On Sun, 29 Dec 2013, Tanner Swett wrote: > On Dec 29, 2013, at 2:05 PM, Kerim Aydin wrote: > > Any organism that is generally capable of freely origininating and > > Should be "originating". > > > Definitions and prescriptions in the rules are only to be applied > > using direct, forward reasoning; in particular, an absurdity that > > can be concluded from the assumption that a statement about rule- > > defined concepts is false does not constitute proof that it is > > true. > > Soapbox: > > I like the intent behind this clause, but I don't like the way it's currently > worded. If you can conclude an absurdity given the assumption that a > statement > is false, this *does* prove that the statement is true. Classical logic is the > way truth-bearing statements behave; you can't legislate it away. > > The problem isn't interpreting the rules as axioms in the wrong logical > system; > the problem is interpreting the rules as logical axioms at all. They're > regulations, which aren't truth-bearing, and aren't closed under logical > entailment. > > I might say something like this: "The behavior of the game is specified by > the > rules themselves, not by the logical consequences of the rules. In > particular, > if the rules logically entail that an event does or does not take place, this > does not necessarily cause the event to take place or to fail to take place."
Hmm, in your first proposed sentence, the issue with that wording is that all of the game is the result of the (common-sense) logical consequences of the rules, not the rules themselves. The rules don't specify that "G. is a player". They specify "If someone is a person, and has registered, then [the logical consequence is that] they are a player" and we track the instances of that line of reasoning. At least that's my reading. Not that I'm tied to the proposal's phrasing, that's just a copy-paste of what's already there. The main thing I want to keep is the "direct, forward reasoning" part. -G.
