Re: DIS: Proto: But what is truth?
comex wrote: For every other action, If possible I do X and I attempt to do X do not satisfy Rule 478's criterion-- that the person performing the action announces that e performs it-- We have historically allowed quite a bit of latitude in the use of conditionals. It's not codified, but we seem to work under some variant of the reasonable effort criterion. In particular, in crisis situations we've allowed conditionals that can't in practice be resolved at the time but which we expect will be retroactively resolved by CFJ. We treat If possible I do X as a synonym for I do X iff X is in fact possible. If it is impossible we treat it as a nullity. I'm less happy about I attempt to do X, but I'm willing to interpret it as a synonym for If possible I do X. -zefram
DIS: Proto: But what is truth?
Proto-Proposal: But what is truth? Zefram and Goethe are co-authors of this proposal. Amend Rule 2149 (Truthfulness) to read: A person SHALL NOT make a public statement unless e reasonably believes it is true. For the purpose of this rule: a) Merely quoting a false statement does not constitute making that statement. b) Any disclaimer, conditional clause, or other qualifier attached to a statement constitutes part of the statement; the truth or falsity of the whole is what is significant. c) A public statement that one performs an action is true if and only if one thereby succeeds in performing that action.
Re: DIS: Proto: But what is truth?
2008/7/13 Ed Murphy [EMAIL PROTECTED]: A person SHALL NOT make a public statement unless e reasonably believes it is true. This is a fundamentally flawed and dangerous idea and should not pass.
Re: DIS: Proto: But what is truth?
Elliott Hird wrote: This is a fundamentally flawed and dangerous idea and should not pass. What is the nature of the flaw? Does the current R2149 share it? -zefram
Re: DIS: Proto: But what is truth?
On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 2:55 PM, Elliott Hird [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2008/7/13 Ed Murphy [EMAIL PROTECTED]: A person SHALL NOT make a public statement unless e reasonably believes it is true. This is a fundamentally flawed and dangerous idea and should not pass. I just think it should be worded the other way: A person SHALL not make a public statement e believes to be false. -- Taral [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please let me know if there's any further trouble I can give you. -- Unknown
Re: DIS: Proto: But what is truth?
2008/7/13 Zefram [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Elliott Hird wrote: This is a fundamentally flawed and dangerous idea and should not pass. What is the nature of the flaw? Does the current R2149 share it? An announcement is a vessel for performing or trying to perform an action. A failing action is not an illegal lie.
Re: DIS: Proto: But what is truth?
ais523 wrote: I would strongly prefer it if rule 2149 was amended the other way, to make failed attempts to perform acts legal (e.g. what happens if a contest is decontestified but the contestmaster still has to try to award points). Easy argument for EXCUSED for failing to award them, especially if you're making a good-faith effort to re-contestify the contest. I am a roleplayer, among other things, and attempting to perform actions is very distinct from making statements (speech acts are just the method by which they're performed); likewise, in nearly all other environments, the performing of an act has nothing to do with making a statement. (In codenomics, for instance, there are not speech acts, but instead all rules that allow something to be performed specify a mechanism for doing so; even in B Nomic, some actions used to be performed by writing specific pieces of text in public messages which were parsed by computers.) Rule 478 explicitly defines by announcement. Furthermore, the real point here is that a scam depending solely on saying I do X when it isn't successful is just as boring as a scam depending solely on saying X is true when it isn't.
Re: DIS: Proto: But what is truth?
ais523 wrote: I would strongly prefer it if rule 2149 was amended the other way, to make failed attempts to perform acts legal As has been repeatedly pointed out, failing attempts at speech actions can still avoid false statements, provided that the statement carries an appropriate qualifier. Formulations such as If possible I do X. and I attempt to do X. have been commonly used in situations where someone is aware of a reason why the action might not be possible, and no objection to this has been raised. In the specific case of registering, I wish to register. will cause registration if it is possible while still being a true statement if it is not possible. Furthermore *inadvertant* failures to act are not proscribed by any past, present, or proposed version of R2149. Reasonable honest errors are legal, and there is no proposal on the table to change that. (e.g. what happens if a contest is decontestified but the contestmaster still has to try to award points). If the contest requires em to *attempt* to award points, e can say If possible, I award 5 points to ais523.. This satisfies the contractual obligation without offending R2149. If the contest requires em to *actually* award points, it is impossible for em to satisfy that obligation, regardless of R2149. I am a roleplayer, among other things, and attempting to perform actions is very distinct from making statements This isn't a roleplaying game, and we don't have avatars. Perhaps more to the point, we don't have a GM who judges the effects of every attempt to act. In a code nomic, the next example you raised, the implementation acts much like a GM for these purposes. Agora is not like those situations. The business of Agora is conducted by free-form speech, and many things are achieved by pure speech acts. We have arranged the rules on this so that the speech that achieves the act is also a correct notification of the act. We have no dictatorial GM, but track the game state cooperatively through these notifications, and so we rightly prohibit dishonesty regarding that state. Speech acts are, in this respect, no different from any other kind of speech. Hmm... I seem to have a veto right now and rule 2149 is power 1. I don't really like using vetos, but now might seem to be a good time. You can't veto the continued existence of the rule as it already is, and no one is proposing a fundamental change to it, so your influence on the legality of speech acts is limited. this be massively against the Agoran Spirit if I try? Would people just try to make it democratic? We don't have any precedent for the use of the current veto prerogative. I believe the veto is historically related to anti-invasion preparations, and for those who remember the wars a veto on internal political grounds might seem abusive. You could make yourself unpopular, especially if you veto routinely, and might perhaps trigger attempts to reduce the prerogative's power. Personally I favour the abolition of all prerogatives, and of the speakerhood. I'm not likely to have much opinion about particular exercises of the prerogatives. -zefram
Re: DIS: Proto: But what is truth?
Taral wrote: A person SHALL not make a public statement e believes to be false. We tried that, in the original version of rule 2149, and eventually rejected it when restoring the rule after the truthiness era. The problem is that a reckless falsehood is still dishonest and problematic. -zefram
Re: DIS: Proto: But what is truth?
Taral wrote: On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 2:55 PM, Elliott Hird [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2008/7/13 Ed Murphy [EMAIL PROTECTED]: A person SHALL NOT make a public statement unless e reasonably believes it is true. This is a fundamentally flawed and dangerous idea and should not pass. I just think it should be worded the other way: A person SHALL not make a public statement e believes to be false. If a person believes neither, then either e is unsure of the statement's truth value (in which case e ought to disclaimer it) or e hasn't thought about its truth value at all (in which case e ought not to claim it).
Re: DIS: Proto: But what is truth?
Elliott Hird wrote: An announcement is a vessel for performing or trying to perform an action. We announce a lot of things other than actions. An announcement is a vessel for informing players about the game state. A failing action is not an illegal lie. It doesn't have to be, as already pointed out. A deliberately false claim to be performing an action most certainly is a lie, though. -zefram
Re: DIS: Proto: But what is truth?
On Sun, 13 Jul 2008, ais523 wrote: Hmm... I seem to have a veto right now and rule 2149 is power 1. I don't really like using vetos, but now might seem to be a good time. Would this be massively against the Agoran Spirit if I try? Would people just try to make it democratic? In my opinion, it's massively against the Agoran Spirit to not use the veto more often, it's a political tool. That being said, even taking on a more conservative role, the fact that something like this particular rule is pretty darn important to the tone of play but at power-1 means a veto is particularly apt. If something of this importance can't pass at a higher power, it shouldn't. -Goethe
Re: DIS: Proto: But what is truth?
On Sunday 13 July 2008 06:29:26 pm Kerim Aydin wrote: That being said, even taking on a more conservative role, the fact that something like this particular rule is pretty darn important to the tone of play but at power-1 means a veto is particularly apt. If something of this importance can't pass at a higher power, it shouldn't. To that end, the upcoming proposal should perhaps include a clause to power-up 2149.
Re: DIS: Proto: But what is truth?
On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 7:08 PM, Zefram [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As has been repeatedly pointed out, failing attempts at speech actions can still avoid false statements, provided that the statement carries an appropriate qualifier. Formulations such as If possible I do X. and I attempt to do X. have been commonly used in situations where someone is aware of a reason why the action might not be possible, and no objection to this has been raised. In the specific case of registering, I wish to register. will cause registration if it is possible while still being a true statement if it is not possible. I wish to register only works because Rule 869 says that it does. For every other action, If possible I do X and I attempt to do X do not satisfy Rule 478's criterion-- that the person performing the action announces that e performs it-- unless it can be treated as a reasonable synonym for I do X, in which case Rule 2149 should apply. See CFJs 2069, 1996, 1971, 1609, 1307, 1302, and 1214-15. Whether statements of the form If X, then I do Y, where X is publicly available knowledge, are effective depends on which CFJ you're using as precedent, but when X is unknown (such as if the action is possible in many ambiguous cases) it is definitely impossible to perform an action with such a conditional. If speech acts have truth values, then someone ought to sue me because I have attempted to perform more than one action in the past where I did not believe the action would be successful: I believed that the action could potentially be successful, but was probably not. Therefore I believed it to be most likely that I was lying. I would also like to note the case of Big Brother, the fictitious partnership which I claimed to be such in an email's subject title and which I claimed to register in its body. I did this specifically because I believed I could not get in trouble for making a purported statement of action, even if I believed that the statement was definitely unsuccessful. (At the time I was required as a knight to not publish statements that I believed were false or which I was reckless regarding the veracity of. I think Big Brother hereby registers. could quite possibly fall into both categories.) I guess the latter is a boring scam, but I do hope speech acts continue to be treated more loosely than other statements. If I am doubtful about the veracity of any other statement, I can just avoid making it, or make it to the discussion forum. But if I want to perform a speech act, and I am doubtful about its veracity, I must make the statement. On the other hand, there is no need to help me if I want to attempt to perform a speech act which would result in an outright lie.
Re: DIS: Proto: But what is truth?
Ed Murphy wrote: A person SHALL NOT make a public statement unless e reasonably believes it is true. For the purpose of this rule: c) A public statement that one performs an action is true if and only if one thereby succeeds in performing that action. Surely this latter will just result in people rewriting I do X to I attempt to do X Michael.
DIS: Proto: But what is truth?
Proto-Proposal: But what is truth? (AI = 2, please) Zefram and Goethe are co-authors of this proposal. Change the power of Rule 2149 (Truthfulness) to 2, and amend it to read: A person SHALL NOT make a public statement unless e reasonably believes it is true, or else makes eir beliefs on the subject reasonably clear. For the purpose of this rule: a) Merely quoting a statement does not constitute making that statement. b) Any conditional clause or other qualifier attached to a statement constitutes part of the statement; the truth or falsity of the whole is what is significant. c) A public statement that one performs an action is true if and only if one succeeds in performing that action by making that public statement.
