On Sun, 16 Jun 2013, Sean Hunt wrote:
> It is entirely unreasonable for
> a real-life court to say "Well, I can't give a judgment because of a
> paradox in the Constitution." The court must try to find the most
> consistent interpretation, whereas Agora does not see itself as
> needing to be bound in that manner. Perhaps that's simply an option we
> should consider: rule by fiat that a contradiction or paradox cannot
> interfere with the game.
>
> tl;dr we need more precedents about precedence
Great analysis overall.
As to this last paragraph, I think the third "body of rules" that should
be considered as a model (alongside strict algorithms and real life law)
is that of a traditional board game.
In which, if you're partway into a game (especially a long one!) you
don't try to throw up your hands when something funny comes to light and
say "eh, game frozen, no winner." You make some reasonable house rule
that allows you to keep playing. And since those "reasonable house rules"
usually deal with physical things like cards, you don't tend to regress
to infinity. Either you're holding the card, or you're not. If you're
holding it when you're not supposed to, you discard it, apologize, and
maybe make some vague attempt to re-adjust counters - but certainly don't
go back 10 moves to figure out what "would have" happened.
Those "reasonable house rules" are a good way to think of precedent - not
as binding as in the common law, and certainly not algorithmic - but out of
fairness to all players, you generally refer to past decisions if the same
sort of problem comes up again.
-G.
