On Dec 30, 2007 8:03 PM, Josiah Worcester <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > From playing B Nomic, I've seen one potentially useful idea: transactions. I'm > not sure if everyone wants them, but let's see: > > Proto: Transactions (power=3?) > Create a rule titled "Transactions" with the following text: > A transaction is a method of announcing actions, contained entirely > within "BEGIN TRANSACTION" and "END TRANSACTION". A transaction may have a > list of assertions and may have a list of actions. If any assertion made > within the transaction is not true at the time of the transaction or, > alternatively, the time specified within the assertion, then none of the > actions in the transaction take effect. If any action made within the > transaction fails, then none of the actions in the transaction take effect.
If I remember correctly, in B Nomic, the assertions are allowed to be mixed in with the actions, so that you can make an assertion as to the results of an action. It MIGHT be better to make asserting by itself an action, though really, assertion is only useful in a transaction and can easily be simulated by a transaction containing only the assertion. Also, I suggest that instead of saying that a transaction fails if it can't be determined whether or not it succeeds, which is kind of self-contradictory, the rule should say that a transaction fails if it can't be determined whether one of the individual actions or assertions succeeds. That still avoids the "I vote for this if and only if P = NP" stuff but doesn't have the paradoxes. --Ivan Hope CXXVII
