On Sun, Jul 17, 2022 at 6:16 PM Edward Murphy via agora-discussion <
agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> wrote:
> >> Yes, you can create/submit a proposal by announcement. That doesn't mean
> >> you can create *the same* proposal multiple times
> >
> > I'd like a better explanation as to why that is, because it seems like
> the opposite. Because tou can create a proposal by announcement, you can
> create the same proposal multiple times by announcement, but that action
> falls under the umbrella of creating a proposal by announcement.
>
> That's what "the" means in ordinary language, and what the creation and
> existence of entities means in ordinary language (backed up to some
> extent by Definition and Continuity of Entities). You can't create *the
> same* instance of anything more than once (unless perhaps it's repealed
> or something in between, which is n/a here).
>
> If I announced "81 times, I create the coin in my possession", then that
> would be equally problematic (even if there was a rule "Murphy CAN
> create coins in eir possession by announcement").
>
I'd argue this is more problematic just because we don't refer to coins as
"the coin" normally, but we do use "the proposal" a lot more.
It really depends on what entity you're creating, for coins it is strange,
but for promises, for example, it works.
"81 times, I grant myself the promise:
{
I plant potatoes
}."
would be perfectly fine, because we refer to promises that way. The same
goes for proposals. It should be obvious it's not actually one promise
being granted, but multiple instances of the same promise.
An example of this happening just fine:
https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-business/2022-April/048821.html
If this should work, so should my proposals.
Also we should really look at the difference between "the same proposal"
and "the same instance of a proposal".
>
> >> You can create/submit multiple proposals with identical attributes, but
> >> you need to spell that out explicitly. It's reasonably within ais523's
> >> purview as judge to find that the clash between the verb expecting
> >> multiple objects ("81 times, I submit") and being given only a single
> >> one ("the proposal _____") is sufficiently confusing that it doesn't
> >> count as "specifying" the required things.
> >
> > I disagree that the verb expects multiple objects. It makes much more
> sense to expect a single object since i'm attempting the same action 81
> times. It would be unnecessary for me to need to list the attributes of
> every single proposal because, as "81 times" implies, it's going to be the
> same attributes for each action, not multiple different attributes. If
> there's a reason as to why my proposals didn't work, this is not it. If you
> could play with the wealth stone multiple times, and you said "5 times, I
> wield the wealth stone, specifying secretsnail." That would fail under this
> interpretation, because it didn't specify "secretsnail, secretsnail,
> secretsnail, secretsnail, and secretsnail" which I hope is not the case.
>
> Okay, more precisely: The verb is replicated 81 times. Announcing "81
> times, I create _____." is accepted as shorthand for announcing
>
> {
> I create _____.
> I create _____.
> (78 more instances)
> I create _____.
> }
>
> (There's precedent pertaining to creating an undue workload for
> officers, but let's not worry about that here.)
>
> If _____ were "a proposal with <list of attributes>", then this would
> work fine. But when _____ is "*the* proposal with <list of attributes>",
> then the expansion becomes:
>
> {
> I create the proposal with <list of attributes>.
> I create the proposal with <list of attributes>.
> (78 more instances)
> I create the proposal with <list of attributes>.
> }
>
> Now the first of these is worded awkwardly, but still sensible, as long
> as no proposal with that list of attributes already existed. The rest
> are nonsensical; at that point, a proposal with that list of attributes
> *does* already exist, so the remaining statements cannot create *the*
> proposal with that list of attributes.
>
I disagree that the rest are nonsensical. Had they all been in a separate
message, it would have worked fine. They should work fine in the same
message, too. I also think this expansion may be mistaken: as I argued
before, the shorthand can be reasonably interpreted to expand from "the
following proposal" to "a proposal with <list of attributes>", not "the
proposal with <list of attributes>", even though both should work. We
regularly use "the proposal" just to refer to "a proposal", not necessarily
a specific instance of that proposal, because when we identify the proposal
in our messages made of text, we are referring to text, not a proposal.
--
secretsnail
