From BlogNomic Wiki

A section for essays on subjects related to Blognomic.

Table of contents

1 Historical Essays 1.1 On Midnight 1.2 On Infinity 2 Philosophical Essays 2.1 The Secret Ruleset 2.2 Observations on blognomic 2.3 yuri_dragon_17 is the King of the World

1 Historical Essays

1.1 On Midnight

Here is the discussion on time, which played a major part in the First Dynasty of ais523. The Challenge being disputed can be found here (http://blognomic.com/archive/challenge_extreme_risk_your_insidership/).:

• Wakukee:

06-18-2009 00:00:00 UTC

Gambling

Roll: 1

Guess: 5

• Wakukee: Oh, really? BE that way, nomic. BE that way. ... you gonna take that, ais? I shouldn’t have been playing that stupid flash game…

• Clucky: I’ll be cfjing if he takes it wak --don’t worry at least you passed due to the play it safe rule

• Wakukee: CFJ, if you must. We shall see. It says on Thursday, but not when. Besides… I’d call it a buzzer shot, what with the lag of the comuter and all.

• Qwazukee: A quote from Wikipedia:

“Midnight marks the beginning and ending of each day in civil time throughout the world. It is the dividing point between one day and another.”

Wikipedia also seems to treat Midnight as occurring on both days; read the article for more verification.

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/548775.html is a dispute where there is no clear answer as to which date midnight falls on; it is, by definition, a matter of opinion.

http://www.astronomy.net/articles/13/ also takes an interesting view on the topic. Honestly, it can be interpreted either way, and whoever ais sides against will be justified in trying a CfJ.

I can’t seem to find any other good sides, due to an overabundance of information about “Midnight Sun.”

In my opinion, however, Midnight is on both Wednesday AND on Thursday. ais says, “Wednesday is the last day you can gamble on,” and under my interpretation and the interpretation that seems most prevalent among scholars, Wakukee’s post was on Wednesday (as well as Thursday). Thus, his Gamble should be accepted.

• Clucky: Not my fault your computer has lag. “Midnight” is the concept of the time from 23:59 to 0:00. To say something occurs ‘at midnight’ means it occurs then.

Wak didn’t post at midnight, he posted at 0:00 which is clearly part of Thursday.

I mean, the timestamp clearly says “06-18-2009”. How can you actually argue that the 18th is still Wednesday?

• Qwazukee: Your conceptualization is a bit off here, Clucky. Midnight is the exact moment of 00:00:00, not some abstract phantom. I think you will find that nearly all sources agree on this definition. Wakukee posted at 00:00:00, which is defined as midnight.

The timestamp says “06-18” because the maker of ExpressEngine, which Blognomic runs off of, or whoever it was that made the clock didn’t feel like going to the trouble of programming it to read “06-17/18-2009” for the 1 second that this is an issue. It’s the same reason that clocks read “12 PM” at exactly noon, even though it is obvious that noon is not a PM time (PM stands for “Post Meridiem,” meaning “after noon").

The fact that the person who programmed our timing mechanism was lazy has no bearing on the truth of the situation. The time Wakukee posted, “00:00:00,” occurs on both Wednesday and Thursday, and that must be taken into account for resolving this Challenge.

• Clucky: But either way I end up winning.

The rules state that the contest ends on Thursday.

If midnight is simply Thursday, I win.

If midnight is both Wednesday *and* Thursday, then it is still Thursday and so the contest still ends and so I still win. Wednesday is the last day you can gamble, even if there is one minute of Wednesday that you can’t gamble on.

I guess one could claim “The challenge ends on Thursday, there is just one minute of Thursday that its still running for” and we should probably wait for ais’s interpretation, though it might be best to just say we both win.

• Darknight: qwaz, midnight is the offical day turn over. I’d say that waks doesn’t count cause then you’d be adding a min to wens and that just cause a clusterf**k. and no this isn’t cause i support bucky. just stating my thoughts

Plus, with you saying midnight = when wak posted then he posted on thursday, hence his gamble doesn’t count as it was posted on thursday, the day the contest ends.

(re-reads qwazs post) Simple Q. Where in any book does it state that midnight means we’re sitting on two days at once? that logic makes no sense even for a nomic. My comp says that when midnight hits its offically the next day, not some magic duel day min.

By that logic, he’d be in a paradox because he could both enter the contest as it’d be wens but at the same time not be able to since it would also be thurs. Qwaz, honestly, its not worth the trouble here.

• Qwazukee: If you read the 2 links, it will help illustrate my point, but I will try again.

There isn’t one “minute” that is both days, there is one instant. For the purposes of the time we have access to, that amounts to one second. There is exactly one second (for our purposes, as our clock doesn’t get any more specific than that) that is both Wednesday and Thursday. That is the time Wakukee posted at.

To respond to Clucky: my interpretation is pretty much exactly the same as your second statement, with the replacement of “minute” with “second.” In fact, ais gives a specific example showing that anytime Wednesday is legal for gambling: “on Wednesday after 12:00 UTC” are his exact words, and that includes Midnight.

To respond to Darknight’s 1st comment, no amount of time is added to either day. There is simply one instant that is both days, and this has always been the case. This is a bit counterintuitive, but so is the fact that .99999… = 1. Just because something is counterintuitive doesn’t mean it is false.

To respond to your second comment, the fact that it was also Thursday is immaterial; ais specifically said (as I showed in my last explanation) that any time Wednesday is a legal time to gamble. That includes Midnight.

Continuing with Darknight’s third comment: I already posted two sites explaining that Midnight is on both days. I think you will find that many others agree with that interpretation, because it is correct. Let me provide an example, to show you how confusion might come about:

Suppose you were invited to a party that started Midnight Thursday. Would you know when to show up at this party? Does it start just as Wednesday has come to an end? Or does it start right as Thursday comes to a close? It is not clear, and I suspect it would generate much confusion among those who were invited.

To respond to Darknight’s 4th comment: nowhere does it say that one cannot Gamble on Thursday. It does, however, state that one can Gamble on Wednesday. The fact that the Challenge ends on Thursday does not mean that it one cannot also fulfill the obligations required to gamble legally, so long as one posts on Wednesday. Midnight counts as Wednesday (as well as Thursday), thus Wakukee’s post is legal and counts in the Challenge.

• Darknight: Whatever to all the time crap.

• Qwazukee: On a related note, I hope ais reads all these posts, they’re pretty interesting. If a nomic isn’t about arguing over minute nuances, then I don’t know what it is about.

• Clucky: Why isn’t that ‘second’ 23:59:59? The actual ‘instant’ occurs between the two.

Its like this:

23:59:58 23:59:59 | 0:00:00 0:00:01

“midnight” occurs at the line. We can zoom in if we want

23:59:59:998 23:59:59:999 | 0:00:00:000 | 0:00:00:001

But the fact remains that anything that is “0” will be the next day and anything that is “23” will be the previous day. There is no time we can represent that corresponds to the instant that is midnight. 3.14 is not actually pi. Neither is 3.14159. Or anything we can write down. They are just approximations. 0:00:00 might be a good approximation of midnight, but it isn’t actually midnight.

• Qwazukee: It should look like this, Bucky:

23:59:59:998 23:59:59:999 | 0:00:00:001 0:00:00:002

The line represents the exact time that is in-between both days; namely, midnight. The line can also be represented by a number of zeroes, how ever many you like: 0 = 00 = 000 = 0:00:00:000.

As soon as a 1 appears, no matter how many digits down it is, the number now represents a time in the next day (Thursday). However, if there are only 0s, then the time represents Midnight.

Idk why I said Bucky, I meant Clucky. Freudian slip.

• Clucky: Remember that Unix time is stored as seconds elapsed. This “rounds up” so to speak. If the time stamp says 23:59:59 we know that at least 85399 of the seconds 86000 seconds in a day have passed. If the time stamp reads 0:00:0 then all 86400 seconds have passed plus some fraction of a second.

Thus we have intevrals that are closed on the left and open on the right. Time 0 corresponds to every time in between 0:00:00 January 1st 1970 and 0:00:01 January 1st 1970. It does *not* correspond to 0:00:01 January 1st 1970 as then one second has elapsed, and so that would be time 1. However, it does correspond to 0:00:00 January 1st 1970 for obvious reasons.

Wak posted at Unix Time 1245283200. This corresponds to anything between 0:00:00 June 18th 2009 and 0:00:01 June 18th 2009, including 0:00:00 but not 0:00:01. Note that June 17th, Wednesday, is not included in this interval.

The time ‘midnight’ where it is both does not actually exist. It is impossible for Wak to have posted exactly at that time. Instead, his post took place a few milliseconds after wards.

Er, actually know that I think about it it rounds down. But whatever, I need sleep. If you haven’t conceded come morning I’ll get on a post another rebuttal.

• Qwazukee: All of which is sensible, intuitive, and true, except for one bit. The interval we are looking at is [0:00:00, 0:00:01).

That left limit is exactly midnight, which does exist despite your continued, unsupported assertions to the contrary. The time that was posted included that left limit, meaning that it is feasible that Wakukee posted at Midnight, which occurs on both days. I think it would be entirely unfair to assume that it was posted somewhere near the right limit, as there is no proof of that. For all purposes, we are forced to assume that he posted at the left limit, aka Midnight.

• Clucky: No it is not feasible because the actual time is only an istant. Posting at exactly midnight is akin to random getting exactly ok when choosin a number between 1 and 10—the probability of it happening is zero. Same with the probability it was posted at exaclty midnight.

• Qwazukee: The probability is not 0. In your analogy, the probability would be like getting exactly pi when selecting a random number (not integer) from 1 to 10.

In fact, the probability that he got the left limit is exactly the same as the probability that he got any other time within the range [0:00:00, 0:00:01). Once again, all we know is that it was within that range, so one would be unjustified in assuming that he did not post at Midnight exactly.

Also, keep in mind that we’re dealing with an imperfect measurement here. Wakukee has assured me that he hit “submit” around 23:59:30. In that 30 seconds of time, anything at all could be going on in the Internet. Our style of measurement already assumes that Wakukee posted at a time that is 30 seconds later than the truth. Let’s not make any assumptions beyond that: therein lies the slippery slope towards saying that time itself is an abstract concept, and we should discard all Rules that have a time element because they are untenable.

• Clucky: I give up. If you cannot get your mind around the fact that midnight is an istant and there are an infinite number of instances during any finite time period, and thus the probability of posting at any given instance is 0 then there really isn’t anything I can do.

Also your arguments keep getting sillier and sillier. We have no proof of wak’s actions other than the time stamp. It doesn’t matter when he wanted to do it—it matters when the server noted his responce. While his personal time may have had 30 seconds to spare we cannot have a clock for every player. We have one clock and expecting to play by anything else is crazy.

• Qwazukee: This is the critical point where I am right. There’s nothing wrong with my mind and, if you look really, really carefully, you’ll see that I understand how, as you phrase it, “instants” work.

You’re second point is exactly why we must accept that Wak posted at midnight. All we have to go on is the word of what we see on the screen. The time of “0:00:00” is the only thing we have to go on; we have to accept that as the only time, because like you said, we don’t have personal clocks for every player.

Thus, the only time we can go by is 0:00:00, which, in theory, is midnight. 0:00:00 is the exact notation for the moment of midnight. While you and me and Stephen Hawking or whoever all know that it represents a range of numbers, we cannot assume that because that’s not what is actually stated. What is explicitly stated is that Wakukee’s action occurred at 0:00:00, which is midnight.

Since you are prepared to take the server at its word, can you accept my conclusion?

• Clucky: No. I won’t accept your conclusion. According to the server, it was at least midnight when Wak posted.

It could not have been exactly midnight, because midnight is an instant. It is impossible to do anything exactly at midnight in the same way that it is impossible to actually write down pi.

If we let A be “Wak posted at midnight” and B be “Wak posted after midnight” we know

(A or B) is true, based on the server time and we know (not B) based on how instances work. The only way this works is if A is true and B is false.

Er I meant not A is true and so B is true and A is false.

• ais523: This is such a mess, that the only solution I can think of is to arrange matters so that it comes to the same thing either way. I’m about to do that now.

• Clucky: How is it a mess? Qwaz doesn’t understand how time works and is displayed. Ignorance is no excuse for getting things to go your way.

• Wakukee: Personally, I believe your logic to be skew. The true options are not that it was posted at midnight or after, they are A) It was posted at the instant known as “midnight” or B) It was posted at an instant that occured after “midnight”. By your logic, since both options are instants, the post never occured. As this is clearly incorrect, we are forced to accept that we do not know whether A or B are true, it could be either.

• Clucky: /headdeak

There isn’t only one ‘instant’ between 0:00:00 and 0:00:01. There is an infinite number of them. You posted during one of them.

• Wakukee: Which may or may not have been exactly midnight. Wee, full circle.

• Qwazukee: Wow, Wakukee managed to explain that better than I did. Nice work.

• Wakukee: Proposal: What are these timespans for, anyway?

Add the following:

00:00 dd/mm/yy on any given day is considered to have occured on both dd/mm/yy and dd-1/mm/yy, due to the limitations of expression engine to display time. A daily action made on any given day at 00:00 cannot be made again until 24 hours later.

to the end of rule 3.2 “Timespans”.

• Clucky:

There is no limit to the engine at displaying times. There is just a limit in some people’s understanding that 0:00:00 isn’t acutally midnight, but instead the period of time between 0:00:00 and 0:00:01.

• Wakukee: That OR midnight itself… you do not know which, and thus cannot conclude either way.

• Clucky: but from a probability standpoint, there is a zero percent chance of it being 0:00:00 and 100% of it not.

Given those odds, I’d rather assume the more likely.

• Wakukee: But I’d rather follow the information we have, rather than make speculations.

• Clucky: Its funny because you are making the speculation that “it was posted at exactly midnight” instead of following the information “it was posted at at least midnight”

• Qwazukee: The information we have is that it was posted at “00:00,” whatever it is we are talking about. That time is midnight; at least, that’s what that notation means.

You know, the other way is simpler and easier to adjudicate. Besides, who says that Blognomic doesn’t have the power to alter universal constants?

• Proposal: Fails 2-4.

• Clucky: Proposal: Telling time 101

Add the following to the end of “Timespans”

Any duration reference to a given day (i.e. “Sunday” or “August 2nd"), unless otherwise stated, inclusivly begin at 0:00:00 GMT on the mentioned day and inclusivly end at 23:59:59 GMT on the same day.

• Wakukee: Also works.

• Qwazukee: And life will be easier.

• Proposal: Passes 7-0.

1.2 On Infinity

Later in that same post, Darth Cliche questioned whether a minute contains an infinite number of instants.

• Darth Cliche: Clucky, if you happen to read this: What is your definition of “instant”? I wouldn’t think there is an infinite number of instants in a minute; there is certainly a large amount, however.

• Qwazukee: There is an infinite amount, fyi, because you can divide a minute smaller and smaller; there is no limit to how many times you can divide it.

• Clucky: Wow Qwaz and I are agreeing and blognomic is still currently standing…

• Darth Cliche: @Qwaz: How can there be an infinite amount? I think I can prove that there isn't...

First, let us assume that an instant is a unit of time, which it clearly is.

Now, if there is an infinite number of instants in a second, then there must also be an infinite amount in any other length of time.

Therefore, a yoctosecond and a millennium are the same amount of time, each equal to an infinite amount of instants. A yoctosecond and a millennium are different amounts of time, therefore a second contains a finite number of instants.

Q.E.D.

• Qwazukee: You are assuming that all inifinities are equal, which is mathematically untenable.

Here’s a site talking about it:

http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2009/01/the_continuum_hypothesis_solve.php

And I am too lazy to find anything better, but multiple infinities do exist, obviously.

• Darth Cliche: “Obviously”??? How, in any sense of the word, is that obvious!?

• Qwazukee: Because what do you get if you subract 1 from infinity? The number is obviously still infinite, but is slightly less than the infinity you were talking about before. Thus, there must be multiple infinites.

• Darth Cliche: No, ∞ - ∞ = ∞. ∞ and ∞ are the same thing. There are only 2 infinities: ∞, and -∞ (negative infinity).

• Qwazukee: So what is ∞ - 1, then? Talk to ais, he is far more mathematically inclined than you or I and he will do a better job of proving this to be true.

• Darth Cliche: Hmm. It seems what you’re actually thinking of is the aleph numbers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleph-null).

• Darth Cliche: Posted at the same time as Qwaz.

• Darth Cliche: @Qwaz: When I said ∞ - ∞ = ∞, I meant ∞ - 1 = ∞.

• Qwazukee: No, I think those have limited applicability here. Like I said, I’m no mathematician, but it is obvious that x-1 isn’t equal to x, and that holds true for infinity.

• Darth Cliche: Infinity isn’t a natural number. Things work very different for it.

• Clucky: The amount of fail in this thread just increased by a factor of of a joint concert between Nickelback Creed and Kanye West.

Consider the set of all (real) numbers between 0 and 1 and the set of all (real) numbers between 0 and 2. Note that both contain an infinite number of real numbers. Also, you are correct that there are different infinities. However, in this case, there they are the SAME infinity. Why? there are the same number of real numbers in both groups. Why? Consider the function f(x) = 2x. This takes any value in the first group and maps it to a value in the second group. Likewise, if we have y in the second group, then f(y/2) = y and so there cannot be more numbers in the second group than numbers in the first group.

“Instants” are like real numbers, and timeframes like “second” and “millennium” are ranges of an infinite number of seconds. They both contain the same infinite number of seconds, but this doesn’t make them the same length.

You both are embarrassing yourselves. Learn how infinity works before you make fools of yourself arguing about it.

• Qwazukee: Your words are very interesting but make little sense.

• Darth Cliche: Also, how would we know that there isn’t some smallest possible unit of time, and anything smaller does not exist in any form?

• Qwazukee: Because at this point, we define what time is? There is no meaning to the word other than that which we have given it, and the currently accepted conception of time has it divisible into an infinite number of parts….

• Darth Cliche: “Accepted” by who?

• Qwazukee: People who use time.

• Darth Cliche: I use time. I don’t accept it.

But now this has degenerated to bickering. Let’s just agree to disagree.

• Darth Cliche: I hate infinity.

• Qwazukee: Do you hate infinity… forever?

• Darth Cliche: Also, look up “Planck time” on Wikipedia.

• Qwazukee: Planck time seems to be a theory at best. I don’t think you can apply it here with any degree of confidence.

2 Philosophical Essays

2.1 The Secret Ruleset

By Bucky

In addition to the publicly available main Ruleset, there are some Rules which aren't official but are nonetheless enforced. This alternate ruleset exists because us players don't usually play by the Ruleset as written, but instead play by our interpretation of the Ruleset. Also, the Blognomic community has its own standards for conduct. New players, however, often miss some important unspoken rules.

The important unspoken rules which I know of are as follows:

1) If an unwritten rule conflicts with the Ruleset, the Ruleset takes precidence.

2) An action is illegal if a CfJ challenging it would pass, or if most players believe it to be illegal.

3) Actions based on an interpretation of the Ruleset not obvious from a casual reading may be illegal even if strictly permitted by the Ruleset.

4) Large-scale spamming is prohibited. About the most you could get away with is the posting and Self-Killing of 3 proposal blanks. However, the exact limit depends on how good a reason you have for spamming. - Now covered by Ruleset

5) Illegal actions may be reverted immediately even if the reversion would also be technically illegal.

6) Scams based on the properties of EE are strictly forbidden. - Now mostly covered by Ruleset

7) Scams based on the core ruleset are strongly discouraged except in cases of emergency.

8) A player may combine several actions into a GNDT entry if they could legally have been performed separately. - Now covered by the real Ruleset

Of these rules, 2 probably has the greatest implications. For example, whether an action is legal or not often depends on who performs it, the results, who writes the CfJ if it gets CfJed, and perhaps how soon the player who performed the original action responds to the CfJ.

NOTE: The Secret ruleset is more what you'd call "guidelines", than actual rules. Another Note: This is the work of a single player. Not all players agree with these "rules", which are not binding.

2.2 Observations on blognomic

By SingularByte

My first observation is about the influx of players at the start of a dynasty. Usually when there's an interesting theme, a lot of players join, yet after a couple of weeks, just as many leave, often including those who had recently joined. I don't know why this is. Maybe the theme doesn't live up to their expectations? Maybe they misjudge their free time? It happens every time without explanation.

My second observation is about new admins. They are often the most diligent in admin tasks. They pass proposals as soon as they can and once they know how, they add players too. This is the opposite of how experienced players act. They sometimes put off tasks for other people, letting the proposal queue build up. This observation is easier to explain. Once the newness wears off, it simply becomes a task which they may not have the time to do, or they simply view it as boring.

My final observation is about trying to win. You'd think that all players would try to win equally but I've noticed that there's only a couple of people at most in a dynasty who have a clear advantage. Some of this is probably the fact that new players (whether brand new or recently unidled) have a clear disadvantage. Also, some players seem to be happy just proposing the rules without trying to win. Whether or not the player with the advantage wins is decided by one main factor: Whether the ruleset is scammed.

Thanks for reading!

2.3 yuri_dragon_17 is the King of the World

1. This rule marks the beginning of this ruleset.
2. This ruleset is only representative of the one at http://blognomic.com/wiki/index.php?title=User:Yuridragon17/nomic and is not binding.
3. This nomic shall be referred to as yuri_king_nomic_1. All players must obey this ruleset.
4. Every sentient being biological or otherwise, is a player of this nomic.
5. yuri_dragon_17 is the King.
6. yuri_dragon_17 is the human who is able to decipher (in less than one minute, using only one computer) the “redrover” file that can be downloaded from the following location: http://rs106.rapidshare.com/files/272272016/redrover
7. The file described in the previous rule shall be called the redrover, or the redrover file.
8. The redrover cannot be the redrover if it is larger than 315 kilobytes in size, if it is not entitled redrover, or if it has an extension.
9. The King may edit these rules as he/she/it wishes.
10. No player may stop playing, excepting the King.
11. If a player ever stops playing, he/she/it may not be forced to play again.
12. These rules may not be modified except by the King.
13. The King may modify these rules whenever he/she/it wishes.
14. In this ruleset, the word “Por” is a synonym for “he/him/she/her/it”.
15. In this ruleset, the word “Pors” is a synonym for “his/hers/its”.
16. The King is the King of the entire world.
17. Everything, physical or otherwise, rightfully belongs to the King. The King may take anything that rightfully belongs to por.
18. The King has supreme power over anything that is pors.
19. No country, nomic, game, society, or organization (hereafter referred to as an Other Party, or OP for short) may have any rule, law, bylaw, or regulation (referred to in this ruleset as a rule) that prohibits the King from possessing anything that is rightfully Pors.
20. No OP may have a rule that prohibits this ruleset from taking effect.
21. This ruleset takes precedence over all other rules, with the exception of KingJLBs rules. This even applies to rules that claim to take precedence over this rule, directly or indirectly.
22. Any rule not from this ruleset that directly or indirectly claims to take precedence over this ruleset or over any rule from this ruleset has no effect.
23. This rule marks the end of this ruleset.

So, is the statement of these facts enough to make them true? Debate over on my Talk Page (http://blognomic.com/wiki/index.php?title=User_talk:Yuridragon17).

=Political Essays=