Re: [spoon-discuss] Re: [Spoon-business] Veni, Vidi, Vacancy

["Glotmorf" <glotmorf@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 5/5/03 at 10:44 PM Baron von Skippy wrote:

>>>>My mistake. That last paragraph should have read:
>>>>"Penguin" is never defined. There is no such thing as a Penguin. There
>>>>is "the act of becoming a Penguin", which is defined to have exactly
>>>>the same effects as "the act of becoming a Toad"; "the act of becoming
>>>>a Toad" has the effect of causing the object taking the action to end
>>>>up as a toad; therefore, "the act of becoming a Penguin", having the
>>>>same effect on the object, also has the effect of causing the object
>>>>taking the action to end up as a toad.
>>>
>>>Now we're back to the logical contradiction.  To say that a player
>>>"becomes a penguin" (as opposed to "begins to become a penguin", "has a
>>>predisposition to become a penguin", "takes some but not all of the
>>>necessary steps toward becoming a penguin") indicates a process that has
>>>as its end being a penguin, not a toad.  And since a penguin is in fact
>>>defined as something a player can become as the result of the triggering
>>>of an IID, as opposed to all the toad-making possibilities that define
>the
>>>existence of a toad, "penguin" and "toad" are two different things.
>>>
>>>So the rule that states where penguins come from regulates the existence
>>>of penguinship, even if all other effects of toadsmanship carry over.
>>
>>In the absence of a definition of a penguin, I believe that "becomes a
>>penguin" should be interpreted as a single event. The Baron does not
>>perform the action "become", targeting emself and the class Penguin;
>>rather, e performs the action "become a penguin", which is defined to be
>>equivalent to the action "become a toad". "Become a Penguin" is, IMHO, no
>>different from the action "Vote" or "Propose".
>>
>>If "penguin" were defined in any meaningful way in the ruleset, then I
>>would agree with you, citing the "Drink a glass of champagne" vs. "Drink"
>a
>>"Glass of Champagne" CFI; but if the object in question is not an object,
>I
>>don't think we can break this up into "become" a "penguin"; it is simply
>>"become a penguin". It's like your bit about hiring Contract Mining
>>Companies... didn't we decide that in your favor? Namely that, in the
>>absence of any sort of mining contractors, the statement that players
>could
>>"pay mining contractors to mine things" did not first require that mining
>>contractors be objects?
>>
>-I remember back when we had the occasional intelligent discussion in
>here... on a topic which actually mattered for sonething... anyway, you
>two
>are playing havoc with my morphic resonance field, and I don't feel like
>ending up with flippers and webbed feet permanently from the coinfusion,
>so
>if you could maybe resolve this...?-

Well, now, ya see, that there's the problem.  I keep thinking it's resolved each time I post, and then someone goes and disagrees with me and I gotta straighten 'em out all over again.

I'm really starting to warm up to the idea of a secondary judgment system for matters of public debate.  Especially for issues that, were they actually CFI'd, should truly be ruled "Who Gives a Damn?"

						Glotmorf

-----
The Ivory Mini-Tower: a cyber-anthropologist's blog
http://ix.1sound.com/ivoryminitower

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