On Thu, 13 Jun 2013, omd wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 6:16 PM, Fool <fool1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > For that matter, is the card paradox still compelling? I had a look at the
> > current ruleset and I'd guess that nowadays the card paradox would be
> > resolved by R1030 ("In a conflict between rules...") or R2240 ("In a
> > conflict between clauses of the same rule...")
>
> Precedence between rules (though not clauses) was largely the same in
> 2005 as it is now; the wording of the card paradox is "that card shall
> be deemed to have not been played", which is not really a rule
> conflict, though it could arguably be interpreted as one.
I was thinking about this while reading Suber's essays earlier. I
think there's a couple ways to call this a non-paradox:
1. As you say, one Rule says you played a card and have it, and
another rule says you cancelled the play. The rules conflict, so
the play of the lower-powered is "conflicting" and void.
2. If we treat all plays as real events with real objects that take
finite time, infinite flickering doesn't happen. You play a card.
You then cancel the play. Then you play a card. Then you cancel a
play. The one that holds is whichever one you stated last. You can
get around the "deemed to have not happened" by saying that one can't
deem the impossible. That "deemed" language was always a tricky one
in any case (similar to the sort of tricky things that happen with
ratification).
In terms of "compelling", I think that just depends on the mood of
the current body of players. The current player body tends towards
paradoxes and allowing platonic states of indeterminate or infinite
loops, in that sense we're currently still seeing those things as
compelling, though I personally wouldn't mind a swing back from that!
-G.
