This misses the entire point of the thought experiment.

It's not that the poison gas has a 50% chance of being let loose (I like the gas version).
It's that the trigger is the decay of an atomic nucleus; which--under the theory of Quantum Superposition--has the ability to be in both states simultaneously (decayed--or whole; dead cat--or live cat).

If the cat flips a coin and will die if it's heads (for the purpose of this comment we will ignore the fact that cats have no thumbs) --that's a 50% chance. But, that has nothing to do with the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum physics.

Also, Schrödinger used this scenario to refute the Copenhagen interpretation--because he didn't believe it was an accurate statement of reality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat

(I still upvote this for the promotion of thought )

>> ^syncron:

Wrong. Alive or dead is not a quantum state.

It is if the cat's being alive or dead is dependent on a quantum event: if the Geiger counter in the box detects radiation from the decay of the radiactive source, a mechanism will release the poison that kills the cat. In any case, Schroedinger intended his thought experiment to be a reductio ad absurdum of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, and he never intended to present the idea of cats in quantum superpositions as a real phenomenon. It's a satire.

@marbles, dgandhi already more or less gave you the argument I was planning on making in response, but I do want to respond to at least a few things you said directly. Forgive me for taking them out of order.
>> ^marbles:
Re: Why should there have to be a victim?
How else is there a crime?

Violating the speed limit is a crime. There's no victim.

>> ^marbles:
Re: Who decides what natural rights are?
No one decides. They’re inherent. They evolved in the human mind long before the organization of human society.

I'm a human, and I have a mind. I have no earthly idea what you think natural rights are, or why I should care about them.

I have my own reasons for what I believe, and how I approach the concept of rights, and it's clearly different from yours. How can that be possible, if "natural rights" are wired into us?
>> ^marbles:

Re: No, this is what a philosophical argument is like. You take a concept everyone "knows" and thinks they understand, and then you try to test it with thought experiments and logic, to see if you can really come up with a rigorous definition for it.
That’s already been done Hoss, centuries ago. You can dissect it and come up with terms like “positive liberty” all you want, but it serves no purpose but to undermine liberty as a whole.

This is really the crux of the dispute in all your myriad conversations on this video. You seem to think anyone who asks you to think about what you're saying is just trying to trick you somehow.

The only thing we're trying to do is get you to broaden your perspective a little. We're being polite about the fact that you seem to think us evil (or perhaps just stupid) for believing what we believe, and we're trying to help you understand a little bit of why we think the way we do, and see that maybe we're not monsters after all...

@NetRunner

Re: No, this is what a philosophical argument is like. You take a concept everyone "knows" and thinks they understand, and then you try to test it with thought experiments and logic, to see if you can really come up with a rigorous definition for it.

That’s already been done Hoss, centuries ago. You can dissect it and come up with terms like “positive liberty” all you want, but it serves no purpose but to undermine liberty as a whole. Property is an extension of life. If you deny the right of protection of property, then you’re also denying the right to protect one’s life.

Re: Just FYI, "freedom is slavery" is exactly what this video is saying. "Property is freedom" translates to "Absolute authority over other people when they're on my property...is freedom".

False. More hyperbole?

Re: Why should there have to be a victim?

How else is there a crime?

Re: Who decides what natural rights are?

No one decides. They’re inherent. They evolved in the human mind long before the organization of human society.

Re: I'm not talking about a thought crime, I'm talking about putting a sign in your store window saying "Whites only".
Would a law making that practice illegal be pro- or anti-liberty?

It’s none of my concern who a private individual decides to discriminate against. It’s their loss if they’re running a business. And it's some other business’ gain. Why would you want to reward a bigot by forcing him to do business with someone he doesn’t want to? And why would an individual want to do business with someone who is bigoted against them anyway? Outlawing an individual's choice to discriminate is not going to stop discrimination and only serves to remove the economic punishment one would receive by doing so. People have free choice. You don't have the right to not be offended.

Re: Honestly, this seems like a bit of progress. How did I enter into an agreement with the city/county? Is it only the city/county, or is it also the state/nation I entered into agreement with?

You entered the agreement when you bought your house and paid property taxes. I don’t claim that our land property system is consistent with liberty. Just like our tax system isn’t, nor our currency system. So you’re wasting your time trying to find fault with our property systems as a critique against the concept of property itself.

Re: If that's how you explain away authority, then who is ever exercising authority? Not the city/county/state/federal government -- they're exercising their rights as property owners and signatories to a contract.

I’m not explaining away anything. You’re trying to dismiss the notion of liberty by using “real world” circumstances where liberty is violated. The law is supposed to be the authority. And the law comes from the individual’s natural right to self defense.

>> ^marbles:

You’re trying to argue semantics now. Liberty is always going to be liberty;

No, this is what a philosophical argument is like. You take a concept everyone "knows" and thinks they understand, and then you try to test it with thought experiments and logic, to see if you can really come up with a rigorous definition for it.

The result is that people usually find out that the concept they were absolutely positively certain they understood is actually a lot more fuzzy and ill-defined than they originally thought.

Well, at least if they're open minded enough to actually set aside preconceptions and conceits, and try to apply some critical thinking to the topic...

>> ^marbles:
And like I previously mentioned, modern “conceptions” of liberty only serve to advance a statist agenda. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

Just FYI, "freedom is slavery" is exactly what this video is saying. "Property is freedom" translates to "Absolute authority over other people when they're on my property...is freedom".

As for ignorance is strength, you seem pretty ignorant of the philosophy of the left, and you seem to think this gives you some sort of strength. I guess it keeps your mind uncluttered with ideas you "know" are wrong, even though you don't know what they actually are...

>> ^marbles:
Re: What puts a check on a property owner's actions? And when is it legitimate to check a property owner's actions? Is it a short list (no damage to other people's property, no stealing, and no fraud), or is it a list too long to comprehensively state?
For there to be a crime, there has to be victim. There is a list called statutory laws. Statutes are supposed to be grounded in violations of natural rights.

Why should there have to be a victim? Who decides what natural rights are?

Personally my favorite natural right is the divine right of kings. My second favorite is primae noctis.

For some reason, the ACLU doesn't help me get those recognized in law, the statist fuckers. Always trying to keep me from exercising my freedom.

>> ^marbles:
Re: For example, should there be a legal constraint on racial discrimination?
Are you suggesting you can change the way people think, by making certain thoughts illegal?

I'm not talking about a thought crime, I'm talking about putting a sign in your store window saying "Whites only".

Would a law making that practice illegal be pro- or anti-liberty?

>> ^marbles:
Re: Again, this is an attempt to assert a definition that doesn't apply in the real world. I own my house. I also have a mortgage on it, so the bank has a level of authority over my house. I also have to pay property taxes on it, and follow the local laws. Yet it's still my property.
Which is to say, the definition of the word "property" doesn't include anything about it being property if and only if I'm the only one who gets any say of any kind about what's done with it.
You gave the bank authority over your house as a security on your mortgage. You also entered into an agreement with your city/county concerning taxes/laws and what services you would receive from the city/county. This is a property system that can be rife with fraud and corruption.


Honestly, this seems like a bit of progress. How did I enter into an agreement with the city/county? Is it only the city/county, or is it also the state/nation I entered into agreement with?

If that's how you explain away authority, then who is ever exercising authority? Not the city/county/state/federal government -- they're exercising their rights as property owners and signatories to a contract.

Always peace, my friend.

Well, after I get mad. Then I choose peace.

Actions speak louder than words... thanks for removing your misunderstanding of what I said.

So really, yeah, peace.

In reply to this comment by LarsaruS:
It would be awesome if he did. Also after reading through your comments again I seem to have misunderstood what you were saying. Thought you were agreeing with her and not just using it as an example, a thought experiment. It is late and I am hungry so I guess I will have to blame it on that.

Peace?
In reply to this comment by bareboards2:
You're welcome. I don't even regret it, despite you laying into me.

As Boneremake says -- vote the vid, not the poster. Or something like that.

This is truly a great vid.

If Dan Savage posts it on his blog, I'll send you the link.

In reply to this comment by LarsaruS:
Thanks for the promote! Appreciate it.
In reply to this comment by bareboards2:
promote

And I'm sending this link to Dan Savage....

There aren't enough downvotes. My own country suffered a dictatorship not too long ago and sooner or later there are always people who show up saying:

"There were some minor problems but we were better with glorious leader."

"Then what about all the tortured people, the wars, the misery of so many, barely with enough to eat, no health, no education, no future?"

"Well, I was all good with it, so fuck you and your well documented suffering."

War On Democracy is great at exposing the kind of people that approve of this kind of regime. Entitled rich vampires that think the world was made for them and their family to shit on and distant armchair general intellectuals that imagine the whole world to be some kind of thought experiment made just to test their ridiculous ideas on.

Also, blankfist, I find it enormously hilarious that you think it's right and proper for the US to stay the fuck out but then conveniently forget that if not for interventionism, there would be no Pinochet to obey the dictates of the States, no so called "miracle". Chile would be Socialist and on Allende's path to provide jobs, health and education to the masses.

I think lots of people believe "high level science" consists of 3 or 4 ideas:

1. In Schrodinger's thought experiment, a cat in a box could be seen as both alive and dead until an observer collapses the waveform
2. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle says you can't know both the exact position and momentum of a particle
3. General relativity states time slows and mass increases for objects at relative high velocity
4. Light's behavior exhibits a wave/particle duality, as demonstrated by interference experiments

Know those 4 things? Have you watched Star Wars once? Good, you're now equipped to understand pretty much all "oh wow that guy's a crazy brainiac nerd" humor. Somehow if you reference things like that, you get a pass to do a comedy routine without any jokes. You're stroking people's ego enough that they don't care you're not funny.

I think people would just get pissed off if he left the "nerd humor" script, though. People don't want to be challenged, or hear pop culture references they don't know. Anyone who's the tiniest, tiniest bit interested in Greek mythology knows Pandora opened a jar, not a box - but nobody wants to hear a joke involving Pandora's jar. They want the same reference that 1000 previous pop cultural references have prepared them for. They want affirmation that they're part of the special club that knows about stuff.

So, to do "nerd" humor the plan is to avoid anything actually nerdy. Stick to the most often recycled bits of pop culture and pop science, mix in some clumsy, senseless double entendres so that people know when to laugh, and you're good to go.

Imagine a universe that lasts of only 10 seconds and only has one particle in it. Lets call the end of time X. At X - .99999999999999999999999, we send the particle back to T = 1. At T= 1, we now have 2 particles. At T = 1, we send both particles back to X - .99999999999999999999999. We do this again, and again until we create a universe of infinite density from one particle. I don't know if this is exactly the time of feedback they are talking about, it is from my own thought experiment on time travel.
>> ^Payback:

>> ^jmd:
The whole feedback thing was really interesting though, the reason we can see through the portals is because light radiation is streaming through the portal to our eyes. If you stuck a portal infront of you and then a portal behind you, light radiation would stream in and out of the portals into an infinite feedback loop causing catastrophic energy output.

Why would that happen? You're not creating more sources. It would be the same net effect as pointing two mirrors at each other. Only instead of light bouncing off and heading back, the light stops being in front, and then appears behind.
Light passing through recursive portals would end up collimated, but I can't see how it would multiply, as the light coming out of portal a is disappearing into portal b at the same rate.
Personally, I was kinda let down that the portal system didn't really change, they just added magic goo. I was TOTALLY expecting PortalGun 2.0 to create bi-directional portals, that is, you would exit one side or the other of portal b, depending on what side you entered portal a. True non-euclidean physics. Also, did Valve ever describe the portals as worm holes? I always thought they were quantum teleporters or something to do with nth dimension physics.

A simple rule: If it's a spending bill or amendment to a spending bill, and it includes spending for your state but not for at least 10 other states, you can't vote on it.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

Problem is, how do the senate itself determine if something is or isn't something you get to vote on? Seems crappy and arbitrary in cases like the fence and immigration, as the fence could and can be considered spending for immigration related issues, which are a federal context. Imagine a bunch of kids in a playground saying who gets to vote and who doesn't in any given situation, chaos! Like I said, I smell what your stepping in, I like it. But I think it would break more things than it would fix. The fix is to stop people voting for crap that enriches only their state, the hidden costs are not getting to vote on things at all when you should be able to...to much of a risk imo. Perhaps it could work, though, I just think there are better ways than voter suppression for pork.

>> ^jwray:
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
What about regional issues? Would Texas, and other boarder states be unable to vote on legislation about immigration, and thusly be left to non-involved parties to decide its fate? I totally agree with the mindset of pork barrel being bad. I just think attacking the problem with denying representation is the wrong course. They had something like this back in Greece. When deciding issues of war, people who lived near the walls would not get a vote. The reasoning is they had a vested interest in not going to war, but who doesn't have a vested interest in any piece of legislation?
I have had this same thought experiment, though, from a different context. I definitely see value is the idea that voting isn't a natural right, and thusly, can be subverted in certain situations. But, to subvert it because it is an issue that directly effects you goes against the idea of having a government that is a representation of your ideals, seemingly.
>> ^jwray:
Federal funding for the Army Corps of Engineers is not pork barrel for a particular locale, so they would be free to vote on that. ACOE is responsible for building levies. Also, they should get it done at the state or local level.

Immigration law isn't pork barrel spending. A giant 500 billion dollar wall on the Mexican border built by companies who made campaign contributions to the senators from Texas definitely would be pork barrel spending.
The federal government exists to serve the interests of the whole nation, not the interests of particular states. If a spending bill that's targeted in a particular location actually serves the whole national interest, then senators from other areas will vote for it. If it doesn't, then it should be a state/local government issue or a cooperative venture between the few state/local governments that have an interest in it.

Problem is, how do the senate itself determine if something is or isn't something you get to vote on? Seems crappy and arbitrary in cases like the fence and immigration, as the fence could and can be considered spending for immigration related issues, which are a federal context. Imagine a bunch of kids in a playground saying who gets to vote and who doesn't in any given situation, chaos! Like I said, I smell what your stepping in, I like it. But I think it would break more things than it would fix. The fix is to stop people voting for crap that enriches only their state, the hidden costs are not getting to vote on things at all when you should be able to...to much of a risk imo. Perhaps it could work, though, I just think there are better ways than voter suppression for pork.


>> ^jwray:

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
What about regional issues? Would Texas, and other boarder states be unable to vote on legislation about immigration, and thusly be left to non-involved parties to decide its fate? I totally agree with the mindset of pork barrel being bad. I just think attacking the problem with denying representation is the wrong course. They had something like this back in Greece. When deciding issues of war, people who lived near the walls would not get a vote. The reasoning is they had a vested interest in not going to war, but who doesn't have a vested interest in any piece of legislation?
I have had this same thought experiment, though, from a different context. I definitely see value is the idea that voting isn't a natural right, and thusly, can be subverted in certain situations. But, to subvert it because it is an issue that directly effects you goes against the idea of having a government that is a representation of your ideals, seemingly.
>> ^jwray:
Federal funding for the Army Corps of Engineers is not pork barrel for a particular locale, so they would be free to vote on that. ACOE is responsible for building levies. Also, they should get it done at the state or local level.

Immigration law isn't pork barrel spending. A giant 500 billion dollar wall on the Mexican border built by companies who made campaign contributions to the senators from Texas definitely would be pork barrel spending.
The federal government exists to serve the interests of the whole nation, not the interests of particular states. If a spending bill that's targeted in a particular location actually serves the whole national interest, then senators from other areas will vote for it. If it doesn't, then it should be a state/local government issue or a cooperative venture between the few state/local governments that have an interest in it.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

What about regional issues? Would Texas, and other boarder states be unable to vote on legislation about immigration, and thusly be left to non-involved parties to decide its fate? I totally agree with the mindset of pork barrel being bad. I just think attacking the problem with denying representation is the wrong course. They had something like this back in Greece. When deciding issues of war, people who lived near the walls would not get a vote. The reasoning is they had a vested interest in not going to war, but who doesn't have a vested interest in any piece of legislation?
I have had this same thought experiment, though, from a different context. I definitely see value is the idea that voting isn't a natural right, and thusly, can be subverted in certain situations. But, to subvert it because it is an issue that directly effects you goes against the idea of having a government that is a representation of your ideals, seemingly.
>> ^jwray:
Federal funding for the Army Corps of Engineers is not pork barrel for a particular locale, so they would be free to vote on that. ACOE is responsible for building levies. Also, they should get it done at the state or local level.


Immigration law isn't pork barrel spending. A giant 500 billion dollar wall on the Mexican border built by companies who made campaign contributions to the senators from Texas definitely would be pork barrel spending.

The federal government exists to serve the interests of the whole nation, not the interests of particular states. If a spending bill that's targeted in a particular location actually serves the whole national interest, then senators from other areas will vote for it. If it doesn't, then it should be a state/local government issue or a cooperative venture between the few state/local governments that have an interest in it.

What about regional issues? Would Texas, and other boarder states be unable to vote on legislation about immigration, and thusly be left to non-involved parties to decide its fate? I totally agree with the mindset of pork barrel being bad. I just think attacking the problem with denying representation is the wrong course. They had something like this back in Greece. When deciding issues of war, people who lived near the walls would not get a vote. The reasoning is they had a vested interest in not going to war, but who doesn't have a vested interest in any piece of legislation?

I have had this same thought experiment, though, from a different context. I definitely see value is the idea that voting isn't a natural right, and thusly, can be subverted in certain situations. But, to subvert it because it is an issue that directly effects you goes against the idea of having a government that is a representation of your ideals, seemingly.

>> ^jwray:
Federal funding for the Army Corps of Engineers is not pork barrel for a particular locale, so they would be free to vote on that. ACOE is responsible for building levies. Also, they should get it done at the state or local level.

>> ^dannym3141:

>> ^jwray:
>> ^dannym3141:
>> ^jwray:
Also, the gravitational energy released by the collapse could put a shitload more heat into things that were already really hot.

I, for one, am very unsure on this idea that the gravitational potential energy of bricks falling a maximum of 800m (the very very top bricks only) are a source of major internal heating in a building collapse.
Random thought experiment - if i dropped 50 kg of wood from 800m, that's a lot of gravitational potential energy. Would it set on fire, then, on impact with the ground?


17.4 degrees C for iron dropped 800m in a vacuum. More or less for other things depending on their specific heat capacity and the exact configuration of the collapse. Things that get a lot of shit falling on top of them may get a 10-100 times larger share of the energy than the average depending on the parameters of all the materials (if you drop a hard thing onto mush, the mush absorbs most of the impact).
Also, imstellar, 99.9% of all legitimate scientists don't support the "WTC was an inside job done with thermite" hypothesis. For one, it violates occam's razor. The planes alone were enough. A lot of people actually DIED on those planes and were never heard from again. Plus there is VIDEO of the planes crashing into the buildings.

I find your answer lacking. 17.4 degrees C for what amount of iron dropped in a vacuum? Saying 17.4 degrees C "for iron" is tantamount to telling me you looked it up on wikipedia. As a statement of fact, it makes no sense! It depends on so many things - shape, the amount, what it lands on.. I have a suspicion you have an idea of what you're talking about, but you'll need to do better than that kind of comment.
And don't forget that only the very top bits are falling 800 m, it falls less and less the further down you go, and the fall is so complex, collisions taking place, things landing on other things, bouncing off things, slowed down, sped up, who knows what's going on in the middle?
It's still looking suspicious that your statement that the GPE of the falling shit will somehow shoot huge temperatures up to even huger temperatures.


You'll have troubles looking up temperature in any scientific literature because the real measure that matters in energy. Temperature is just a measure of how much energy a particular object is storing in the form of heat. Jwray's very valid point is simply that a skyscraper is storing an utterly enormous amount of energy in the form of gravity. If even a small portion of that energy is converted to heat, which a collapse is guaranteed to do, it will raise temperatures of whatever material absorbs that heat. If it is concentrated enough it could melt whatever is heated up. The point is simply that the collapse turned more than enough energy into the form of heat to melt a good mass of steel, the question is only how that energy was distributed through the wreckage. Odds are in a random collapse it will be distributed fairly broadly, meaning less temperature increase per mass, but the already very hot steel may not have needed that much either.

All said, it is absolutely hard to say. Meaning it's hard to rule out the collapse and simmering fires within the wreckage couldn't have melted some steel over time. Hard say that would be expected either. The more complex an event is the harder it is to predict.

>> ^jwray:

>> ^dannym3141:
>> ^jwray:
Also, the gravitational energy released by the collapse could put a shitload more heat into things that were already really hot.

I, for one, am very unsure on this idea that the gravitational potential energy of bricks falling a maximum of 800m (the very very top bricks only) are a source of major internal heating in a building collapse.
Random thought experiment - if i dropped 50 kg of wood from 800m, that's a lot of gravitational potential energy. Would it set on fire, then, on impact with the ground?


17.4 degrees C for iron dropped 800m in a vacuum. More or less for other things depending on their specific heat capacity and the exact configuration of the collapse. Things that get a lot of shit falling on top of them may get a 10-100 times larger share of the energy than the average depending on the parameters of all the materials (if you drop a hard thing onto mush, the mush absorbs most of the impact).
Also, imstellar, 99.9% of all legitimate scientists don't support the "WTC was an inside job done with thermite" hypothesis. For one, it violates occam's razor. The planes alone were enough. A lot of people actually DIED on those planes and were never heard from again. Plus there is VIDEO of the planes crashing into the buildings.


I find your answer lacking. 17.4 degrees C for what amount of iron dropped in a vacuum? Saying 17.4 degrees C "for iron" is tantamount to telling me you looked it up on wikipedia. As a statement of fact, it makes no sense! It depends on so many things - shape, the amount, what it lands on.. I have a suspicion you have an idea of what you're talking about, but you'll need to do better than that kind of comment.

And don't forget that only the very top bits are falling 800 m, it falls less and less the further down you go, and the fall is so complex, collisions taking place, things landing on other things, bouncing off things, slowed down, sped up, who knows what's going on in the middle?

It's still looking suspicious that your statement that the GPE of the falling shit will somehow shoot huge temperatures up to even huger temperatures.