Zefram wrote: > Michael Norrish wrote: >> I'd say it was clear that this "truth or falsity" refers to the >> situation as the Rules see it. If the rules say "JFK was shot by >> an invisible pink unicorn", and someone calls a CFJ stating that >> JFK was shot by someone else, then it has to be judged false.
> In this case, the Rules don't say that -- it's only a proposal that > says it. The Rules don't admit to any legal fictions, and actually > it's not stated so unequivocally anyway. The Rules admit all sorts of legal fictions. The existence of units of currency is a good example for a start. (Admittedly, we don't have any currencies right now, but we have had on multiple occasions.) > I think that, even glossing over whether an adopted Proposal is > capable of having such lasting effect, this one isn't written to > successfully construct a legal fiction. It actually says: > |Upon the adoption of this proposal, Goethe is deemed to have been > |deregistered due to Rule 1789 (Cantus Cygneus) as of the posting of > |Murphy's message Well, I disagree for a start that a proposal can't have as much weight as the rules. Proposals can change any aspect of the game-state (R106), and not just the rules. > It does not say "Goethe was deregistered". It says e "is deemed to > have been" deregistered, which clearly means that in some specific > context e is to be treated as deregistered while tactily admitting > that in general e was not in fact deregistered (or at least might > not have been). Sure, it's tacitly admitting that he may not have, as a matter of fact, been deregistered at that time, but it is insisting that he be deemed to have done so. The use of the word "deeming" is totally consistent with the notion of legal fiction. See for example its use in Rule 1728. > As for what that specific context is, all it says is "Upon the adoption > of this proposal". It says nothing about *after* the adoption of this > proposal. Come off it. Upon the adoption of this proposal, rule 101 is amended to say something completely different, but *after* the adoption of this proposal it goes back to the way it was? > It seems to say that Goethe was deregistered for the purposes of > interpreting the rest of the proposal. The rest of the proposal > actually makes no use of this explicitly counterfactual context, so > I read the whole thing as a nullity. Proposals change the game-state, and the state of the game clearly includes the content of any legal fictions that may be in force. Refer again to 1728: there it deems something be true. No rule is adjusted, nor any other document changed. Nonetheless the state of the game is changed in accordance with a rule. Any change to the game state can be achieved by a proposal, therefore a proposal can, using the word "deem" if it chooses, affect the set of legal fictions governing our behaviour. Michael.
