How to "Make a wish" without consequences

[bgg1996]

[Zag]

[Antrax]

Indeed (though I'm quite willing to debate the theoretical definitions, as well). BTW, what's a pseudo-random event?
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[bgg1996]

cellular/=/atomic

And I can't say that I've driven before, but I can say that I've been driven by car, and never had that happen to me. But aren't there a few signs that a person is driving unsafely/drunkenly? I say stay away from the spot directly in front of them, otherwise, you can't lay claim to "doing nothing wrong". There are no car accidents that are impossible to avoid.


Pseudo-random like flipping a coin, or spinning a large dial. The outcome is completely dependant on how much force you put into it, and other factors like that.
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[Antrax]

Ah, okay. So you mean "what other people would call random but isn't by my definition" (there's just an "official" definition for pseudo-random that didn't agree with your examples)
Anyway,

[bgg1996]

Pseudo-Random
2.
mimicking randomness.

[bgg1996]

Not that I currently employ all of these strategies.
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[raekuul]

*eyeglasspinch* bgg, the only way those preventative measures would be effective is if you knew ahead of time that the animal was going to rear-end you, or that your tire wasn't in as good a condition as you thought it was, or that the person wasn't going to stop in time.

[Samadhi]

[Zag]

My mother-in-law, who is a cautious and safe driver (annoyingly so, in fact) was once driving on a highway at night when a deer landed on her hood and shattered her windshield. She was not seriously harmed, but easily could have been if the bulk of the deer had come in on the driver's side instead of the passenger's side as it did.

She was on a highway that has a fence to prevent deer from being in the way of drivers. The deer had leaped it, which is why it came down out of the sky on to her car.

I'm pretty certain that there was absolutely nothing she could have done to avoid this, and it was just bad luck (i.e. random circumstance not in her favor).

Also, a change to DNA due to gamma radiation is certainly a quantum event (which determined where the particular gamma ray went). The fact that it causes a change in the DNA that made a cell become cancerous (as opposed to the harmless changes that happen to our cells' DNA all the time) is also random.

I really think that you've picked an indefensible position, here, bgg. And you did it as if you had a particular drum to beat. What is your motivation for taking such an extreme stance?

[MatthewV]

I wish Zag would explain the consequences of a genie giving me a perfect, right, geometric solid with 28 faces and an enclosed volume of 100 cubic inches.

[bgg1996]

[Zag]

MattV, you haven't included clauses that nothing else in the universe is affected, that he doesn't give it to you in the middle of the sun, that he doesn't give it to you at 1200 mph, and so on.

I'm curious why you asked that, specifically, though. It doesn't seem to me that such a thing would be impossible to construct, but maybe I'm interpreting the terms incorrectly.

[MatthewV]

But if he gives such an object to me, no matter where or how fast or with the angry crowd of mathematicians, it would have to be possible to construct. And that is what I am actually wanting with my wish.

[Zag]

I suspected something along those lines, which is why I put the second line in my note above. I guess I didn't understand the geometry terms correctly. (It's been a long time.) I thought that "perfect, right, geometric solid with 28 faces and an enclosed volume of 100 cubic inches" meant that you would start with a perfect 26-sided polygon, calculate the area inside it (call it A), then make a solid with that as the bottom and top, rectangles for sides, and with a height of 100 / A. Sure, the lengths will be irrational numbers, but that's no challenge for a genie.

Or by "perfect," does that mean that all the faces must be the same shape? Then I can believe it's impossible in the 3 dimensions in which we exist. It might be possible in the curved space within the event horizon of a black hole. That would be bad for you.

[MatthewV]

Yes, all the faces would have to have the same shape and all the dihedral angles would have to be equal.
I don't think it would be possible in any dimension we know of.

But I fail to see why such a universe is bad for me. I have never felt my existence to be significant so if the entire universe gets screwed up just to make my silly dodecaoctahedron... I am okay with that. And at the very least, I will be better off than most people. I will have a perfect dodecoctahedron, what will you have?

[Zag]

No, I meant it would be bad for you if the only place that the thing you asked for could exist is inside the event horizon of a black hole, because that's where the evil genie would give it to you. At least it would be a quick death. I think. I don't know what should happen if you ask for something that can't exist. If you're lucky, nothing; but you always had the option of not asking in the first place: a much safer alternative.

Also, I thought that a right, geometric solid meant that the sides are at a right angle to the base and top. If you're just talking about the Platonic solids, what does the "right" modifier imply?

[raekuul]

Zag, I'm not certain but I believe that the right modifier as applies to solids means that each face is congruent with all other faces.

MattV: If you place a being in an impossible position and he does the impossible, it ceases to be impossible. You may as well wish for the genie to count out loud to infinity.

bgg: Unless those events or some variations thereof are happening with enough regularity to be significant in your expenditures, buying a friggin' TANK is overkill. And if they are, I'm investigating all the causes, not just the ones that aren't under my direct control.

[bgg1996]

Expensive and extravagant but not impossible.
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[The Ragin' South Asian]

If you don't think that buying a friggin' tank to avoid the consequences of randomness constitutes being "affected severely" by [randomness], well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Bruce Wayne.

[bgg1996]

But you don't buy a tank for randomness, you buy it for bad drivers.
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[groza528]

Given: Nothing is random.
Lemma: Every event is calculable and deterministic.
Assumption: A car accident is an event. A near miss is also an event, but is not a car accident.
Conclusion: No car accident is avoidable. Q.E.D.

[Antrax]

Yes, it's that lemma that I'm trying to figure out whether bgg believes in or not. It's legitimate to believe in a deterministic universe with no free will, but is that really the point he's arguing?
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[bgg1996]

Can't we have free will that can be determined?
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[bgg1996]

And isn't this getting a little bit off topic?
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[raekuul]

No but yes; one of the wishes earlier suggested was that stupidity be painful.

[MatthewV]

All threads in off-topic can be off-topic...

Now, lets say I wish for a cup of tea and nothing more.
- If the genie gives it to me in the middle of the sun or five feet above my head
- if he gives it to me in a cup made of ice, without a cup, or in a cup that weights 2 tons of uranium
- if he gives it to me supercooled, poisoned, or made of tequila

But then, if he gives me a delicious cup of green tea in a ceramic mug sitting on the table, did he grant my wish any better than the cases above?

[grz*]

"Hahaha, enjoy your tea squirt!"
"What do you mean? This looks like a perfectly normal --spit-- ugh! It's tepid! You bastard!"

I think the "without a cup" is probably the best fulfillment. If we're talking about "degree of fulfillment" then superfluous details (such as uranium) do not fit the bill imho. However, I could definitely argue him giving you half a pint of tea with no container to hold it. If you said "I wish for a cup of moderately hot, delicious tea, served in a stylish mug," then I would expect any other ironic consequences to be fulfilling the contractual wish worse than standard. No less valid, just out of scope.

The cup made of ice would be fun though, especially if the tea was practically scalding.

[Antrax]

[Lepton*]

Having watched Aladdin, I know that the correct answer is, "I wish you were free, genie!" How about, "I wish you were a nice genie"? Or, for my romantic side, "I wish you would spend the rest of my life teaching me the physics of the universe?"

MattV, on your thread, how about, "I wish for a magnetic monopole." The existence of even a single magnetic monopole would make some pretty things happen in quantum mechanics formulae.

It's seems like "truth" type questions are safer than "dare" questions. For example, "I wish for you to tell me why Pablo's wife got all those blank tiles" seems reasonably safe, although I should perhaps condition the term "tell me" to avoid rupturing my ear drums or something.

[Zag]

I rather like the kind genie one. If you include a clause that he affects nothing else besides his own attitude, and add that it should result in him being friendly to you, but not obsessively so, I think you might have a winner.

[groza528]

So your wish is "Can't we all just get along?"
...I kind of like it.

[Jack_Ian]

I'd wish for people to feel the pain and stress of their victims.
We'd have to start killing our vegetables humanely, but I think we could cope with that.

[Dread Pirate Westley]

[Jack_Ian]

[UM*]

If wishes were fishes......I'd be in trouble cause I hate seafood.


also the market would become oversaturated with fish causing a downturn in the average price of fish to the point where fishing as an industry would dry up and we would have even more unemployment than we do now. The moral stop wishing =(

lol

[raekuul]

I think the fundamental problem is that we're trying to cause something to happen while trying to prevent it from having any adverse effects anywhere. It's a good exercise as long as we don't start avoiding one seemingly innocuous thing in order to prevent catastrophic events some several hundred to ten thousand years later.

[Dread Pirate Westley]

[Jack_Ian]

If it really was the thought that counted, then a lot more women would be pregnant.

[Undercover Monk]

lol at jack Ian

and no I dont think the over abundance of fish would solve world hunger. The government in some countries would oversee the distribution. Of course being human agencies they would be corrupt. In others local gangs or militia would round up all the fish and distribute it how they would. Businesses would also try their hand at improving the fish and somehow would find a way around the supply problem I mentioned making it profitable to them but denying it to others in the process. And some, like me, are just picky and would rather starve out of principle. Bottom line this being an imperfect world there will always be hunger, poverty, and disease.

Thers your happy thought of the day. Im off to look at cute cat videos on the internet =)
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