On Tue, 3 Feb 2009, Alex Smith wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 09:58 -0800, Kerim Aydin wrote:
>> I see what you're doing with the indirection here (attempting to
>> empower R1728 at power 3), but you haven't convinced me yet. The
>> indirection doesn't remove the impossible nature of the task.
>> Take a close look at R2140:
>> No entity with power below the power of this rule can...
>> (c) modify any other substantive aspect of an instrument with
>> power greater than its own. A "substantive" aspect of
>> an instrument is any aspect that affects the instrument's
>> operation.
>> I would say that "the ability of R1728 to amend R2141" is a substantive
>> aspect of the power-3 R1728, in that it is certainly an aspect of its
>> operation; hence that ability (or lack thereof) can't be modified by
>> the power-1 R2238.
>>
>> I like a good ladder scam, so what's the logic in favor?
>
> The logic in favour is the CAN in the first sentence of rule 1728:
> {{{
> A person (the performer) CAN perform an action dependently (a
> dependent action) by announcement if and only if all of the
> following are true:
> }}}
Thanks, I was wondering why dependent actions and this isn't wholly
implausible. However, I believe this runs afoul of the following from
R1728:
a) The rules explicitly authorize the performer to perform the
action by a set of one or more of the following methods (N
is 1 if not otherwise specified)
The problem is, that R1728(a) requires the rules as a whole to authorize
the performer to perform the action, and doesn't in itself "add" to that
explicit authority (if it did "add" it would be self-referentially
meaningless). So R2238 authorizes the dependent action, but it
conflicts with R2140, which forbids it (note that authorization must be
explicit; prohibition need not be - that tilt towards prohibition is a
"for the good of the game" argument). Therefore the net sum of "the
rules" is that R2140 beats out R2238 due to power, and the action isn't
authorized by the rules, so the test of R1728(a) fails.
I'm sure there have been other cases where one rule authorizes a
dependent action but another higher-power rule forbids it, and it's
that straightforward conflict that matters; R1728 doesn't "add" any
authority as a power-3 rule if the test from (a) isn't met.
-Goethe
