On Thursday 07 February 2008 1:33 you wrote:
> On Wednesday 06 February 2008 9:26 Kerim Aydin wrote:
> > I proposed to AFFIRM with an error rating of 10 and the following
> > concurring opinion: It's possible that the *Government* or *body of
> > law* of Canada is a nomic, but "Canada" could mean the geographic
> > area, the peoples, etc. It was not complete of the judge to not note
> > the possibilities, but it was reasonable as a whole to assert that an
> > unspecified aspect of Canada is not a nomic.
>
> This is an important point, and needs consideration. However, the concurring
> opinion doesn't completely address either of the appellants' arguments.
>
> I also wish to address the original spirit of the question by considering
> whether the government, law, etc. of Canada are nomics. The question most
> likely arose in consideration of the self-amendment clauses in the Canadian
> constitution, which is the supreme law of Canada; I therefore wish to
> consider whether Canada's body of law constitutes a nomic ruleset.
I'm not sure how to present this for the record. Should I include Goethe's
concurring opinion as part of the arguments to remand?
The best approach, I think, would be to refactor the first few paragraphs
here, but I don't feel comfortable with publishing the refactored argument on
behalf of the panel without first checking that I haven't hosed the meaning
into nonconsent.
Sadly, being careful here means a rather long and largely redundant
re-post. The changes are in the first two paragraphs ("It's possible"
through "constitutes a nomic ruleset").
I consent to cause the panel to REMAND with the following arguments:
It's possible that the *Government* or *body of law* of Canada is a nomic,
but "Canada" could mean the geographic area, the peoples, etc. It was not
complete of the judge to not note the possibilities, but it was reasonable as
a whole to assert that an unspecified aspect of Canada is not a nomic.
This is an important point, and needs consideration. However, I also wish to
address the original spirit of the question by considering whether the
government, law, etc. of Canada are nomics. The question most likely arose in
consideration of the self-amendment clauses in the Canadian constitution,
which is the supreme law of Canada; I therefore wish to consider whether
Canada's body of law constitutes a nomic ruleset.
(In fact, this interpretation of the question is so evidently the most
plausible and reasonable one, by so wide a margin, that I am inclined to
accept it as the question's single actual meaning.)
Every available definition of nomic, including Suber's original, the
definition at NomicWiki, and the Agora homepage, define nomic as a type of
game. It is on this basis that the original judge rejected Canada's
nomichood. Does the Canadian constitution define a game?
It has been requested that the previous ruling against Steve Wallace's
gamehood be considered. The reason given in that ruling was that Steve
Wallace was not an activity; Canadian law incorporates a number of legal
activities, such as the amendment of the Constitution, which places it on
the "possibly a game" side of this guideline.
Not all games are played solely for enjoyment. Professional sports are
generally recognized as a form of game, yet are (as the name implies)
professional; that is, played for money. Likewise, there are professional
gamblers who support themselves with the winnings from playing their chosen
games.
Sports also demonstrate that games need not be wholly abstract; games can
legitimately interact with and involve real-world, physical actions (beyond
the trivial manipulation of game tokens, which if necessary can be performed
by proxy, as in chess-by-mail). LARPs provide another example of this.
I also wish to consider the mathematical discipline of game theory, as well
as "serious games", which are designed and played *first and foremost* for
other purposes besides enjoyment. Indeed, nomic itself may fall into the
latter category: the Agora homepage notes that "Nomic was invented ... as a
way to model real-life legal systems".
(Agora is in fact a game, as evidenced by the use of the word "game" in rules
217, 591, and 1698. It is also a nomic, according to rules 1367 (paragraph
5, "Agora Nomic") and 1727.)
I doubt very much that there is any significant player base that engages in
Prisoner's Dilemma or VBS2 for the sake of enjoyment or recreation. Yet, they
are certainly games.
There are, then, games that have significant effects on real-world economic
holdings (gambling), games that involve physical actions (sports), and games
that are not played for enjoyment (serious games).
The last reason we might consider Canada's constitution a nongame is that
actions within it are not relegated to a certain forum (Public Fora),
physical location, or space of time (play session). However, there exist
games such as The Game (losethegame.com) and Spoon Tag that fulfill none of
these three seemingly gamelike qualities.
The only specific attribute I see in the Canadian constitution by which it
differs from the ruleset of a game is that it does not assert of itself that
it is a game. Is this to be our definition: that a game is anything which
declares itself as such? Or must a game meet a certain quorum of gamelike
qualities, of which any game may fail a few but Canada fails all?
On closer examination, I find that I have what I can only describe as "serious
doubt about the appropriateness of the prior judgement". I therefore propose
a ruling of REMAND.
