Greg Ritter on 23 Jan 2002 00:25:33 -0000


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RE: spoon-discuss: RE: Numbering the monkeys


At 01:06 PM 1/22/2002 +0000, you wrote:
> they were first, but because the lowest numbered rules are the most
> foundational. E.g. our Rule 10 is Rule #1 in Suber's initial ruleset. Any
> rule below 200 is immutable, while those 200 and above are mutable.
>
You can take out the immutability and still have precedence.

Of course. That wasn't the point.

In Suber's ruleset having precedence based on numbering made more sense because (at least initially) numbering also indicated mutability. It makes sense to have the immutable rules take precedence over the mutable rules. And since the immutable rules were intended to be more "foundational" they were the ones with the lowest number. E.g. our Rule 10 ("obey the rules") is more or less the equivalent of Rule 1 in Suber's ruleset.

Precedence by numbering only makes sense if the lowest numbered rules are designed to be the most foundational. As it is, in our game, it's more important (according to precedence) that the game be named B Nomic than that players obey the rules. :-/

--gritter