On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 1:30 AM, omd <[email protected]> wrote:
> 00:53 < tswett> If a rule were to say "if it is POSSIBLE to do X, then
> it is POSSIBLE to do Y", I think we would treat
> this as meaning something very different from "if it
> is IMPOSSIBLE to do Y, then it is POSSIBLE to do
> X".
(the last POSSIBLE was supposed to be IMPOSSIBLE, by the way.)
I'm somewhat repeating myself here, but this is actually a really
important thought experiment, as it's less clever wording and could
happen by accident. If one rule said:
Each player CAN do A by announcement.
and another said:
If a player CANNOT do B by announcement, then e CANNOT do A.
I wouldn't say that each player can do B by announcement; rather, I'd
say that no rule allows anyone to do B, so according to the second
rule no one can do A, and there is a conflict to be resolved via
normal means.
Or perhaps to go further... Rule A says:
Each active player is an eligible voter.
Rule B says:
If a player is second-class, then e is not an eligible voter.
and Rule C says:
Partnerships are second-class.
There is a conflict between A and B about whether partnerships are
eligible voters, but not between B and C about whether partnerships
are second-class. This is nothing like classical logic. "If" in the
ruleset does not mean →, it has directionality.
