), and despite the fact that it's relatively simple to know exactly how many public laws have been passed, no one a) knows, or b) cares -- and the number of laws continues to grow by hundreds each year.

In other words, YOUR IDEA DEMONSTRABLY WON'T WORK.

[drkitten]

There was also a "Read The Bills Act" which required that Congress listen to a reading of every law/bill/etc they pass or they do not get to pass it. If they do not have time to read what they vote on, they should go to jail for the worst case ever of "ignorance of the law is no excuse", or at least not have immunity from those laws when themself violates those laws they did not read and passed.

And that was also a really stupid idea, that was -- correctly -- shot down in flames.

First, there's a big difference between "reading" and "reading aloud"; most people can comfortably read for comprehension at 400wpm or so, a word every fifth of a second or thereabouts. Most people can skim at at least double that. Few people can read aloud (or understand speech) at anywhere near 50 words per minute. Demanding that Congressmen "listen to a reading of every bill" is therefore a stupid waste of congressional time.

But beyond that, I don't think you have any idea how large documents are put together -- in industry, in academia, or in government. A complex bill like the TARP bill or the current health care proposal is drafted in gross by the legislators and voted on as a body, but the detailed writing is done by individual staff members who report to specific congressmen who have been tapped to draft specific sections. And the individual writing is done by domain experts who know what the relevant legal terms-of-art are to use.

In that regard, it's more or less like putting together an encyclopedia (which, again, has probably never been read in its entirety by anyone, including the "editor.") What the editor does do, though, is review the individual articles that are put together, or in many cases reviews the reports of the sub-editors who have put together groups of articles, and sign off on the package as a whole.

That's also how many major contracts are drafted in industry. There's a reason that the term "executive summary" was created; the president of a large company will not typically read the documents he signs. He trusts that his lawyers have made the documents say what he wants them to say, and that the summary accurately reflects what they do say.

Why do you assume that Citibank can pick competent staff lawyers, but that Senators can't?

[BenRayfield]

drkitten said
And the most important part about not counting the laws is the that the "USA government" will NOT become more self-consistent and logical and efficient if someone tries to count all the laws.

I.e. it's totally wasted effort.

In computer programming, we call that data corruption caused by improper use of threads. Its the same idea. The parts of the government create contradicting laws because they are not organized enough to communicate their plans to eachother.

Counting certain categories of laws in USA, for a short time, puts a mutex on those categories. Its not a permanent mutex because the prize is only given once per category, but the important effect is people start to know it can be done and will cause it to be done again.

I will quote from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutex

Mutual exclusion (often abbreviated to mutex) algorithms are used in concurrent programming to avoid the simultaneous use of a common resource, such as a global variable, by pieces of computer code called critical sections. A critical section is a piece of code where a process or thread accesses a common resource. The critical section by itself is not a mechanism or algorithm for mutual exclusion. A program, process, or thread can have critical section in it without any mechanism or algorithm, which implements mutual exclusion.

Examples of such resources are fine-grained flags, counters or queues, used to communicate between code that runs concurrently, such as an application and its interrupt handlers. The synchronization of access to those resources is an acute problem because a thread can be stopped or started at any time.

To illustrate: suppose a section of code is altering a piece of data over several program steps, when another thread, perhaps triggered by some unpredictable event, starts executing. If this second thread reads from the same piece of data, the data, which is in the process of being overwritten, is in an inconsistent and unpredictable state. If the second thread tries overwriting that data, the ensuing state will probably be unrecoverable. These shared data being accessed by critical sections of code, must therefore be protected, so that other processes which read from or write to the chunk of data are excluded from running.

A mutex is also a common name for a program object that negotiates mutual exclusion among threads, also called a lock.


Er,.... no. The first things about fixing the economy is getting the credit freeze dealt with (which has been done), getting a bottom established under industrial production (which has been done), and getting employment back under control (which has not been done but is apparently the project for December according to recent reports).

Those things are also important, but in my opinion, the fastest way to fix them is to count 20 categories of "laws" as I described above.


Merely "counting" things won't help at all, since counting does not by itself create change. You can certainly use the numbers that you get from counting to help motivate change (that's why the federal budget deficit, for example, is known to the penny and why the budget hawks keep trotting it out), but simply knowing the number does nothing.

Some interpretations of quantum physics say observing things is the most effective way to change them. If you do not like the way it is, observe it a different way and it becomes real. If you want to argue with that, then theres much smarter physics researchers for that, and they will tell you it does apply to USA laws in the same way it applies to all of reality.


So in other words, they're already doing what you want (counting the Federal laws that are passed) and it hasn't helped.

They have done what I wanted (counted and numbered and organized some of the laws). Counting more of them will make the USA government more self-consistent and logical and efficient.

Indeed, they've been counting federal laws for a hell of a long time (I think the tradition may go back to Public Law 1-1), and despite the fact that it's relatively simple to know exactly how many public laws have been passed, no one a) knows, or b) cares -- and the number of laws continues to grow by hundreds each year.

In other words, YOUR IDEA DEMONSTRABLY WON'T WORK.

Its easy to say its been counted, but when I create the "USA Quantum Law Challenge", will you prove that specific question is even or odd and take the money prize? I want you to take the prizes... after I write the official version.

But the questions and bigger prizes that follow that easy question will each be 2 times as hard as the last, about more detailed counting (is even or odd).

A person who understands the government as well as you, drkitten, should be able to take the bigger prizes easier than most others. Good luck.


And that was also a really stupid idea, that was -- correctly -- shot down in flames.

First, there's a big difference between "reading" and "reading aloud"; most people can comfortably read for comprehension at 400wpm or so, a word every fifth of a second or thereabouts. Most people can skim at at least double that. Few people can read aloud (or understand speech) at anywhere near 50 words per minute. Demanding that Congressmen "listen to a reading of every bill" is therefore a stupid waste of congressional time.

But beyond that, I don't think you have any idea how large documents are put together -- in industry, in academia, or in government. A complex bill like the TARP bill or the current health care proposal is drafted in gross by the legislators and voted on as a body, but the detailed writing is done by individual staff members who report to specific congressmen who have been tapped to draft specific sections. And the individual writing is done by domain experts who know what the relevant legal terms-of-art are to use.

In that regard, it's more or less like putting together an encyclopedia (which, again, has probably never been read in its entirety by anyone, including the "editor.") What the editor does do, though, is review the individual articles that are put together, or in many cases reviews the reports of the sub-editors who have put together groups of articles, and sign off on the package as a whole.

I understand that the work of writing and editing and interpreting laws is distributed to many people then assembled and voted on.

In my opinion, it should be much harder for Congress to pass laws than the "Read The Bills Act" proposed. For example, I think each member of Congress should have to recite each whole law from memory, correct on each word, and then have to answer basic questions about the new law to prove they understand it, and automatically vote NO on that law if they recite it wrong or answer any question wrong. But its not my choice. Its Congresss choice. It should be the people of USAs choice (as the Constitution says, the people should tell the government what to do and what not to do). In my opinion, the total laws of USA should be much smaller and designed better so lots of exceptions are not needed. The exceptions to the laws are most of the size. Your job would not be obsolete. It would simply focus on accuracy instead of size of laws.


That's also how many major contracts are drafted in industry. There's a reason that the term "executive summary" was created; the president of a large company will not typically read the documents he signs. He trusts that his lawyers have made the documents say what he wants them to say, and that the summary accurately reflects what they do say.

Why do you assume that Citibank can pick competent staff lawyers, but that Senators can't?

Thats not a good system either. Most contracts are so long that people choose not to read them before they sign them. Its the same problem as Congress not reading laws before passing them.

Most of the laws of USA, and most of the things in those contracts, are not similar to what the people of USA (or the people who sign those contracts) want. For example, people often sign a contract and are later surprised about extra fees coming at unexpected times, then they are told to read the contract next time. I plan to help them read that contract by indirectly causing it to be smaller. The contract writers asked for it.

We agree its the same kind of system. You say its a good system. I say its not, and I plan to observe it as even or odd to cause it to be more consistent, logical, and efficient. I plan to indirectly fix both of those with the "USA Quantum Law Challenge". Will you help by counting and answering even or odd and taking the prize money?

[JoeTheJuggler]

I asked why not define "laws" or any category of laws in English rather than in Lisp, and got this reply:

Of course there will have to be some words, but most of it I will try to define in the style of lambda (the programming style normally done in Lisp). Its very important to define the categories and rules of the "USA Quantum Law Challenge" using the least number of words possible because every word is a security-vulnerability in the same way that the words "choose" and "consent" "underage" and "statutory" are security vulnerabilities. The USA government attacked that security vulnerability by redefining a law to include the word "consent" instead of the idea of "choose" and through its use of the security vulnerability was able to extremely increase the punishment for underage sex. Why change what the law says when you can just substitute a synonym (word that means the same thing) and redefine the synonym while most people are not paying attention. Every word in a technical statement, if applied to any important process in the government, will certainly be attacked as a security vulnerability, therefore I choose to use the least number of words possible when I write the official version of the "USA Quantum Law Challenge". In that way, the technical agreements and effects I will design will be significantly more secure than the laws that govern USAs National Security Agency (which appear to change whenever the rich and powerful people want them to). Lambda.
So. . . .why not define "laws" or categories of laws in English rather than in Lisp?


I do not care if the number is in base 2 or not.
Yes you do. You specified it in several places including in the OP where you said:
Because my theory is that nobody knows, and if anybody proved it and we started to know how many laws there were in USA (just the last base-2 digit), then the USA government would have to become extremely more self-consistent and logical before it could be counted.
Also when you were asked what "Quantum" has to do with anything, you replied that it's because the result is binary (odd or even). Which is not the standard meaning of the word "quantum" by any stretch.


What I said is no more insane than people who say an invisible and all-powerful life form talks to them everyday but they are the only one who can hear it.
I'll grant you that. And people who believe that should also consult a mental health professional. (While I'm not fan of conventional religion, it doesn't fit that description.)

I am not saying it does or does not happen, but what I said sounds much easier to believe.
No it's not. Although since what you say is mostly rambling and incoherent, so whether it's easier or not to believe is really a moot point.

[drkitten]

In computer programming, we call that data corruption caused by improper use of threads.

No, we don't. But in software engineering, we will frequently call it "ignoring paperwork because we don't give a flying ****"

The parts of the government create contradicting laws because they are not organized enough to communicate their plans to eachother.

But nothing you've mentioned so far has alleged contradiction, and nothing that you've proposed would prevent contradiction.

As it happens, there is a system in place to resolve contradictory laws -- it's called the judiciary, and it's served that purpose for more than 200 years.


Counting certain categories of laws in USA, for a short time, puts a mutex on those categories.

No, it won't. Because no one will respect the mutex semantics -- they've no reason to -- and so laws will continue to change even while some poor boob is trying to count them.



Some interpretations of quantum physics say observing things is the most effective way to change them.

Yes, but those interpretations are obviously wrong as any actual physicist will tell you. There are lots of people out there suggesting all sorts of aspects of quantum drivel.

If you want to argue with that, then theres much smarter physics researchers for that, and they will tell you it does apply to USA laws in the same way it applies to all of reality.

Er, no, they won't.





Its easy to say its been counted, but when I create the "USA Quantum Law Challenge", will you prove that specific question is even or odd and take the money prize?

Probably not. A mere million isn't worth the headache of debugging your "challenge" for you.


I understand that the work of writing and editing and interpreting laws is distributed to many people then assembled and voted on.

That's right. And the person who votes often isn't the person who writes, because in many cases, the person who votes doesn't have the necessary expertise (which is why he hired staff in the first place).


Thats not a good system either. Most contracts are so long that people choose not to read them before they sign them.

But that's not an issue in the corporate world; all of the contracts have been read in detail before they are signed.

It's just that usually the person who signs isn't the same as the one who read -- or wrote. Again, different areas of expertise, which is why "corporate counsel" exists in the first place.

Basically, you're assuming that Congress (and major corporations) are as unprofessional and badly staffed as you yourself are. I assure you that neither is true.


We agree its the same kind of system. You say its a good system. I say its not, and I plan to observe it as even or odd to cause it to be more consistent, logical, and efficient. I plan to indirectly fix both of those with the "USA Quantum Law Challenge". Will you help by counting and answering even or odd and taking the prize money?

No. I will not participate in an exercise that cannot even in theory achieve its stated purpose.

[JoeTheJuggler]

My theory is that if there is any small thing in Earths past that extremely works against a future where all the laws and regulations etc are counted, then that small thing in Earths past would be changed as a result of the continuous multiverse branching (quantum wavefunction) so that it becomes possible a small amount more, but probably that will not be necessary because simply observing the number of laws (in 10 to 30 questions and prizes of exponentially increasing difficulty) will be enough to get it done without the need for any quantum math.


So you're suggesting that some kind of cash-prize challenge will somehow result in changing the past?

I suggest this thread be moved out of Politics and into General Skepticism (or perhaps Humor, because I'm beginning to think maybe Ben's just having fun with us).

[BenRayfield]

To JoeTheJuggler, I will quote the part of my writing most relevant to what you said.

Most new theories about physics sound insane. Thats is a statement about the person who hears them, not about the theories.

It can work with or without quantum physics and multiverses. Thats just a possible optimization that it may or may not be able to test.

Forget the physics. There are very simple reasons it will work, and the physics speculations are a different subject that maybe could be done at the same time.

I am serious about the "USA Quantum Law Challenge". I am writing an email to the Lifeboat Foundation, which collects money for various unusal charities that are all important to the future of Earth. I'll quote from the email I'm sending to them:

It would be a series of charities, all called "USA Quantum Law Challenge". Basically each charity challenges anyone to count (even or odd) certain categories of laws or other things, and they win a money prize for proving that quantity is even or odd, and the indirect effects of that are important to the future of Earth.

Please read the informal plan for it at this URL, and/or read the summary below:

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=159047
(In the "Politics" section, thread title: "USA Quantum Law Challenge")


=============
===PURPOSE===

The purpose is to indirectly cause the USA government to become more self-consistent, logical, and efficient. Indirect effects of that would probably include the USA government saving trillions of dollars per year, less people going to jail for breaking laws that contradict other laws, more logical thinking about when to use nuclear weapons and other dangerous things, and generally better government. Because of USA's unique relationship with many other countries, these improvements would flow to most other parts of Earth too. Theoretically it could indirectly and gradually solve many of Earth's biggest problems.


==============================
===WHAT DOES THE NAME MEAN?===

The name includes the word "quantum", but no quantum math is necessary for it to work. Some of the ideas of quantum physics are very similar to the ideas that make the "USA Quantum Law Challenge" work, so its more of a description than a theory of physics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qubit

A quantum qubit for each category of "law" I will define. In a small way, it may be related to one of my theories about quantum physics and multiverses (read about it at that forum page), but its not necessary. There are simple logical reasons this will work. Most of those reasons are described at that forum page, but I will summarize below.

That forum is at the "James Randi Educational Foundation". James Randi created the "$1 Million Paranormal Challenge". Because of the similarity of how I am designing the "USA Quantum Law Challenge", I named it similarly. It does not challenge any laws. It only counts them and answers "even" or "odd" for that quantity.


=======================
===HOW DOES IT WORK?===

I will unambiguously (mostly in the style of lambda programming, with a few english words) define some categories of things. Those things may be laws, similar to laws, or anything else, but I will start with things most people would call a "law". I will avoid vague words like "law" because it would certainly lead to arguments over what counts as a law. It must be unambiguous.

For each category, the Lifeboat Foundation should add 1 charity account, where anyone can donate money. The money stays there until it is won by someone. That person wins all that money. Then, that same charity can be refilled and can be won again the same way, but only after the quantity of that category changes.

Each category has 1 question and 1 money prize (the charity). The question is always the following:

"Choose any arbitrary time in the future. Is the integer quantity of things in the category an odd number? Or is it an even number? Answer even or odd but not both, and prove it to the standards of published peer-reviewed science, and after 3 months, if the peer-review process proves no flaws in your proof, you receive the money prize."

A quantum physicist would say it this way: You won the money by observing the evenness or oddness to collapse the wavefunction, and it may not have been even or odd until you proved it. It may have been in superposition of simultaneous evenness and oddness.

My theory is that the USA government is so disorganized and confused about what itself is doing and thinking and planning that it would be very hard for it to count (and prove even or odd) most categories that we would define.

Other people could add categories later, but I will propose a few to start with. For each category, the first time it is won, and the money received by the winner, a new category should be created that is 2 times as hard to count (and prove even or odd). People may choose to donate to the old or new categories. As harder categories continue to be counted, confidence is gained in the "USA Quantum Law Challenge" as a working system, and more money will be donated and won, and more things counted and proven even or odd. The "purpose" I wrote above would eventually be accomplished that way.


================================================== ======
===These are the categories I recommend we start with===

USA Quantum Law Challenge - General funds can go to any category Lifeboat thinks is best.

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Quantity of letters in USA's Constitution. This one is very easy because the first one has to be easy to get it started. The harder it is, the bigger the money prize will probably become before somebody wins it.

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of federal laws

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of letters in all federal laws.

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of state laws, all states combined, including DC.

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of letters in all state laws, all states combined, including DC.

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of laws the president of USA must obey (no immunity).

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of laws Congress must obey (no immunity).

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of video-cameras in "Area 51".

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of video-cameras in the Whitehouse.

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of video-cameras in the Pentagon.

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of letters in the president of USA's police record.

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of government employees.

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of government employees that have ever been found guilty of a violent crime.


============================
===About those categories===

For all of those categories, prove the quantity is even or odd, and you win the prize. It is not possible for this to be a danger to "national security", even if it counts secret laws or secret things, because only "even" or "odd" has to be proven, and that can sometimes be done in math without proving the actual quantity. I do not know how to prove these things without knowing the quantity, but I do not know it can not be done either. Only requiring "even" or "odd" is an untouchable defense against "national security" accusations. I am not asking anyone to violate "national security", but it would be none of my business if they caused something to be declassified and to stop being "national security" and then counted it and said "even" or "odd". It has to be proven up to the standards of published peer-reviewed science (and the 3 month delay), but there are no limits on how to prove it other than that.

I'll give an example: If you prove that the quantity of laws the president of USA has to obey (no immunity) is an odd number, then indirectly he would have to obey laws more often. You can quantum-observe that into reality just by proving even or odd.

[Tricky]

Not really about politics, so moved to Social Issues and Current Events.

[Ferguson]

Indeed, they've been counting federal laws for a hell of a long time (I think the tradition may go back to Public Law 1-1),


You are right that they have been counting them from the beginning, however the Public Law X-Y nomenclature was begun in 1957. Prior to that it was X Statute Y. With X as the Volume, and Y as the Page.
So what we would have numbered "PL 1-1," is actually "1 Stat. 23 (http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum=146)" (1 Stat. 1 - 1 Stat. 22 is the declaration of independence and the constitution).

Not really relevant to this discussion but thought some might be interested to know :).

[a_unique_person]

You're cheating. We all know that Schroedinger's cat is dead.

Because it would have to be about 90 years old by now, and no cat can live that long. :whistling

[MattusMaximus]

So let me get this straight... you actually expect people to donate money to you in order to fund this so-called "challenge"?!

Well, it's got the word "quantum" in there, so it must be legit :rolleyes:

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_774749fe3d4290b22.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=16214)

[DevilsAdvocate]

I don’t get it. You just want people to count laws? OK. How about we start with Titles of federal Statutes At Large? There are 50. That’s even. What did I win?

What is next? Appendices? Then Parts, Subparts, Chapters, Subchapters, Sections, Subsections.

How about those Titles enacted into positive law? Then we can count the bits and pieces of those.

Next we can move on to regulations issued by executive branch agencies starting with Titles. Then Volumes, Subtitles, Chapters, Parts, Subparts, Sections, Subsections, etc.

It might take a little time, but wouldn’t be too hard because everything is codified in the United States Code and the Code of Federal Regulations. We can count Acts, Public Laws, Appropriations, etc. Everything is numbered and tracked on THOMAS, the Congressional Record, the Federal Register, etc. Similar processes exist for State, County, City, laws, etc.

So what exactly is the point of counting laws?

Why would I offer money for proving that?

Because my theory is that nobody knows, and if anybody proved it and we started to know how many laws there were in USA (just the last base-2 digit), then the USA government would have to become extremely more self-consistent and logical before it could be counted.The USA Government, as far as organizing, numbering, tracking, and publishing laws, is very, very self-consistent and logical. In fact, there are laws governing how those laws are organized, numbered, tracked, and published.

:confused::confused:

[JoeTheJuggler]

Most new theories about physics sound insane.
It doesn't follow, though, that all things that sound insane are valid new physics theories.

In fact, historically, most things that sound insane turned out to be insane.

[BenRayfield]

So you're suggesting that some kind of cash-prize challenge will somehow result in changing the past?

That is what my unproven and untested theory of physics predicts, so yes I am suggesting a way to, in a very small way and only in some cases, change the past. I don't believe-in "space" and "time", so that doesn't really make sense to me. The way I think about it, all pasts and futures are equally real, so it does not make sense to talk about a specific past. They all happened, some more than others statistically. Thats part of my theory of physics, which is very similar to many-worlds theory. None of that is relevant to what makes the "USA Quantum Law Challenge" work, if people would donate and win the money. Its not physics. Its just similar to physics, so I've confused lots of people by trying to do 2 things at the same time.


Making money from interest on a money account, increases your money like this: 1.1^time

The generalized use of money I'm describing increases your money more like this: 1.05^(1.05^time)

There is a certain way of defining problems and attaching money to them that makes the money have an exponentially larger effect than receiving a high interest-rate or being skilled at the stock market. It only works for things that have no direct effect on average and can be hill-climbed in a binary-search of unambiguously defined measures of the Earth. Paying people to calculate even-or-odd for things that appear to have no purpose, is a good example of this. As more useless-directly-on-average "charities" are added, each 2 times as hard to even-or-odd-count as the last, exponentially improbable things happen while still not directly affecting anything on average, but by design of the unambiguous measures of things, that exponentially increasing uncertainty gets the useful work done, whatever "useful work" you designed it to do.

I think I've severely confused people by including the words "USA", "law", and "challenge" in its name. In theory, it should work equally well for changing non-law subjects, like getting millions of peoples' work schedule to change so they work more often on Saturdays instead of on Mondays (It would cost a lot of money, but in the normal way of thinking, that could not be changed at all). I will redesign it into something thats not related to USA or laws.

Its generalized far past the goals of lifeboat.com. If I can think of a better way to explain this to people, I may start my own website for the general use of it later.

[BenRayfield]

JoeTheJuggler said:
It doesn't follow, though, that all things that sound insane are valid new physics theories.

In fact, historically, most things that sound insane turned out to be insane.

Thats true. I did not say why I think my theory of physics is true.

I certainly do not try to learn things based on how insane they are. The fact that you think I derive conclusions from "insanity" itself, means you think the reasons for things are right in front of you more often than they are. You should be more careful how you form ideas of cause and effect in your mind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_inference

[MattusMaximus]

It doesn't follow, though, that all things that sound insane are valid new physics theories.

In fact, historically, most things that sound insane turned out to be insane.

Wins thread :D

[MattusMaximus]

That is what my unproven and untested theory of physics predicts...

You see, that's your problem right there. Get back to us after there's been some testing of this "theory", m'kay? :rolleyes:

[BenRayfield]

MattusMaximus, we are lucky that scientists did not think that way when speculating about how nuclear bombs would work.

[KoihimeNakamura]

Except they used well known theories as a basis. Sadly, your challenge appears to fail that test.

[BenRayfield]

It is based on well known theories, including http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many_worlds

[paximperium]

It is based on well known theories, including http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many_worlds
Pray tell, how?

[KoihimeNakamura]

I apologize, when I said well known, I meant well evidenced.

Many worlds IS well known but hard to test and at that, does not imply anything except that one choice branches off into multiple quantum universes

[SezMe]

Well that's just absurd.
Joe's right but his remark should apply to the idea behind this thread.

[BenRayfield]

I was trying to do 2 things at once: a theory of physics, and a way to use log_base_2 quantity of charity accounts to have an exponential effect on anything you can hill-climb through a binary-search of a consistent measure of Earth, like counting increasingly difficult categories of "law" as even or odd. Lets forget about the physics and talk about the other one. I only brought physics into this because the best strategy for it is very similar to those parts of physics.

[Ladewig]

I don't remember which president(s) of USA did this, but at least 1 shot and killed someone and got away with murder. He said if the president does it, that makes it legal.


No. Just no.

ETA: I do have to give you style points for putting the S on the end of presidents - as if cold blooded murder were a regular activity for chief executives.

[BenRayfield]

I think this "USA Quantum Law Challenge", where people would donate and win money for even-and-odd questions of increasing diffulty, would work to improve many things on Earth, but there is too much uncertainty on Earth to predict it after it starts improving things at exponential speed, which it could do in theory.

For example, one of the harder money prizes could be won by proving that there are an odd (or even) quantity of pencils in USA, which could only be proven if there was enough consistency in pencil-related things to allow the pencils to be proven odd, or even.

I thought of a much better use for it: an artificial-intelligence (AI) algorithm, with a simulated economy between the various generated artificial-intelligence softwares, doing this same thing but counting things inside the AI softwares instead of pencils or laws. For example, one generated AI software may offer 5000 money units in the simulated economy, for answering even-or-odd quantity of the number 5 in all the other generated AI softwares in total. Because the other generated AI softwares probably are not consistently designed well enough to know how many of the number 5 is in them, without me writing code specificly to count that (its cheating if I help the AIs), the only way the generated AI softwares would be able to prove that the total quantity of 5s is even or odd would be to become more consistent and predictable, which leads to more intelligence as more kinds of things become cheaper and easier to predict, as more offers and questions are made and won as even-or-odd.

I don't know, but I think this, if combined with my existing AI designs that I have written but not coded, could possibly be an algorithm for exponential intelligence, like arbitrarily high IQ in the generated AI softwares, but I don't know. I'll have to build AI for some more years and see how this works.

I've generalized the "USA Quantum Law Challenge" so much that its an AI algorithm, and like my other work, it is licensed open-source GNU GPL 2+ if done in software instead of in Earth's economy.

[BTMO]

Odd.

Send me my money.

[Dave Rogers]

Why should I as a member of the Springfield City Council refrain from passing a law that my constituents badly need/want just because it will prevent some yahoo four states over from being able to properly count the number of laws in the USA?

There's no need to refrain from passing laws altogether. All that you need to do is make sure that you pass laws two at a time from a certain date onwards, then the parity remains constant from that date onwards. Once that's been done, the business of counting the existing laws can commence, and proceed at a leisurely pace in the knowledge that all subsequent laws may be ignored.

All that's needed is for someone to pass a federal law requiring that laws be passed two at a time. And, of course, some other federal law that could be passed at the same time.

Dave

[paximperium]

Odd.

Send me my money.Even.

Send me my money.

[MattusMaximus]

MattusMaximus, we are lucky that scientists did not think that way when speculating about how nuclear bombs would work.

Oh yeah, that must mean you're right! :rolleyes:

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_7747488553b0d8cb4.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=13129)

[MattusMaximus]

It is based on well known theories, including http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many_worlds

MW is an interpretation of standard quantum theory; MW isn't actually a theory in and of itself. It's also worth noting that MW, while interesting, has not yet yielded any tests, and until such time it shall be nothing more than interesting speculation.

So your response for my demand for a test of your "theory" is to reference something else which has not been tested. That's your proof?!

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/774747dc5f01571c1.gif (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=11269)

[JoeTheJuggler]

There's no need to refrain from passing laws altogether. All that you need to do is make sure that you pass laws two at a time from a certain date onwards, then the parity remains constant from that date onwards. Once that's been done, the business of counting the existing laws can commence, and proceed at a leisurely pace in the knowledge that all subsequent laws may be ignored.

All that's needed is for someone to pass a federal law requiring that laws be passed two at a time. And, of course, some other federal law that could be passed at the same time.


And THAT will sure make for more efficient government at all levels! ;)

[BTMO]

Even.

Send me my money.

I have an idea, Pax.

Between us, we have covered all bases. One of us is right, but due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle we'll probably never know which - but one of us IS right.

I am happy to split the cash with you - 50:50. What do you say?

[BenRayfield]

And THAT will sure make for more efficient government at all levels!

That would not make government more efficient at all, but the things that would have to happen before that would make government very much more efficient, because government would have to become more self-aware, self-consistent, and logical before the number of laws count be counted and created in pairs. See the idea of "mutex" I quoted above, for details.

Theres no rule that says you can not win the same question again, like after any even number of laws are added, but all prizes come from donations, and whatever you would win for answering the same question again, would probably be much lower or nothing at all, because people would probably not donate again to the same question for a long time if ever.


Even.

Send me my money.
I have an idea, Pax.

Between us, we have covered all bases. One of us is right, but due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle we'll probably never know which - but one of us IS right.

I am happy to split the cash with you - 50:50. What do you say?

I made it very clear that it has to be proven to be even, or proven to be odd, to win. You can't win without proving which one it is.

Also, I have not made any offers yet, and was only planning the "USA Quantum Law Challenge" in this thread. I will create it when I have a consistent design and know what it will cause more exactly.

For now, I've realized that it would work much better as an artificial intelligence algorithm between AIs in a simulated economy, because AIs can be designed consistently. After that, I will have a better idea how to create something like "USA Quantum Law Challenge" in the Earth economy. It might not even be about laws or USA, but it will be the same idea of donating and winning money for even-and-odd questions of increasing difficulty.

If anyone wants to see my AI (Artificial General Intelligence) design that includes the economy algorithm which I created in this thread, theres some text files about it and working softwares (early versions) at this URL. Its open-source GNU GPL 2+. I did not expect to create an AI algorithm when I started this thread, but thats what it became, a very advanced AI algorithm.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/audivolv

[BenRayfield]

Between us, we have covered all bases. One of us is right, but due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle we'll probably never know which - but one of us IS right.

I am happy to split the cash with you - 50:50. What do you say?

Thats the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics. I say the Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum physics is right instead. What you say as a fact, has never been proven, therefore I can not accept a 50/50 split with a proof that is even or odd. I think its even AND odd, and its in superposition, and thats one of the reasons nobody dares to count it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretation_of_quantum_mechanics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretation_of_quantum_mechanics#The_Copenhagen _interpretation
Copenhagen says observing something collapses the wavefunction on that thing to make it real, so the multiverses stop being blurred at that place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretation_of_quantum_mechanics#Many_worlds
Many-Worlds says the wavefunction never has to collapse, but may become more or less collapsed, like a blur of multiverses.

Those are both approximations of what I think is true about physics, and do not completely match what I think is true, but Many-Worlds is closer to what I think is true.

I don't accept your statement that its even OR odd. It could be even AND odd until you observe it, and even then, it can blur back into superposition after you stop observing it for some time. "The emperor is not wearing any clothes", is a phrase from an old story similar to this. I'm calling the government's bluff. There is no quantity of laws of any complex category. Not yet.

The "USA Quantum Law Challenge" is similar to physics, in that way, but requires no physics to work. It works only by logic.

[MattusMaximus]

The "USA Quantum Law Challenge" is similar to physics, in that way, but requires no physics to work. It works only by logic.

No, your loony "challenge" is nothing like physics - I should know because I'm one of the resident physicists here. You don't even seem to know anything about the physics you keep referencing via a multitude of weblinks.

Making the claim that your "challenge" mirrors physics is little more than a really bad, ill-conceived argument from authority. If your challenge were like actual physics, it could be tested. And, as I've said more than once, unless you propose some manner of testing these claims...

FAIL :rolleyes:

[Foolmewunz]

Not really about politics, so moved to Social Issues and Current Events.

Nice try, ya big blue blood sucker, but could we move it to Philosophy where this sort of ridiculous circle jerk of a thread belongs.

Ben,
Just one question: Why?

[linusrichard]

Oh, Ben. You're a computer programmer? Fantastic! I'd like to hire you to write some computer programs for my company. We're interested in an inventory control system, some accounting software, that kind of thing. But wait - I don't know a lot about computer programming, but I've heard of computer viruses, and I know that sometimes a program can have "bugs" in it, and can "crash" a system, so I have a couple requirements before the software you write is installed in our system (and before you get paid, natch). I'm sure you'll agree with me that these conditions will actually make you a better and more efficient computer programmer.

First, I will have the code printed out, and have someone read it aloud to you.
Second, you will have to be able to recite every line of code from memory.
Third, you will have to be able to answer various questions about specific lines of code and specific subroutines, etc.

Any lines of code that you can't recite from memory, or answer questions about, will be deleted from the program before it's installed. How important can they be if you, the programmer can't even remember them, right? They probably have lots of "bugs" or even "viruses" in them.

What do you think? I bet you can't wait to code for such a forward-thinking and efficiency-minded client!

[Toke]

Is this an accurate presentation of your theory? (http://www.viruscomix.com/page417.html)

[dudalb]

a president shot and killed somebody? Wow.

Andrew Jackson did, but that was a number of years before he became President.


What we see here is another attempt to apply the methods and techniques that work in the Hard Sciences to Human Behavior, and that inevitably is a Epic Fail.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Thats the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics. I say the Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum physics is right instead.
You do realize that quantum physics (the Copenhagen interpretation, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, etc.) does not apply to the macro world (human behavior, law, government), don't you?

[JoeTheJuggler]

Nice try, ya big blue blood sucker, but could we move it to Philosophy where this sort of ridiculous circle jerk of a thread belongs.

I think the move from Politics was at my request, but I whiffed on where it should go. I think I suggested General Skepticism. . .

[BenRayfield]

We vote in city elections.

We vote in state elections.

We vote in federal elections.

We are denied the freedom to vote in world government elections, because there are none. Make it happen. Be a "government by the people" or take your orders from the "Quantum Law Challenge".

This is becoming a world government issue, therefore I request it be moved back to the Politics section.

I'm being honest here. I'm not planning any violence or deception or illegal things during this process, but...

We are planning to "lay the smackdown" on Interpol, by starting the "Quantum Law Challenge" with some thousands of dollars for some of the easier even/odd questions.

I designed this to start in the USA government (by paying people to count certain things and prove that quantity is even or odd), but it can work in any country, and this is 1 thing Interpol is not immune to... the force of logic in the economy.

Interpol will start being indirectly under the control of the 7 billion people of Earth quickly after the "Quantum Law Challenge" is started with some thousands of dollars for some of the easier things to count even/odd. It will work.

We should allow Interpol to continue being the world government only if Interpol starts being a "government by the people" with voting systems for everyone to vote. Its our choice, not the rich and powerful people. The math I designed above works that well. Its unstoppable.

The "Quantum Law Challenge" is the best way to indirectly cause Interpol to be a "government by the people" and start having a voting system for everyone:
It would be a series of charities, all called "USA Quantum Law Challenge". Basically each charity challenges anyone to count (even or odd) certain categories of laws or other things, and they win a money prize for proving that quantity is even or odd, and the indirect effects of that are important to the future of Earth.

------------- ---PURPOSE---

The purpose is to indirectly cause the USA government to become more self-consistent, logical, and efficient. Indirect effects of that would probably include the USA government saving trillions of dollars per year, less people going to jail for breaking laws that contradict other laws, more logical thinking about when to use nuclear weapons and other dangerous things, and generally better government. Because of USA's unique relationship with many other countries, these improvements would flow to most other parts of Earth too. Theoretically it could indirectly and gradually solve many of Earth's biggest problems.

------------------------------ ---WHAT DOES THE NAME MEAN?---

The name includes the word "quantum", but no quantum math is necessary for it to work. Some of the ideas of quantum physics are very similar to the ideas that make the "USA Quantum Law Challenge" work, so its more of a description than a theory of physics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qubit

A quantum qubit for each category of "law" I will define. In a small way, it may be related to one of my theories about quantum physics and multiverses (read about it at that forum page), but its not necessary. There are simple logical reasons this will work. Most of those reasons are described at that forum page, but I will summarize below.

That forum is at the "James Randi Educational Foundation". James Randi created the "$1 Million Paranormal Challenge". Because of the similarity of how I am designing the "USA Quantum Law Challenge", I named it similarly. It does not challenge any laws. It only counts them and answers "even" or "odd" for that quantity.

----------------------- ---HOW DOES IT WORK?---

I will unambiguously (mostly in the style of lambda programming, with a few english words) define some categories of things. Those things may be laws, similar to laws, or anything else, but I will start with things most people would call a "law". I will avoid vague words like "law" because it would certainly lead to arguments over what counts as a law. It must be unambiguous.

For each category, the Lifeboat Foundation should add 1 charity account, where anyone can donate money. The money stays there until it is won by someone. That person wins all that money. Then, that same charity can be refilled and can be won again the same way, but only after the quantity of that category changes.

Each category has 1 question and 1 money prize (the charity). The question is always the following:

"Choose any arbitrary time in the future. Is the integer quantity of things in the category an odd number? Or is it an even number? Answer even or odd but not both, and prove it to the standards of published peer-reviewed science, and after 3 months, if the peer-review process proves no flaws in your proof, you receive the money prize."

A quantum physicist would say it this way: You won the money by observing the evenness or oddness to collapse the wavefunction, and it may not have been even or odd until you proved it. It may have been in superposition of simultaneous evenness and oddness.

My theory is that the USA government is so disorganized and confused about what itself is doing and thinking and planning that it would be very hard for it to count (and prove even or odd) most categories that we would define.

Other people could add categories later, but I will propose a few to start with. For each category, the first time it is won, and the money received by the winner, a new category should be created that is 2 times as hard to count (and prove even or odd). People may choose to donate to the old or new categories. As harder categories continue to be counted, confidence is gained in the "USA Quantum Law Challenge" as a working system, and more money will be donated and won, and more things counted and proven even or odd. The "purpose" I wrote above would eventually be accomplished that way.

-------------------------------------------------- ------ ---These are the categories I recommend we start with---

USA Quantum Law Challenge - General funds can go to any category Lifeboat thinks is best.

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Quantity of letters in USA's Constitution. This one is very easy because the first one has to be easy to get it started. The harder it is, the bigger the money prize will probably become before somebody wins it.

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of federal laws

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of letters in all federal laws.

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of state laws, all states combined, including DC.

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of letters in all state laws, all states combined, including DC.

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of laws the president of USA must obey (no immunity).

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of laws Congress must obey (no immunity).

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of video-cameras in "Area 51".

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of video-cameras in the Whitehouse.

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of video-cameras in the Pentagon.

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of letters in the president of USA's police record.

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of government employees.

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of government employees that have ever been found guilty of a violent crime.

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of Interpol employees

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of secret laws Interpol has created

USA Quantum Law Challenge - Even-or-odd-Quantity of dollars in Interpols richest member's bank account

Add your own questions to prove even/odd for a money prize...

---------------------------- ---About those categories---

For all of those categories, prove the quantity is even or odd, and you win the prize. It is not possible for this to be a danger to "national security", even if it counts secret laws or secret things, because only "even" or "odd" has to be proven, and that can sometimes be done in math without proving the actual quantity. I do not know how to prove these things without knowing the quantity, but I do not know it can not be done either. Only requiring "even" or "odd" is an untouchable defense against "national security" accusations. I am not asking anyone to violate "national security", but it would be none of my business if they caused something to be declassified and to stop being "national security" and then counted it and said "even" or "odd". It has to be proven up to the standards of published peer-reviewed science (and the 3 month delay), but there are no limits on how to prove it other than that.

I'll give an example: If you prove that the quantity of laws the president of USA has to obey (no immunity) is an odd number, then indirectly he would have to obey laws more often. You can quantum-observe that into reality just by proving even or odd.

Similarly, you could cause more consistency in pencil-related things by paying a large amount of money to anyone who could prove there is an odd (or even) quantity of pencils in USA. Theres no other way to know if its even or odd. It would have to become more consistent.


The 6.8 billion people of Earth have the right to create a new world government exactly the way they (on average/median/etc) want it to be, and the existing governments have no right to stop us.

Please spend your thousands of dollars to get some of the easier even/odd questions started today, and protect the freedom of everyone on Earth.

[Lanzy]

I can't really tell what you are going on about but I will predict no one is donating money to you.

[KingMerv00]

You exhibit the disorganized thought and language patterns. It is possible you suffer from schizophrenia. I'd recommend seeing a doctor. I don't mean that as an insult.

[Vic Vega]

I predict that other people will eventually donate money to this fund in a similar way James Randi's fund increased from 1000 dollars to a million dollars.


I read your post and I will confidently predict that they won't.

[BenRayfield]

Lanzy, you're right. Thats why I'll have to spend my own few thousands of dollars (when I save up some money) before other people see what effect it has. Maybe I'll have to spend $50,000 total for the first few questions before other people see the effects, but I will make it work eventually.


KingMerv00, its a math thing. I don't expect most people to understand why it will work before or after it works, but they will understand it works after I pay my own money into it and get it started.

[drkitten]

Lanzy, you're right. Thats why I'll have to spend my own few thousands of dollars (when I save up some money) before other people see what effect it has. Maybe I'll have to spend $50,000 total for the first few questions before other people see the effects, but I will make it work eventually.


KingMerv00, its a math thing. I don't expect most people to understand why it will work before or after it works, but they will understand it works after I pay my own money into it and get it started.

Unfortunately, I don't think I could really come up with a better example of the harm that woo-woo thinking does than this thread.

That $50,000 you're prepared to spend could be a down payment on a better house for you and your family. It could be college tuition for someone. It could be several years medical payments in your frail old age.

And even if you're wealthy enough that you don't need it yourself, it could also be a dozen scholarships at your local college or enough money to spay/neuter five hundred pets at the local Humane Society.

[KingMerv00]

KingMerv00, its a math thing. I don't expect most people to understand why it will work before or after it works, but they will understand it works after I pay my own money into it and get it started.

There is no math in post #75. It is just jumbled language.

[BenRayfield]

Unfortunately, I don't think I could really come up with a better example of the harm that woo-woo thinking does than this thread.

That $50,000 you're prepared to spend could be a down payment on a better house for you and your family. It could be college tuition for someone. It could be several years medical payments in your frail old age.

And even if you're wealthy enough that you don't need it yourself, it could also be a dozen scholarships at your local college or enough money to spay/neuter five hundred pets at the local Humane Society.

The freedom of everyone on Earth, including my own freedom, is worth more than all those things.


KingMerv, the math part is in the economy and peoples' desire to reproduce the results I will show the the "Quantum Law Challenge" can do with small amounts of money. Some math problems are word problems, and you have to translate it to numbers before seeing the math.

[BenRayfield]

More importantly, paying $50,000 (maybe more, maybe less) to start the "Quantum Law Challenge" would probably prevent World War 3, which is near starting because of the world government overthrowing country governments, for reasons described here:

http://www.kurzweilai.net/mindx/show_thread.php?rootID=171653

Your scholarships are useless if the college is burning.

[KingMerv00]

KingMerv, the math part is in the economy and peoples' desire to reproduce the results I will show the the "Quantum Law Challenge" can do with small amounts of money. Some math problems are word problems, and you have to translate it to numbers before seeing the math.

And your word problems make no sense. It isn't because they are complex it is because they are word salad.

[Plasmadog]

There are n laws, defined however you like. I don't know what the value of n is, but I can prove that it is a number that is either even or odd. The probability of it being one of those is 100%.
Do I win?

It seems that what is actually being asked here is whether anyone can prove that they know what n is. The even/odd part seems irrelevant.

[KingMerv00]

There are n laws, defined however you like. I don't know what the value of n is, but I can prove that it is a number that is either even or odd. The probability of it being one of those is 100%.
Do I win?

It seems that what is actually being asked here is whether anyone can prove that they know what n is. The even/odd part seems irrelevant.

You bet odd and I'll bet even at the exact same moment then we split the cash. What do you say?

[ben m]

Hey! This reminds me of the jar of jelly beans at my old school fundraisers. If I remember correctly, what happened was that:

a) Someone seeded $50 or so of prize money
b) A bunch of other people donated $1 for a chance to guess the number of jelly beans
c) Some of the $1 was added to the $50 prize, some went to the school
d) At some point, the prize grew hyperexponentially and raised world awareness of the jar of beans and this caused the overthrow of the Illuminati-controlled world cabal of sbfskuhbsdbjfkjbkjbsoiuerb powbbrei!!!!! And that's why you can't buy jelly beans on Sundays any more.

[Gord_in_Toronto]

I would really like to know -- WHO CARES?

I have no idea of the number of grains of sand in the beach I visit in the Summer. But it exists and is nice to run and walk on barefoot.

:boggled:

[Little 10 Toes]

We vote in city elections.

We vote in state elections.

We vote in federal elections.

We are denied the freedom to vote in world government elections, because there are none. Make it happen. Be a "government by the people" or take your orders from the "Quantum Law Challenge".

But you don't vote in my city elections. You don't vote in my county/parish elections. You don't vote in my state elections. You don't vote in my federal elections.

I don't vote in your province, prefecture, township, county, town, or village elections either. Should I care?

My neighbor with a speech sound disorder is denied the freedom to strangle cross dressing wabbits and shoot their weird duck-dogs while wearing a hunters uniform because there is no freedom.

Yes I'm being sarcastic, but you are asking the wrong questions and making stuff up. The US of A has a "government by the people" because we voted for it. We're not a democracy, we're a republic. The people of Thailand have a constitutional monarchy. They picked it and after 17 constitutions and charters since 1932, they still have it.


This is becoming a world government issue, therefore I request it be moved back to the Politics section.You're going off topic. The OP is a challenge to determine the number of laws in the US.


I'm being honest here. I'm not planning any violence or deception or illegal things during this process, but...

We are planning to "lay the smackdown" on Interpol, by starting the "Quantum Law Challenge" with some thousands of dollars for some of the easier even/odd questions.

I designed this to start in the USA government (by paying people to count certain things and prove that quantity is even or odd), but it can work in any country, and this is 1 thing Interpol is not immune to... the force of logic in the economy. Smacking down Interpol how? And why?


Interpol will start being indirectly under the control of the 7 billion people of Earth quickly after the "Quantum Law Challenge" is started with some thousands of dollars for some of the easier things to count even/odd. It will work. Why start with Interpol, the second largest intergovernmental organization after the United Nations.? Why not, I don't know, the UN?

We should allow Interpol to continue being the world government only if Interpol starts being a "government by the people" with voting systems for everyone to vote. Its our choice, not the rich and powerful people. The math I designed above works that well. Its unstoppable. Once again, Interpol is not a government, just like the UN is not a government. You haven't shown math.


The "Quantum Law Challenge" is the best way to indirectly cause Interpol to be a "government by the people" and start having a voting system for everyone: Sorry, but do you know what Interpol actually does? Think international cops, but they don't do internal stuff.





The 6.8 billion people of Earth have the right to create a new world government exactly the way they (on average/median/etc) want it to be, and the existing governments have no right to stop us.

Please spend your thousands of dollars to get some of the easier even/odd questions started today, and protect the freedom of everyone on Earth. Off topic.

ETA: If you want to have someone go through all the laws in America and get rid of the silly ones, more power to you. Just don't think that you'll have the results you're hoping for.

[KingMerv00]

Double post.

[KingMerv00]

We're not a democracy, we're a republic.

There is a whole thread on this. A republic is a type of democracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_democracy).

[drkitten]

The freedom of everyone on Earth, including my own freedom, is worth more than all those things.

It is indeed. But it won't be obtained by your wasting $50,000 on an ineffective and ill-thought-out stunt.

[Little 10 Toes]

There is a whole thread on this. A republic is a type of democracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_democracy).
You're right. That discusion is for a different thread.

[AvalonXQ]

If you prove that the quantity of laws the president of USA has to obey (no immunity) is an odd number, then indirectly he would have to obey laws more often.

Can you prove this?

[phunk]

a president shot and killed somebody? Wow.

No, but a vice president has. Aaron Burr, while he was VP, killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. He was never convicted but it destroyed his politcal career.

[BenRayfield]

When I started this thread, I was only planning it, but now :shocked: I've made my first offer of money :shocked:. I first wrote it here: http://spacecollective.org/benrayfield/6128/No-Math-Intuition

I'll copy the whole post here, but only 1 paragraph is offering the money (I bolded that whole paragraph below), and the rest is describing most peoples' general lack of understanding of basic math which is part of why I'm offering the $1000 to count all laws in USA. I'm leaving the definition of "law" to whoever proves it, but it has to be something most people would accept as being called a "law".

Quoting my post:



No Math Intuition
Project: Polytopia


Most people do not understand PLUS and MULTIPLY when they see them in things they use almost everyday.

Choose a random person and ask them: Whats the difference between CONTRAST and BRIGHTNESS in the options of a TV?

Probably they will answer "Contrast makes the colors more different and brightness makes it more white or more black", or they may answer "I don't know but I mess with it until the TV picture looks good."

Those are not intelligent answers. They are answers by people who only understand CONTRAST and BRIGHTNESS through "trial and error" which is the second-least intelligent strategy to learn things. The first-least intelligent strategy to learn is "error and error again without the desire to learn" which is what people usually do on most problems until the problems become 1 of the top 5 things bothering the person. For example, if you don't recognize PLUS or MULTIPLY when you see them in your everyday life, then there is little desire to learn PLUS and MULTIPLY until they finish signing up for new cell-phone service which has a monthly cost of the sum of 5 to 10 different fees and taxes, none of which the cell-phone business is able to calculate until you agree to a 2 year contract to pay the 5 to 10 unknown costs. People who do not understand PLUS and MULTIPLY can easily be fooled into paying 50+x+y+z dollars per month because x, y, and z are unknown numbers and anything that is unknown is less of a problem than something that is known. Most people's highest priority (for example, when they're at a cell-phone store) is to agree to pay an unknown cost every month for years on a contract, and the lower priority is to learn PLUS and MULTIPLY which could be used (by the cell-phone business before the person walks into the store, for example) to calculate the monthly cost of the cell phone, but somehow people think its ok to buy something without knowing the price, probably because they have no intuition of math.

Back to simpler example of BRIGHTNESS and CONTRAST on a TV:

BRIGHTNESS is PLUS. CONTRAST is MULTIPLY. A TV is made of many red, green, and blue lights. Each light has some amount of light coming from it. That amount of light is something like: BRIGHTNESS plus CONTRAST multiplied by [the original amount of light coming to that part of the screen].

Why can't people figure that out? Why doesn't this obvious example of PLUS and MULTIPLY come into their thoughts when they're adjusting how the TV screen looks? I can think of only 1 reason: They don't understand PLUS and MULTIPLY unless its written (on paper, for example), and more than that, if most people read this and learned of their ignorance of PLUS and MULTIPLY, they would still have little desire to learn it and would still prefer to pay 50+x+y+z dollars per month for a cell-phone (on a 2 year contract) before knowing what x, y, and z are.

I don't think bad things about people just because they don't understand math, but I have to hold myself back from insulting people who let their ignorance of math cause problems (higher cell phone prices, where x or y or z is a bigger number, for example) and have little desire to learn basic math and solve such practical problems. Why will most people ignore such easy solutions to big problems? Why don't most people want to know how to add and multiply?

I'll give another example: Many people think that 2.99 dollars is much less than 3.00 dollars. How do I know this? Because advertisers calculate lots of math and figure out intelligent ways to get people to buy the most stuff, and making most prices (in USA at least) end with 9 (like 24.99 or 3.49 or 2.99) proves that many people, who have had years to figure this out (which would have saved them lots of money for little effort) but did not, are not smart enough to know that 2.99 is almost the same price as 3.00. Why do they buy significantly more products when the price is almost the same? Because they lack intuition of math and have little desire to learn basic math.

And finally a big one, something most people think can be done easily, but I will prove it can not by offering some money to figure it out...
I'll pay 1000 dollars (I'll sell something if I have to) to anyone who counts, reliably like a scientist counts and proves things, how many laws there are in USA at any time in the future you choose (like next week at a specific second minute and hour). Most people accept some inaccuracy in counting votes, but it is insane to not be able to count how many laws there are, but somehow it has become normal to think the government should not have the ability to do basic math on the most important things (like laws or votes). You want $1000? Prove the government of USA can do basic math, and do the basic math (with no errors) to count the laws, and its yours. Or if nobody can count the laws (with no errors), I am proven right, that the government of USA can not do basic math (and the people who elect leaders who can not organize a government to do basic math like counting laws). To show how serious I am about this offer, read about the "USA Quantum Law Challenge" I wrote at http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=159047 (this thread at randi.org) which is a similar (and more advanced) series of money/counting offers I'm planning to make, when I figure out the details. But for now, Its just an offer of $1000 to reliably count the laws in USA any time you want. How many laws? Its an integer.

Whats the difference between CONTRAST and BRIGHTNESS in the options of a TV? Contrast multiplies. Brightness adds. Maybe next time you see basic math in your everyday life, you will recognize it and think of ways you can benefit from knowing how things work (like a lower cell-phone bill or better government).

As technology advances, what will happen to people who have little desire to understand how it works, basic math, and other things that could benefit them? Those who do not want to learn will be obsolete, not interesting. Maybe we can leave them all in some place to continue their repetitive tasks as long as they like, while the rest of us move on to more interesting things. People who do not want to understand how things work or improve things are not going to invent faster-than-light starships, but the others can build technology to figure it out for them. The brute-force strategies that people live by today only work because theres not enough global organization and intelligence (of people and of technology) to obsolete those strategies, but things are changing quickly, and it is in everyone's selfish interest to start having a desire to understand how things work. People think I'm crazy when I tell them I expect to be flying on an intergalactic starship in the year 2040 (or before that), but most of those people do not understand PLUS and MULTIPLY, so I expect them to think advanced math (like learning the laws-of-physics and how to use it) is impossible.

It all starts with a desire to understand how things work.



Thats the end of my post at http://spacecollective.org/benrayfield/6128/No-Math-Intuition which offers the $1000 for reliably (no errors) counting all laws in USA at any time you choose. James Randi started the Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge with his $1000. Maybe if I later get a money account set up for this, people will start adding to the prize for counting the laws and something will get done, then we move on to harder things to count as described in this thread, each thing 2 times harder to count than the last.

[KirinDave]

BenRayfield, how will you have time to do this while also making telepathy inducing software?

[Furcifer]

How will you know who wins?

[Vorticity]

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/4514c45c26d90a6e.jpg

[Jack by the hedge]

How will you know who wins?

That's a very good question, don't you think?

Oooh. And that's another one.

[AvalonXQ]

With Randi's challenge, applicants have an opportunity to negotiate the terms of completing the challenge.

Based on your explanation above, you seem to be interested in the laws of the "government of the United States". Thus, I interpret this as federal law.
Additionally, since you're asking to quantize these laws, I interpret that as implying that they are discrete objects. Thus, I interpret this as federal statutes.
The codified form of the federal statutes is the United States Code. Although only some sections of the code are enacted as positive law, all are prima facie evidence of the law. So, pending evidence to the contrary, I'm taking your statement at face value that:
I'm leaving the definition of "law" to whoever proves it, but it has to be something most people would accept as being called a "law".
I'm therefore defining "law", for the purpose of this challenge, as "enumerated section of the United States Code".
People can chime in that this is a definition they would accept, thus fitting the terms of your challenge.
Therefore, I win the challenge by specifying the number of enumerated sections of the United States Code at a given time.
Is this acceptable?

[drkitten]

I'm therefore defining "law", for the purpose of this challenge, as "enumerated section of the United States Code".
People can chime in that this is a definition they would accept, thus fitting the terms of your challenge.

Well, I'd certainly find that acceptable, but I suspect that BR will not.

Just as an example : Title 18, Chapter 31, section 656,, which is technically one section:

Whoever, being an officer, director, agent or employee of, or connected in any capacity with any Federal Reserve bank, member bank, depository institution holding company, national bank, insured bank, branch or agency of a foreign bank, or organization operating under section 25 or section 25(a) [1] of the Federal Reserve Act, or a receiver of a national bank, insured bank, branch, agency, or organization or any agent or employee of the receiver, or a Federal Reserve Agent, or an agent or employee of a Federal Reserve Agent or of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, embezzles, abstracts, purloins or willfully misapplies any of the moneys, funds or credits of such bank, branch, agency, or organization or holding company or any moneys, funds, assets or securities intrusted to the custody or care of such bank, branch, agency, or organization, or holding company or to the custody or care of any such agent, officer, director, employee or receiver, shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both; but if the amount embezzled, abstracted, purloined or misapplied does not exceed $1,000, he shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

As used in this section, the term “national bank” is synonymous with “national banking association”; “member bank” means and includes any national bank, state bank, or bank and trust company which has become a member of one of the Federal Reserve banks; “insured bank” includes any bank, banking association, trust company, savings bank, or other banking institution, the deposits of which are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; and the term “branch or agency of a foreign bank” means a branch or agency described in section 20 (9) of this title. For purposes of this section, the term “depository institution holding company” has the meaning given such term in section 3 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act.

The first paragraph describes two separate punishments for what are therefore two separate offenses; the second paragraph provides five separate and independent definitions that control interpretation and hence have the force of law.

Is this one law, two laws, three laws, or nine laws?

[ScanningFool]

No, but a vice president has. Aaron Burr, while he was VP, killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. He was never convicted but it destroyed his politcal career.
Andrew Jackson shot and killed Charles Dickenson in a duel when he was a younger man before becoming president. Mr. Dickenson had already shot Jackson in the duel and while reloading Jackson shot and killed Dickenson. Of course he was not tried for murder as this was sort of ok at the time. Andy Jackson fought in so many duels [13] (although only killing one man) and was wounded in many that he was said to "rattle like a bag of marbles."

[linusrichard]

I'm therefore defining "law", for the purpose of this challenge, as "enumerated section of the United States Code".
People can chime in that this is a definition they would accept, thus fitting the terms of your challenge.

(As you might agree), there are a whole lot of things wrong with this definition of "a law." However, there are a whole lot of things wrong with most definitions of "a law," and this one is far better than most. I would accept it for these purposes, absolutely.

[AvalonXQ]

Once BenRayfield agrees to my conditions, I will endeavor to meet his challenge by counting the enumerated sections of the United States Code. I'm still awaiting his response.