On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 4:40 PM, Ed Murphy <emurph...@socal.rr.com> wrote: > Detail: http://zenith.homelinux.net/cotc/viewcase.php?cfj=3254 > > ============================== CFJ 3254 ============================== > > ais523 CAN destroy a ruble. > > ======================================================================== > ============================== CFJ 3255 ============================== > > ais523 CAN destroy a ruble. > > ======================================================================== > ============================== CFJ 3256 ============================== > > In the last few minutes, G. transferred exactly one ruble to > ais523. > > ========================================================================
Based on the arguments to CFJs 3121 & 3122, it appears that the consensus among Agorans is that when an infinite rule-defined process occurs, it does indeed occur infinitely, but instantaneously, leaving the game in a single state afterwards. While the situation giving rise to 3122 failed on a technicality similar to that which plagued the original CFJs on this matter (see CFJ 3246), this one does not have the same issues. In eir arguments to CFJ 3122, H. Judge Murphy proposes that any such action would necessarily introduce ambiguity into the gamestate and fail, but I do not agree with this line of reasoning. I see nothing in the rules to indicate that an ambiguity causes an action to fail inherently; rather, it is the requirement of unamibiguousness written out in Rule 478 that prevents actions by announcement from being ambiguous. This does not prevent other ambiguity and, indeed, ambiguity has been held to exist in situations historically---there have been . There is, additionally, a poltiical aspect to it, as outlined by H. Judge Pavitra in CFJ 2650, which is a vital read for anyone wishing to settle this case. Therefore, the first question is to address the case as per Rule 217. Is the text of the rules "silent, inconsistent, or unclear"? As I have already mentioned, I do not find any reason to conclude that any of the actions related to pinging and ponging failed. In particular, we have a well-defined sequence of actions: the cashing of the Ping2 and Pong2 promises, and the transferring of a ruble (or various different rubles) back and forth. There is nothing in the rules to indicate that any of them fail, and explicit statements to the effect that they succeed. Therefore the actions succeeded. As indicated before, they all happened "instantaneously": ordered with respect to each other, but each coming before any subsequent action in that or any other message. The question, then, is what the resulting game state is. There was no final owner of the ruble, as for any action transferring it to an individual, there was an opposite action transferring it away. Since there are countable infinities of these actions, we can actually get fancy and say that G. transferred his ruble away twice as many times as he did receive it, or the like. This actually leads us to a nice analogy from mathematics, which is of a limit. The sequence of ais523's ruble ownership is 0, 1, 0, 1, 0 , 1, .... This sequence is non-convergent---that is, mathematics interprets this sequence as having no "value at infinity", whereas it might interpret a different sequence as having a different value. In this case, I think that the analogy is apt, and we can conclude that the owner at the end is simply undefined, and that is in fact crucial, because of Rule 2166: "If an asset would otherwise lack an owner, it is owned by the Lost and Found Department." I feel that this decision fits with the common sense and best interest of the game. Therefore, at any defineable time after the original cashing of Ping2, a ruble that was bounced back and forth was in fact owned by the LFD. Thus ais523 owned no rubles at the initiation of CFJs 3254 and 3255, so I judge them both FALSE. There is the question, then, of whether it was the same ruble over and over again or all of G's rubles. There is no particular indication of one over the other. However, Rule 2166 again comes to the rescue with "Instances of a currency with the same owner are fungible." This can, and in my view, should be interpreted as implying that the distinction between rubles of the same owner is irrelevant since they are always interchangeable, and that distinction is hence effectively non-existent. Common sense and good of the game then lead us to apply the simplest interpretation to the situation, which is that only one ruble's worth of ambiguity is created. As for CFJ 3256, it the rules simply do not allow for drawing this distinction with currencies. Moreover, by using the word "currency", it implies that, much like a real-life currency, in a situation like this, the actual details of the changing of hands are not important, hence I judge CFJ 3256 to be IRRELEVANT. As a result of these judgments, the question of strong vs. weak paradox does not come into play. I intend, without two objections, to make CFJs 3254 and 3256 Notable, suggesting rules 478 and/or 2337 for 3254 and 2166 for 3256. -scshunt
