I Want Randi's Million

Cyphermage

Critical Thinker
C
Joined
May 13, 2006
Messages
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I'd love to get my hands on Randi's million dollar prize.

There's only one problem. I see absolutely no evidence that God, the devil, angels, demons, Heaven, Hell, psychic phenomena, or anything supernatural or paranormal exists. I think it likely that the universe has continued merrily onwards governed only by the Principle of Least Action since it was smaller than a grain of sand, and that everything that is knowable is knowable through science and mathematics.

Thankfully, as Authur C. Clarke has pointed out, sufficiently good technology is indistinguishable from woo.

So if I'm going to get the prize, it will have to be through advanced technology that appears paranormal to the uninitiated, and which defies debunking or explaination by folks like Randi, JREF, and CSICOP.

Fortunately, there are a number of bleeding edge fields which are in their infancy, and which are only now reaching the point where practical engineering in them is teetering on the verge of becoming possible.

Some candidates which leap to mind are nanotech, high frequency gravitational radiation, and quantum computation.

So my question to you is as follows. Think up a demonstration based on advanced technology which could separate Randi from his cash. Imagine doing to Randi what he did to the scientists at Stanford, and after being awarded the prize, steping up to the podium in front of a worldwide television audience, and saying "How did I do that? It's simple. I cheated."
 
How far back in time do you have to go before any of our current technology seems indistinguishable from magic to some very smart people with connections at the best science institutions?

A long time. That's roughly how far you have to take a field of research singlehandedly to pull this off. Good luck! :)
 
I would settle for getting 20 dollars off of Randi in a bar bet. But I am pretty sure he knows most of those stunts and could probably figure out any new tricks.

Scientists may have a better chance at cheating than most. But I think they would have a bit of trouble with the formal test. After getting past the prelim, other scientists and magicians would most likely be consulted on the protocol for the formal test. That would increase the chance of catching on to a new technology based trick.
 
I can think of a couple of possible protocols for prize-winning, based on some of the technology I previously mentioned.

Scenario 1: Randi constructs a secret message, and posts it on the Internet encrypted with PGP so everyone can verify it has been committed by a specified date. Psychics then try to discern the contents of the message. Later, Randi posts the key, permitting the public to decrypt the message and see whether the psychics have been successful.

Attack: Use coherent quantum computation to decrypt the message by simultaneously trying all possible keys.

Scenario 2: Randi places a glass of water under one of three overturned metal pails. A psychic is brought into the room, and using mysterious powers, consistantly picks the pail over the glass of water.

Attack: Someone at a distant location is imaging the testing location at sub-millimeter resolution with petahertz frequency gravity waves, and is speaking to the psychic by modulating part of the beam with sound and focusing it to dissipate its energy into the bones inside the psychic's head.

Scenario 3: Randi draws a picture on a sheet of paper and seals it inside an envelope. A psychic is brought in, given a pad and a pen, and draws an uncanny replica of Randi's picture.

Attack: A fly sized nanobot on the wall behind Randi's chair watches him draw the picture, and discloses its contents to the psychic.

I think it's only a matter of time before Randi is conned out of his money, especially considering there are classified technologies which are well-developed but not well-known in academia.
 
I got one for Randi

Prove that we are not all living in someones dream world and when someone wakes up someone else falls a sleep and picks up where the other left off.

I can't prove it but can he disprove it
 
Doubt said:
Scientists may have a better chance at cheating than most. But I think they would have a bit of trouble with the formal test. After getting past the prelim, other scientists and magicians would most likely be consulted on the protocol for the formal test. That would increase the chance of catching on to a new technology based trick.
Click to expand...

There is, however, some confusion regarding when and to what degree a protocol can be altered or dropped once it's agreed upon for the preliminary.

"No part of the testing procedure may be changed in any way without the agreement of all parties concerned. JR may be present at some preliminary or formal tests, but will not interact with the materials used."

Back when Kramer was handling challenges, this came up with the testing of the silly CD-enhancing chip. Voicing concern about a developing a protocol that would foil intentional fraud and deception, many forum readers were concerned that Kramer take the appropriate care to craft a good protocol -- the reason being that the same protocol would be followed during a formal test, only with a larger number of samples, trials, etc.

I brought this up in http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36545 and then later Kramer in Post 10 of http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36588 stated:

All I can add to what has already been offered here is the following:

If Randi gets fooled, the money is awarded regardless, and the JREF One Million Dollar Challenge is terminated.

So, one doesn't need to actually have paranormal powers to win the big bucks.

One simply has to be smarter than James Randi.
Click to expand...
I've always thought that this created a bad situation for JREF if they adhere to the idea that the protocol doesn't change -- a conflict between wanting to speedily process a valid application, but avoid falling for a scam in which they didn't have the expertise to recognize a new development in technology.

- Timothy
 
These all seem unnecessarily fancy to me. Surely the usual telepathy experiment- where a sender in one room is read a list of words, and a receiver in another room records the list simultaneously- could be cheated with a miniature audio transmitter in each person's ear. Sharper Image might not be at that point yet- after all, the transmitter would have to be small enough and camouflaged enough not to be noticed even by keen observers- but it's certainly not any groundbreaking technology.

Edit- Fixed typo.
 
In order to avoid scientific attacks on the prize, JREF pretty much has to refuse all challenges based on solving intractable problems.

For instance, if I claim my paranormal power is that I can't be beaten at chess, am I using psychic ability, or am I just 1000 years ahead of everyone else in combinatorial mathematics?

So you pretty much have to not allow any challenges based on games or puzzles, or any based on finding out information protected by cryptography.

Then you just pray that the guy who is moving stuff with his mind isn't friends with a million sub-microscopic nanobots who know how to cooperate to form a buffer field. :)
 
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JollyRoger said:
I got one for Randi

Prove that we are not all living in someones dream world and when someone wakes up someone else falls a sleep and picks up where the other left off.

I can't prove it but can he disprove it
Click to expand...


As I understand it, this is not valid. Science requires falsifiability. The burden of proof is on the claimant. This goes for any claim in science, not just ones for the challenge.
 
Cyphermage said:
I can think of a couple of possible protocols for prize-winning, based on some of the technology I previously mentioned.

Scenario 1: Randi constructs a secret message, and posts it on the Internet encrypted with PGP so everyone can verify it has been committed by a specified date. Psychics then try to discern the contents of the message. Later, Randi posts the key, permitting the public to decrypt the message and see whether the psychics have been successful.

Attack: Use coherent quantum computation to decrypt the message by simultaneously trying all possible keys.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure that this would do it.

Specifically, I'm not sure that Randi would accept such a challenge, and I'm pretty sure that before he did, he would involve his own corps of experts in being able to assess the possibility and methods of cheating.

Not to toot my own horn,.... but I have an idea of how far we are from being able to build a quantum computer to break PGP. And if you're going to do it, you're going to need to make at least one really well-funded breakthrough that doesn't appear in the scientific literature. Because I read those journals, and I would warn Randi (if asked) about any cryptographic threats I thought were realistic enough to be taken seriously.
 
JollyRoger said:
I got one for Randi

Prove that we are not all living in someones dream world and when someone wakes up someone else falls a sleep and picks up where the other left off.

I can't prove it but can he disprove it
Click to expand...

You probably misunderstood the JREF Challenge.

You claim, you prove.
 
drkitten said:
I'm not sure that this would do it.

Not to toot my own horn,.... but I have an idea of how far we are from being able to build a quantum computer to break PGP. And if you're going to do it, you're going to need to make at least one really well-funded breakthrough that doesn't appear in the scientific literature. Because I read those journals, and I would warn Randi (if asked) about any cryptographic threats I thought were realistic enough to be taken seriously.
Click to expand...

I strongly suspect that quantum computing will be eventually be found to be governed by a "no free lunch" principle, namely that the cost of maintaining coherent superposition is always enough to have done the computation the hard way.

Scientists have fallen for such bait before, and have been sadly awakened. The discovery that the non-locality of Bell's paradox does not violate causality is probably the best recent example of this.
 
You know, though, if I did discover some new science unlike anything before [ED-yeah, and if you suddenly grew 100 foot tall with wings!], I'd be looking at this. If I was confident I could get the million, I'd do the test, get the million, immediately donate it back to JREF and describe how I did it.

Great publicity for a new technology. Talk about investors and grant money!

And just to smooth any hard feelings, I'd probably dump a percent of any profits back into JREF too, so we could see a $2,000,000, $5,000,000, or whtever prize :)
 
Huntsman said:
Talk about investors and grant money!
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Indeed. If a scientist found a discovery of this magnititude, he would be too busy accepting his Nobel and fending off venture capitalists to bother with Randi's pathetic million.

Viagra - arguably as close to magic as you could hope for :D - made $310 million in its first year...
 
I also half suspect that this is one of the reasons for the preliminary test--for example, What if the applicant passes the preliminary test, but Randi can tell how he did it? I think Randi is within his rights to adjust the protocol to prevent the trick he believes to be responsible. And that's why I think the million is safe--someone may fool him with a trick once that he didn't think could be done... but once he's seen it... what are the chances he can't tell how it was done?
 
gnome said:
I also half suspect that this is one of the reasons for the preliminary test--for example, What if the applicant passes the preliminary test, but Randi can tell how he did it? I think Randi is within his rights to adjust the protocol to prevent the trick he believes to be responsible. And that's why I think the million is safe--someone may fool him with a trick once that he didn't think could be done... but once he's seen it... what are the chances he can't tell how it was done?
Click to expand...

I thought the protocol can't change.
Only the odds can.
Even if it is obvious how the person cheated.
 
Yahzi said:
Indeed. If a scientist found a discovery of this magnititude, he would be too busy accepting his Nobel and fending off venture capitalists to bother with Randi's pathetic million.

Viagra - arguably as close to magic as you could hope for :D - made $310 million in its first year...
Click to expand...

Well, yes, but I was applying this to me. I'd have no idea what to do to get my discovery noticed in the science community (and don't know the first thing about writing for a journal). I'd also not have a clue on what to do to get investors. The challenge is there, and would provide an immediate $1,000,000 capital, recognition, and a chance to get a lot of serious scientists involved.

Of course, it's highly unlikely (That's an understantement-Ed.) that I'd ever discover anything, and I figure most discoveries of this nature would occur by people already working in science, who would know what to do besides the challenge :)
 
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