On Wed, 24 Sep 2008, Ian Kelly wrote: > On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 4:57 PM, Kerim Aydin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > What has been ratified in this instance is that I was wearing a hat at > 10:00 PM. The ratification has nothing to do with whether I was > wearing a hat at 10:05 PM, so the vote should be unsuccessful despite > the ratification. However, this would not be the case if the wearing > of hats were a legal fiction, the state of which is simply assumed to > be continuous.
Actually, you're extending my analogy too far, and I agree with you wholly. If we ratify a hat-wearing report for a past time, it works, but ratifying it for that past instant doesn't hold it true for the present and future. E.G. if the Rules say "anyone wears a hat any time on July 14th gets a French Flag" then you could ratify whether someone wore a hat on July 14th. But ratifying that you wore it on that day doesn't imply that you are still wearing it, or were continuously wearing it. This is also the answer to comex's question of "why can't we ratify biological personhood." If comex's CFJ had asked if we could ratify continuous real physical properties, I would have said absolutely false, since biological personhood is a continuous property, even if you happen to ratify it for an instant that's meaningless, it instantly becomes false. I think we're in agreement, actually, (comex, you and myself) just the victim of my imperfectly trying to parse a not-quite-perfectly written CFJ statement. -Goethe
