ais523 wrote:
> If SHOULD as defined leads to an infinite regress, this does not mean
> it's impossible to breach. To be legal, Sgeo would have had to read the
> ruleset, or thought about reading the ruleset and decided not to, or
> thought about thinking about reading the ruleset and deciding not to and
> deciding not to, etc.. This is an infinite regress, but note that the
> higher elements in it are so ridiculously convoluted that I'm not
> certain humans are even capable of that level of indirected thinking. In
> any case, even if there are an infinite number of ways to not break the
> rule, that doesn't mean Sgeo didn't break the rule, if he met none of
> those conditions. (Compare the Metagoracontractian Metareligion; the
> whole concept of "contracts all the way down" was ridiculous, and ehird
> was rightly seen not to have been obligated by the infinite chain.
> Likewise, Sgeo cannot rely on an infinite chain of alternative
> obligations here; in order to meet the SHOULD, then he either has to do
> the task, or the rule-defined alternative, or the rule-defined
> alternative to the rule-defined alternative, etc. It is not the case
> that Sgeo platonically fulfils some sort of "obligation at infinity",
> just as it was not the case with ehird's contracts.)
Gratuitous:
I agree that Sgeo did not meet any of the conditions, but the rules
don't clearly define failure to meet any of the conditions as being a
violation. "SHOULD" is defined by Rule 2152, which also defines some
things that clearly pertain to violations (sections 2, 5, and 6) and
some other things that clearly don't (sections 1 and 4). "should" is
loosely defined by Rule 2152, giving Rule 754 an opportunity to get
involved; ordinary-language definitions seem to run about 70% flat-out
obligation and 30% "obligation, propriety, or expediency" equally
weighted (except for order of appearance within a single clause).
Rule 2152 is based on RFC 2119, which defines SHOULD non-recursively
("the full implications must" etc.) and SHOULD NOT recursively ("the
full implications should" etc.).
Evidence:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/should
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/should
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt
