On 2/18/20 2:49 PM, Kerim Aydin via agora-discussion wrote: > > On 2/18/2020 11:43 AM, James Cook via agora-discussion wrote: >> On Tue, 18 Feb 2020 at 19:04, Kerim Aydin via agora-discussion >> <agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> wrote: >>> On 2/18/2020 10:45 AM, James Cook via agora-discussion wrote: >>>> For the purpose of such a auction, to transfer a zombie to a >>>> player is to set that zombie's master switch to that player, and >>>> Agora CAN transfer zombies by willing it to be done. >>> Did I miss a new definition of "willing" something to be done? Agora has >>> no will (kind of like "consent", that's reserved for natural persons, by a >>> couple of precedents) and even if it had a "will" it's got no mechanism >>> for communicating its will? >> I intended the text to do two things: first, make it so that Agora >> "CAN transfer the items in that lot to that winner at will" so that >> R2551 triggers properly, and also, to satisfy R2125's stipulation that >> actions only be performed using mechanisms supplied by the rules >> (otherwise R2551 might fail to actually cause Agora to transfer the >> zombie). >> >> Not sure if it actually works. > I think there's a deep-ish question here - if the rules say that an entity > CAN do something by a physically impossible (not rules-impossible) method, > does it qualify as an appropriate CAN? > > E.g. If the rules say "a player CAN transfer a Slice of Pi by announcing > the final digit of pi" does that mean e CAN auction a Pi Slice if e's got > one? (I mean, that's a method, it's just an impossible-to-do one). > > -G.
Perhaps relevant: CFJ 3762 [0], which concluded both that a person CAN perform a certain action and that that action is IMPOSSIBLE. [0]: https://faculty.washington.edu/kerim/nomic/cases/?3762 -- Jason Cobb
