Re: [s-b] C Nomic

["Jamie Dallaire" <bad.leprechaun@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 5:52 PM, Tyler <wisety@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> All right, that's the final straw.  In my capacity as Player of B Nomic and
> C Nomic, I'll submit the following Consultation to end all this
> multi-nomic silliness:
>
> "Is it true that, since the time proposal 485 Passed, C Nomic has been
> identical to B Nomic?"
>
> Reasoning:
> "Proposal 485 created another nomic called C Nomic, as far anyone can tell.
> When it did so, it specified that it was identical to B Nomic. Therefore
> the
> Game Objects of B Nomic must be Game Objects in C Nomic also. Rule 2 could
> not have stopped this from becoming true, because while there was only B
> Nomic, it only had control over what happened in B Nomic, and it did not
> govern C Nomic until after the moment of its creation.
>
> Please could the Priest assigned this Consultation make an Oracularity to
> take care of actions, such as transactions, that are valid in only one of
> the two nomics, as all changes to one nomic are supposedly happening also
> in
> the other."
>
> I assign this Consultation (to?) the number 131 and the Priest Billy
> Pilgrim. Good luck.


I urge everyone to read the below carefully, as it leads to an Oracularity
concerning the fundamental nature of our game.

Thanks to 0x44 for his review. 0x44: note that I addressed your concern (I
hope!) in this version of the text, and also added in a bit in the
oracularity about using the terms "B Nomic" and "C Nomic" in Rules. Also
realized that the issue of B/C transaction splitters can be addressed
through the indeterminate truthfulness clause, so no need to retroactively
stop tricksterishness upon ponderation.

I Submit the Answer to Consultation 131, contained within the Reasoning
below:

Reasoning:
{
I was going to answer this completely differently, but the Supplicant's
Reasoning - concerning the failure of Rule 4E2 to restrict the creation of
Game Objects in C Nomic until C Nomic had already been created - has
convinced me. It's like having to explain to people that, no, the theory of
biological (not to get into molecular) evolution CAN'T explain where
life/universe came from, because that's just not what it's about. It only
kicks in AFTER, once the raw materials are there...

We may consider that:

C Nomic officially and operationally came into being at the same time as
Rule 4E83. There is no reason to suspect that certain Game Objects (e.g. the
Rules, more specifically Rule 4E2) came into being before other Game Objects
(which would then not have come into being). Being agnostic with regard to
the order in which Game Objects of C Nomic came into being, I pose that it
is as reasonable to believe that all of C Nomic's Game Objects were created
simultaneously.

It is possible, initially, to take exception to the use of the word
"identical" in the text of Rule 4E83. How, indeed, can two nomics be *
identical* if they are of different ages? I believe that this objection
flounders when we take a closer look at the many possible meanings of
"identical", one of which - according to Merriam-Webster - is "having such
close resemblance as to be essentially the same <*identical* hats>". I
submit that we can then consider two nomics sharing all Game Objects to
identical in the weak sense, much like two quite similar hats. It is quite
doubtful that any haberdasher, no matter how skillful, mechanical or human,
could create two such similar hats simultaneously.

Likewise, we may speak of "this hat" and "that hat", or of "so and so's hat"
and "such and such's hat", or choose to designate them by different names,
yet this does not diminish their (weak) identicalness.

Alternatively, we may also consider the thus-far-overlooked possibility
that:

B Nomic and C Nomic do not possess distinct but identical Game Objects;
rather, they *share* the exact same set of Game Objects. Indeed, could we
not argue that two nomics which contain the same set of Game Objects are
*more* identical than two nomics which contain duplicate sets? While Game
Objects of B Nomic are, by definition, within the game of B Nomic, nothing
prevents them from ALSO being within C Nomic.

We are left, then, with two apparently undecidable propositions: either B
Nomic and C Nomic are parallel nomics, or they are overlapping nomics. In
both cases, we may hold them to be "identical" to each other.

Having established that B Nomic and C Nomic were identical at the time of C
Nomic's creation, the question now becomes: have they remained identical
(strongly, in all but age and name) ever since? Several potential sources of
divergence have been cited, and I shall review each of these in turn,
considering them with respect to both the parallel-nomics and
overlapping-nomics hypotheses. They are, in mounting order of seriousness:
the purported lack of public fora in C Nomic, attempts to transfer game
objects from an entity in one nomic to an entity in the other, and
transactions containing assertions about the name of the nomic being played.

Is spoon-business a Public Forum of C Nomic? Rule 4E6 defines Fora as
External Forces. This means that spoon-business exists independently of
either Nomic, and as such need only be designated as Public by these Nomics
to constitute a Public Forum. The designation of a Forum as Public is
clearly part of B Nomic's gamestate, and so, in the case of parallel nomics,
it was necessarily transferred to C Nomic upon the latter's creation. In the
case of overlapping nomics, spoon-business' designation as a Public Forum
pre-dated C Nomic, and as such is also considered Public there.
spoon-business IS a Public Forum for C Nomic. Note that the answer to the
above question would not have damaged Nomic identicalness, regardless of
what it was, because any changes occuring in one Nomic also occur in the
other. This point is of crucial importance, however, to one of our remaining
questions.

Can Game Objects (specifically, mackerel or socks) be transferred from a
Legal Entity residing in B Nomic to a Legal Entity residing in C Nomic, or
vice versa? Let us consider this question within the parallel-nomics
framework: in this case, Game Objects (including Players and Corporations -
both types of Legal Entities) were duplicated from B Nomic into C Nomic upon
Rule 4E83's enactment. A Player (or Corporation) in B Nomic and that same
Player in C Nomic are, then, clearly distinct Legal Entities. This
separateness is a necessary pre-condition for the ability to transfer Game
Objects.

But is it possible for these distinct identities to perform inter-nomic
transfers? Rule 4E33 defines a Currency Owning Objects as a type of Game
Object. Indeed, as per Rule 4E2, anything which is in the game (this also
includes Potential Sockholders...) is a Game Object. As such, a Legal Entity
(which is a COO and a Potential Sockholder) defined as such in one nomic may
only transfer mackerel or socks to a separate Legal Entity also recognized
as such (and, implicitly, as a Game Object) by the same nomic.

However, a careful reading of 4E2 indicates that (contrary to my initial
belief), nothing prevents Game Objects from existing outside the game.
Everything within the game is a Game Object, and all non-(Game Objects) are
without the game. This does not mean that all Game Objects are within the
game... Therefore, the notion that COOs or Potential Sockholders may not
transfer anything to entities outside the game because, these entities not
being Game Objects, it is impossible for them to be defined as COOs or
Potential Sockholders, is invalid. [[This part held up my reasoning for a
while...]]

Note that when a Game Object is destroyed, as per Rule 4E2, it ceases to
exist. When a Game Object is exported outside of the game, however (as
duplicates of B Nomic's Game Objects were, to C Nomic, upon their creation
by Rule 4E83's enactment), it does not cease to exist, but rather exists
elsewhere. Because C Nomic's Game Objects were never destroyed and were, at
one instant, a part of B Nomic, I submit that C Nomic's Game Objects are
still recognized by B Nomic.

It is also clear that the daughter nomic recognizes the mother nomic's Game
Objects. As we have seen, C Nomic contains its own Game Objects, inherited
from B Nomic. Further, C Nomic abides by Rule 4E2, which specifies that *B
Nomic* consists entirely of Game Objects. As such, C Nomic's very ruleset
enforces recognition of B Nomic's Game Objects.

It is possible, then, for Legal Entities within C Nomic to perform transfers
to Legal Entities within B Nomic, as each nomic recognizes the Legal
Entities within the other. Note that, however, when (e.g.) j (of B Nomic)
transfers mackerel to J's C Holding Company (of C Nomic), rule 4E83
specifies that j (of C Nomic) also transfers the same amount of mackerel to
J's C Holding Company (of B Nomic). --- indeed, note that both J's Holding
Company and J's C Holding Company exist (or at least have existed, I can't
keep track) in both B and C Nomic --- Therefore, the gamestate of the two
nomics remains identical despite this apparently asymmetrical transfer of
Game Objects. [[accounting for such game actions will require some
backtracking on my part, as I have thus far disregarded them as invalid ---
and I suspect the MoM has too]]

By this logic, transfers between corresponding entities within the two
nomics (e.g. j of C Nomic gives j of B Nomic a sock --- I am picking on j
only because I remember him doing inter-nomic transfers a good bit, though I
may be fudging the details) did also take place, but had no actual effect on
gamestate, being balanced by Rule 4E83.

It is much more straightforward to consider the question of inter-nomic
transfers from within the overlapping-nomics framework. In this case, J's
Holding Company (e.g.) of B Nomic and J's Holding Company of C Nomic *are
the same* Game Object. Therefore, it is indisputable that these transfers
are valid. The only exception is the type of transfer in the above
paragraph, which in this case fails because Game Objects cannot be
transferred from one entity to itself. Rules 4E33 and 4E68 specify that
transfers may be made to *another* COO or Sockholder, respectively. Being
invalid, these types of attempts do not affect gamestate.

Thus far, we can see that the parallel-nomics and overlapping-nomics
interpretations converge on a single gamestate.

Finally, we come to the matter of Transactions which specify the name of the
nomic to which they are being submitted. As we have seen, spoon-business is
a Public Forum in both C Nomic and B Nomic, and as such any Transaction
submitted to this mailing list is submitted to both Nomics. In the
overlapping-nomics approach, both nomics share a gamestate (save for their
names), meaning that the game is simultaneously B Nomic and C Nomic.
Transactions asserting one or both of these are then apt to succeed (unless
hampered by assertion- or action-related defects). In the parallel-nomics
approach, any Transaction asserting the name of the Nomic in which it is
read fails in one nomic and succeeds (if it would otherwise succeed) in the
other. As per Rule 4E83, changes to both games are then enacted as if the
Transaction had succeeded in both. Transactions asserting that the game is *
both* B Nomic and C Nomic fail, because these conditions cannot be satisfied
in any single nomic.

The latter point is the only matter of discord between the
overlapping-nomics and parallel-nomics views of the situation. Fortunately,
no otherwise-successful Transaction has been submitted, which makes both of
these assertions. The recent Transaction(s) submitted by comex, IF they can
be read as a single Transaction, obviously fail because comex, already being
a Player of both B and C Nomic, cannot join either of these games. If they
cannot be read as a single Transaction (this is a matter for another
Priest), then neither of the two Transactions asserts both that the game is
B and that the game is C.

In fact, I submit that this issue is *not* functionally an open door for B/C
divergence, because Rule 4E7 entails that Transactions fail unless it can be
determined with "finality and certainty" that the assertions therein are
true. As it appears to be undecidable whether we are currently in a
parallel-nomics situation or in an overlapping-nomics situation, we may not
unconditionally accept statements that we are currently in both nomics as
true. Transactions that do so automatically fail.

Considering all this, I must, in my capacity as Priest, submit an Answer of
*TRUE* to Consultation 131. The gamestates of B Nomic and C Nomic are, at
the time of this Answer's submission, identical, and have been since C
Nomic's creation.
}

Oracularity:
{
[[The main priorities, here, are: to ratify gamestate according to the above
interpretation of recent events - to confirm the nature of B and C's
relationship as either parallel, overlapping, or otherwise - to set
provisions that avoid this consultation's ponderation being pre-empted by
tricksters submitting a certain type of Transaction - to fix the rules to
mention B or C when appropriate]]

Set the gamestate to what it would be if the above parallel-nomics (more
below on why I chose this one) interpretation were correct. Specifically,
this means (but is not necessarily limited to --- the points below merely
clear up any possible ambiguity in the previous sentence):
{{
 Set the gamestate of both B and C Nomics to reflect what it would be if,
since the start of nweek 149:
- C Nomic was initially created with an exact duplicate set of B Nomic's
Game Objects.
- spoon-business had been a Public Forum in C Nomic since that Nomic's
inception.
- Any successful Game Actions in B Nomic had also occured in C Nomic, and
vice versa.
- Transactions asserting the identity of one, and only one, nomic out of the
set  {B Nomic, C Nomic}, that would have succeeded based on their other
Assertions and Game Actions, had succeeded and affected B Nomic and C Nomic
in an identical manner.
- Transactions asserting the identity of both B Nomic and C Nomic (i.e.
proclaiming to be taking place in both nomics) had Failed in both nomics.
[[this keeps anyone from submitting one after seeing the reasoning but
before this oracularity is pondered... Upon ponderation, that type of
transaction will be considered to have failed.]]
- Transfers of mackerel or socks between Legal Entities purported to reside
in one nomic and those purported to reside in the other (of the {B Nomic, C
Nomic} set) had succeeded as if the Entities in question had been supposed
to reside in the same nomic all along, and the transfer had thus affected
both nomics in the same manner.
}}

[[I think it is easier to separate two nomics that share a gamestate than to
collapse two distinct ones into a single one. Plus, it is probably
preferable for them to be inarguably distinct if they are ever to be forked.
Again, because they may be forked eventually, I propose that we cut the
recognition of the other nomic's game objects out.]]

For the purposes of the changes called for in the rest of this Oracularity,
disregard Rule 4E83.

I C Nomic's Ruleset, replace every instance of the character string " B "
(including the spaces...), except for those in Rules 4E83 and 4E9, with the
character string " C ".

Remove the period at the end of Rule 4E83 and append this text to Rule 4E83:
", except that wherever the current nomic is referenced during creation or
modification of a Rule, the appropriate nomic name (B Nomic or C Nomic) is
used in each nomic separately.

If B Nomic and C Nomic share a complete set of Game Objects which are
considered to be within each of the nomics simultaneously (with the
exception of the above-mentioned rules, Empty C Nomic of all Game Objects
(leaving them to B Nomic exclusively), then create identical copies of all
of B Nomic's Game Objects and placing within C Nomic (but not within B
Nomic).

If there exist duplicates of B Nomic's Game Objects within C Nomic (whether
or not these are also within B Nomic), move them outside the game of B Nomic
(if necessary) and make B Nomic stop considering them to be Game Objects. Do
the converse of the previous sentence.

Amend Rule 4E2 by replacing the sentence {Anything that exists in the game
is an Object, and anything that is not an Object is not in the game.} by
{Anything that exists in the game is an Object, and anything that is not in
the game is not an Object.}

[[B and C should now be completely distinct, yet may continue to influence
each other through their shared maintenance of 4E83. Its repeal is all that
is needed for a fork.]]
}

Long Live B! (and C)

Ahoy!

Billy Pilgrim
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