[spoon-discuss] Re: -2

[Daniel Peter Lepage <dpl33@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Araltaln wrote:
>
> Glotmorf wrote:
> 
> > Tsk.  We just had a relatively recent CFI that said 
> > recognition and the need for same is defined by precedent.  
> > Granted that's not explicit, but the justification for that 
> > CFI cited the instances in the rules where recognition was 
> > defined.  That, taken together with the default case, 
> > regulates recognition.
> > 
> > So, les'n you want to bribe a judge (which *ahem* there's game 
> > precedent for...), this ain't gonna fly.
> > 
> > 						Glotmorf
> 
> While you can certainly establish what an action is by precedent ("At 
> some level, we need to use English words that haven't been officially 
> defined lest we be unable to define anything." --Zarpint), I have a hard 
> time believing you can establish a Rule merely on precedent.
> 
> Rule 11/4 states both "A Rulebook is a collection of Rules." and "The 
> Ruleset is a Rulebook", and 18/3 states "Whatever is not prohibited or 
> regulated by the Ruleset is permitted and unregulated." Precedent may 
> attempt to regulate it, but that's not a method outlined in the Ruleset 
> to change Rules.

Well, under r127 (Judgment): This ruling shall dictate the manner in which the rules are interpreted, unless the judgement is appealed, in which case the ruling of the Upper House shall dictate the manner in which the rules are interpreted.

This seems to say that a precedent defined by a CFI can in fact determine what we interpret the rules to mean.

> There's no (well, very little) room for unwritten Rules in Nomic, as far 
> as I can tell.

I'm afraid I disagree with you on this point. Like in any game, the 'rules' of the game depend only one what the players think they are; the textual representation of the rules only exists to provide an easy way for us to reach agreements.

If we somehow got a rule from some outside source, completely misread the rule, and played the game as if the rule said something else, we wouldn't be 'wrong' in doing so because there isn't a 'wrong' way to read the rule; we'd just be straying from what most english-speakers might see in the rule.

This happens all the time in other games: you might play a game of scrabble against another B Nomic player and decide that 'Nomic' and 'proosal' are valid words for your purposes, even though they aren't in the dictionary; you might play monopoly with some friends and decide that it makes perfect sense to use the rule that when your dog knocks over the board every player gets to move eir pieces back to Go and play continues from there; you might play chess and decide that it's legal to take back a move if the move was really obviously stupid.

The only reason it doesn't happen as often in Nomic is that it only works when the players unanimously agree that it should, and in Nomic there will almost always be a player who insists that the rules should be followed exactly as they would most commonly be interpreted; while the the other players could simply ignore this player and play according to how they want to play, this is generally considered to be a most unkind thing to do. Usually in these cases we all either grudgingly admit that it does make more sense to interpret the rule that player's way, or we all agree that whatever the CFI's judge says will be the way we read things. But that doesn't mean we can't have 'rules' that don't exactly match the textual Rules on Dave's server; indeed, if the judge decides against this, the players usually go along (that's why the Suberian ruleset specifies that the Judge should look to the spirit of the game and game precedent whenever the rules are ambiguous).

So I would say we can, and do, have unwritten rules in Nomic.

-- 
Wonko
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