RE: spoon-discuss: Re: Revision of 236

[Greg Ritter <gritter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 01:30 PM 1/10/2002 +0000, you wrote:

> > I agree that deciding we can't decide certain things would be useful. No
> > argument there.
> >
> > I was responding to Antonio's objection to Prop 236; under that proposal,
> > only True or False judgments can change game custom. He objects that a
> > Refused or Undecided judgment would *not change* the game custom.
> >
> > My take on it is that the *usefulness* of a Refused or Undecided judgment
> > is that the status quo persists (as in a hung jury or refused case in real
> > courts).
> >
> But that doesn't make sense. If I submit a CFJ saying (in effect) "the 
> status quo persists" (and most CFJs say either that, or its opposite), and 
> it is judged Undecided, that shouldn't mean that the status quo persists - 
> it should mean that we are unable to determine whether the status quo 
> persists or not.

There's no "we" there!! Where are you getting "we" from?!?

It means *that individual Judge* was unable to determine whether the status 
quo persists. It doesn't say anything about 'reality' outside of that's 
Judge's perception. In the absence of a Judge's ability to make a 
determination, nothing has changed.

> It would be useful to have game custom say that the circumstances we're in 
> lead to undecidability.

Which is nonsense because an individual judge's inability to decide doesn't 
indicate anything about anybody else's ability to decide. Another Judge 
might be quite capable of deciding on the validity of the statement.

The only reason a "True" or "False" ruling -- which is also just the 
perception or interpretation of an individual judge -- changes anything is 
because the rules say it does.