On Thursday 8 May 2008 4:26:23 Ian Kelly wrote: > On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 3:15 PM, Ben Caplan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Thursday 8 May 2008 11:43:32 Ian Kelly wrote: > >> I could make the agreement. I could make the agreement a contest. > >> Therefore the contest is a possible agreement I could make. What's so > >> complicated about that? > > > > It's not possible for you to do so truly unilaterally. In a certain > > sense, yes, no one else needs to act. But making a contract into a > > contest needs the cooperation by silence of all but two of the > > players. Without their consenting inaction, no contest can be created. > > I can also go to the bank and deposit my cash, provided I have the > cooperation of the muggers not to intercept me en route. By this > argument then, depositing cash at the bank would analogously not be "a > possible action I could take".
It's misleading to bring real-world mechanics into it. Running with the analogy, however, the muggers CAN and MUST NOT intercept you. You thus CANNOT deposit your cash without their implicit consent. Compare this to how strongly parties CAN agree to a contract, which is fundamentally uninterceptible within Agoran mechanics. Any would-be muggers would have to interfere somehow with the parties' email or other mechanics external to Agora. Pavitra
