From - Sat May 20 09:06:09 2000 Return-Path: Received: from gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au ([131.170.42.16]) by hazard.mail.mindspring.net (Mindspring Mail Service) with ESMTP id sid2qo.2ek.37kb01i for ; Sat, 20 May 2000 08:55:50 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) id MAA06337 for agora-official-list; Sat, 20 May 2000 12:45:49 GMT Received: from fw.serc.rmit.edu.au (fw-in.serc.rmit.edu.au [131.170.42.1]) by gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA06334 for ; Sat, 20 May 2000 12:45:47 GMT Received: (from mail@localhost) by fw.serc.rmit.edu.au (8.9.3/8.9.1) id XAA67854 for ; Sat, 20 May 2000 23:08:44 +1000 (EST) Received: from msuacad.morehead-st.edu(147.133.1.1) by fw.serc.rmit.edu.au via smap (V2.1) id xma067852; Sat, 20 May 00 23:08:37 +1000 Received: (from mpslon01@localhost) by msuacad.morehead-st.edu (8.7.1/8.7.1) id IAA22426 for agora-official@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au; Sat, 20 May 2000 08:50:10 -0400 (EDT) From: Michael Slone Message-Id: <200005201250.IAA22426@msuacad.morehead-st.edu> Subject: OFF: CFJ 1214 Judged TRUE To: agora-official@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au (agora-official) Date: Sat, 20 May 2000 8:50:10 EDT X-Mailer: Elm [revision: 212.4] Sender: owner-agora-official@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au Precedence: bulk Reply-To: agora-discussion@gecko.serc.rmit.edu.au X-Mozilla-Status: 8001 X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 X-UIDL: sid2qo.2ek.37kb01i ============================== CFJ 1214 ============================== If we post to a Public Forum a message in the form "If and only if we have not transferred VTs to t in the last 2 days, we transfer 10 VTs to t.", and we have indeed made no transfers to t in the 2 days previous to sending this message, and if there are no general conditions preventing any transfer of 10 VTs (such as a lack of funds), then 10 VTs are transferred from us to t. If, however, we had transferred VTs to t 4 hours before this message reached the Public Forum, then no VTs would be transferred as a direct result of this posting. ======================================================================== Called by: Wes Judge: Taral Judgement: TRUE Judge selection: Eligible: Blob, Chuck, Crito, Elysion, Peekee, Sherlock, Steve, Taral, else...if, harvel Not eligible: Caller: Wes Barred: - Had eir turn: Kelly, Murphy, Palnatoke, lee, t Already served: - Defaulted: Harlequin By request: Michael On Hold: - Zombie: Anthony, Harlequin, Novalis, Schneidster ======================================================================== History: Called by Wes 14 May 2000 14:30:53 -0700 Assigned to Taral: 15 May 2000 16:07:49 -0400 Judged TRUE by Taral: 19 May 2000 22:10:17 -0500 Judgement published: As of this message ======================================================================== Caller's Arguments: > You can't point a gun at someone and declare, "If you are evil, I > hereby shoot you" and have the gun fire if and only if the person is > evil. Why should speech acts be subjected to a different analysis? On the other hand, if we call our stockbroker and say "if and only if we have not already bought shares of this stock in the last day or two, we want to buy X number of shares." This way, if we leave this message on his office voicemail, home answering machine, pager voicemail and cellphone voicemail, we will only get X shares of the stock, rather than 4X shares of the stock. One may argue that in this case, the stockbroker is atually performing the action rather than the caller. We disagree. One never says that "one's stockbroker bought shares of a stock". One says "we bought shares of a stock". Actions which require cooperation on the part of a third party are still refered to as actions performed by the instigating agent. In fact, if one is not familiar with the nature of buying stocks, one might not even know that the action was not performed directly. It is not obvious to an uninformed observer. Agora is in a similar situation. When we post to a Public Forum that we transfer some Currency, in one way we are directly performing an action. The legal fiction is that the Currency automagically transfers from one account to another without any intervention whatsoever. The reality, evident to those actually in the situation rather than some spectators, is that what we are really doing is instructing the Currency Recordkeepor to adjust some numbers for us. Because we are, in reality, giving instructions to an imperfect agent, there is the potential for various sorts of miscommunications, thus conditional messages like we constructed above are not only necessary, but logical and consistant with the current legal situation. Of course, such instructions are only meaningful if the cooperating agent (the Recordkeepor) can determine without question the truthfulness of the condition. Otherwise, the statement ceases to be a simple action and becomes more akin to Kelly's example where the action's state of fulfullment is uncertain. There is also the simple fact that, as Kelly pointed out, actions in the context of Agora only have meaning as provided by the Rules. The Rules provide a specific effect for those statements made in the form "We transfer X Currency to Y". Since Agora furthermore complies with the basic function of the English language, and since no restrictions are put upon the use of additional language constructs, and since the Rules do specifically permit the unrestricted, one can embed this sort of a statement within a conditional statement, so long as the conditional statement complies with the linguistic rules of the English language. Thus, for a couple of different reasons, statements of a conditional nature would be perfectly effective. ======================================================================== Caller's Evidence: ======================================================================== Judge Taral's Arguments: There is a reasonable reading of the Rules in which the sending of a message of the type in the Statement is the execution of an Order whose action may be a nullity. To render this reading invalid by precedent would be to modify too heavily the definition of an Order. However, in the interest of the coherent execution of the Game, it is only reasonable to allow conditions which can be fully resolved by consultation of the information publicly available within the scope of the Game at the time the conditional Order is issued. Since the Statement's condition satisfies this constraint, I Judge it TRUE. ======================================================================== Judge Taral's Evidence: Rule 1793/0 (Power=1) Orders An Order is a command, executed by a Player and directed to some entity requiring that entity to perform exactly one action, or to refrain from performing one or more actions. An Order may be directed to the holder of an Office or other official position in eir capacity as that Office or other official position, and in this case if the Office or position changes hands before the Order is satisfied, the duty to abide by the Order automatically attaches to the new holder of that Office or position. Notwithstanding the foregoing, an Order, the purpose of which is to affect the operation of a prior Order, is as valid as any other Order, and is said to be directed at the prior Order it affects. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Rule 1808/1 (Power=1) Administrative and Private Orders Administrative Orders are executed by being published in the Public Forum, and take effect upon publication. Private Orders are executed by submitting them to the Player to be commanded, and take effect upon submission. ======================================================================== Clerk of the Courts harvel -- Michael Slone In the meantime, we'll just keep pointing it out just to annoy people. ;-) -- Wes, in agora-discussion