On Fri, 31 Jul 2009, ais523 wrote: > On Fri, 2009-07-31 at 07:25 -0700, Kerim Aydin wrote: >> On Fri, 31 Jul 2009, ais523 wrote: >>> Arguments: Contradiction != paradox. We have R217 for this sort of >>> thing. >> >> Huh. R217 allows judging in the best interests of the game to sort out >> "inconsistent" sets of rules, which is basically sorting out paradoxes >> among other things. >> >> Wins aside, it could be said that it's never in the best interests of >> the game to leave something in split gamestate/doubt, so that by R217, >> UNDECIDABLE is *never* appropriate? >> >> (Even if this was true once, our current weight of precedent is strongly >> against R217 in this sense, but it's quite likely that this his how >> this very old concept *should* be interpreted... ooh, this fits in >> with the subject of my draft thesis!). > > Well, IMO it is in the best interests of the game to allow paradoxes to > exist while the win condition exists, but only if they're genuinely > paradoxes (rather than simple contradictions).
As long as the paradox doesn't break the game, I agree, but there will be times (like if the paradox would break any attempt to fix it via proposal) that the good of the game would be against the paradox. > I do think that some > things that have been judged UNDECIDABLE in the past weren't actually > genuine paradoxes (e.g. the 'paradox win', which strangely appears to > have no attached CFJ (were the relevant rules different back then), > about assigning Goethe to CFJ 1596; IIRC, the Rule at the time allowed a paradox "If the legality of an action cannot be determined with finality," which didn't require a CFJ. And this was pre-judicial reform, so what would now be an UNDETERMINED would be a "win-by-paradox" without being a true paradox. And also for that matter pre-MMI, so "legality" confounded CANNOT with SHALL NOT. (It's hard to remember the mindset of the pre-judicial-reform pre-MMI judgments exactly, but there wasn't controversy about it). The first win by paradox was a true paradox (from the last card implementation). But you're right, it wouldn't be a win in today's ruleset. > Also, I don't think making an arbitrary decision is in the best > interests of the game where the paradox can be removed via other means, > e.g. proposal. This is the subject of my thesis (at least in its current draft). In a RL legal system, the judge is purposefully removed from the legislative process and must decide on Real Things (who actually owns a property or whatever) so needs to make those arbitrary calls. (Arbitrary but reasonable, and once a precedent is set, the precedent beats a new arbitrary call - and these days, the body of common law is so thick there's almost a precedent - though sometimes the judge picks a precedent arbitrarily!). > Here's a potentially related issue: what happens if something very > relevant to the gamestate (e.g. playership of someone who holds several > offices) is genuinely UNDETERMINED? (i.e. not paradoxical, just nobody > knows the true gamestate). That can be sorted by ratifying potentially > incorrect documents, but it would be nice if there was a more organised > method to deal with it. It's organized. It's called a Proposal (with retroactive effects if necessary). E.g. The Annabel crisis, and the recent precedence crisis. Of course, if part of the UNDETERMINED affects the proposal-adopting process you have to argue a lot about whether it's possible to do it that way before doing it regardless. -G.
