From: Jeremy D. Selengut (selengut_at_nih.gov)
Date: Mon Aug 20 2001 - 11:43:21 PDT
Karl wrote:
>Begin 167.2
>----
>Goodness, can a word begin with more than one letter?
>No matter, since this is FRC, we know that the DNA of a rule is actually
>the individual words in it. Now which words qualify as adenine, thymine,
>Cytosine and Guanine, I have no clue. Still, it's useful to remember that
>every FRC rule will contain a cluster of at least five of the DNA, in the
>same order, as the previous rule.
>-----
Judgement:
Rule 1 says: adenine, thymine, Cytosine and Guanine are the sole building
blocks of
DNA
Rule 2 says: the DNA of a rule is actually the individual words in it
Is there a way to reconcile these? I wish the words "sole" and "actually"
were not there, but they are. What does it mean for something to
"actually" be something else - it could be that the DNA is only apparently
made of A T C and G, in fact, it is not, its made of the words of a
rule. Imagine this:
Physicist #1: The sole building blocks of matter are subatomic particles
Physicist #2: Matter is actually the atoms composing it
Thus, one POSSIBLE interpretation of these two rules is that the DNA of a
rule is the words in it and those words, in turn, are composed at some
level of the four bases, A T C and G. Having found one possible and, I
deem, reasonable interpretation I will not judge this rule INVALID on this
count. I will stress that having found one interpretation does not rule
out a possibly infinite suite of other reasonable interpretations, all of
which are still in play until such time as a future rule narrows things
down. Players need not hew to the one interpretation I have outlined if
they can think of another. The Judge, of course, unless overruled by vote,
is the arbiter of reasonableness, but I will remind players also that an
alternative interpretation need not be _more_ reasonable than the one I
outlined, just not unreasonable.
I'm spelling this out for the benefit of the new players so that they
understand my philosophy of judging.
Having said all of this, I will nonetheless judge the rule INVALID for one
of the oldest and most tedious reasons in the FRC. This rule requires ALL
rules to contain something found in the previous rule. As there is no rule
previous to the first rule, the first rule is not in compliance with this
restriction. If the rule had specifically exempted the first rule or said
"from now on", or "in the future" or some other such thing it would have
been valid. So sorry.
Style: For making my head spin with the repercussions of the DNA for the
word Adenine is the word Adenine which is composed of, most likely,
Adenine... +1.0
TWJ
--
Rule Date: 2001-08-20 18:44:15 GMT
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