On Thu, 14 Sep 2017, Aris Merchant wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 14, 2017 at 5:11 PM, Owen Jacobson <o...@grimoire.ca> wrote:
> >
> >> On Sep 13, 2017, at 2:19 AM, Aris Merchant
> >> <thoughtsoflifeandligh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Agora would stop existing. It would therfore have no state. Arguably
> >> though, if we made a meta-descision to recreate it, it would start
> >> existing again. The Paradox of Self-Amendment has some stuff on this.
> >
> > Would it, though? The presence of rules may not be the defining feature of
> > Agora’s existence. The rules tell us how to play, but - I would argue, not
> > what Agora _is_. That definition is not formalizable without resorting to a
> > higher meta-level than the rules, I suspect.
> >
> > That said, I have absolutely no intention of running any experiments on
> > this, and in fact will object as strenuously as is possible to anything
> > that would have the effect of removing all rules from Agora.
>
> Agora is a game. What is a game if the board is removed? Is it
> nothing? Or is the players? I would look at the players. If they are
> playing, the game still exists. If they aren't, and there isn't a
> board, I would say that the game is gone.
Well there's instances of a game (the players, state of play, results) and
the game itself (a box on a shelf).
Is the concept of Agora along with the result ("it used to have rules, but
they're gone now") enough to define it as an existing instance? Are the
initial rules a box on a shelf? Have you ever really looked at your hands?
