On Thu, 8 May 2008, Geoffrey Spear wrote:
> On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 5:39 PM, Ed Murphy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> If a rule states that an action is regulated, that does not
>> prevent that action from taking place, but only prevents that
>> thing from taking place under rule 101(ii) (and therefore makes
>> it impossible to take that action unless another rule makes it
>> possible).
Proto Judgement in 1939:
[I think I will stand by my arguments in the first half. But the CFJ
statement is such a mess, I ask for help in reviewing my parsing of
the statement in the second half].
R101 reads: "Every player has the right to perform an action which is
not regulated." What does this say about a player's ability to perform
actions which are regulated?
On the face of it, absolutely nothing. It is reasonable to call it a
case of exceptio probat regulam - by stating that a player has a right
to perform unregulated actions, the rule implies that a player has no
guaranteed right to perform regulated actions. But this exceptio applies
to rights, not actual abilities. Implying that a player has no *assumed
right* to perform a regulated action at will is not the same as saying
that a player is generally forbidden from (or for that matter allowed to)
perform a regulated action at will.
So what can we say without R101? R2125 states that actions are regulated
if (conditions a..d), but does not define "regulated", nor does any other
Rule. By R754 we must look to the common language meaning of the term.
By M-W online, "Regulated" means:
1 a: to govern or direct according to rule b (1): to bring under
the control of law or constituted authority.
This is clear and direct. It is clear in context that the rule, law or
authority in question is the Agoran Rules themselves. And the definition
states that if something is regulated by said authority, it is directed by
that authority, and under the control of that authority. And for an action
to be considered "under the control" of an authority, it must be an action
that can only be performed as the authority directly allows, otherwise
the authority isn't in control.
So, this court states for the record that, if R101 were removed from the
rules, R2125 would, still, by common definition of "regulated", ensure that
regulated actions could *only* be performed as specified by the Rules.
The principle of exceptio in R101 generally supports this interpretation of
R2125, but R101 is not strictly necessary to assert the controlling power
of R2125 over regulated actions and, through R2125 the authority of the
Rules in general. This Court So Finds that R2125 is sufficient.
Unfortuately, the CFJ statement itself is a mess. I believe that it
parses as follows:
If a rule states that an action is regulated, that does not
prevent that action from taking place,...
I have just found that a rule stating an action is regulated generally
*does* prevents it from taking place, but doesn't *absolutely* prevent it,
because another rule (or the same one) may explicitly permit it. This
statement reads *absolutely*, so this part is TRUE.
...but only prevents that thing from taking place under rule 101(ii)...
As I have just found that R101 doesn't prevent anything having to do with
"Regulated", this part is FALSE.
...(and therefore makes it impossible to take that action unless
another rule makes it possible).
If this therefore is applied to the first clause, it is TRUE. If it applied
to the R101 clause, it is generally nonsense, as a "therefore" following
a FALSE assertion is nonsense. The "and therefore" instead of "but therefore"
attaches it to the end of the logic chain (and therefore to the R101 clause)
so I will call this clause NONSENSE FOLLOWING A FALSE.
Overall, since a link in the chain (the clause concering R101) is FALSE, I
find this statement, as a whole, FALSE.
-Goethe
