From: Richard S. Holmes (rsholmes_at_MailBox.Syr.Edu)
Date: Tue Mar 26 2002 - 05:22:09 PST
James Willson <jkvw3_at_yahoo.com> writes:
> Judgement: It's worth pondering if this runs afoul of the RO's.
>
> I tried something similar to this in round 160, and the judge
> didn't even blink, which surprised me. I'm going to allow this,
> but I think there are some undesired consequences to allowing
> this sort of rule . . .
Indeed there are, and I was somewhat surprised this passed, especially
now that I've had time to think about it more. Suppose it had been
> Rule 179:2'
>
> All rules consist of two parts: a Real part and an Imaginary part,
> separated by a space, colon, space (' : '). The meaning of a rule
> (for purposes of determining its validity and that of subsequent
> rules) is expressed by its Real part; the Imaginary part contributes
> nothing to the rule's meaning, though it can affect the rule's
> style. : All rules consist of two parts: a Real part and an
> Imaginary part, separated by a space, colon, space (' : '). The
> meaning of a rule (for purposes of determining its validity and that
> of subsequent rules) is expressed by its Imaginary part; the Real
> part contributes nothing to the rule's meaning, though it can affect
> the rule's style.
I can think of no logically consistent way to find this rule (179:2')
INVALID if one finds 179:2 VALID; the differences are that 179:2'
restricts all rules (acceptable, if all previous VALID rules are
consistent with the restriction, and 179:1 is) and uses a different
real/imaginary delimiter. Yet if 179:2' were VALID, then the later
x-less rules could have been VALID too, on the grounds that 179:1's
restriction might have been in its non-meaningful part. Indeed, the
word "expressed" could have been replaced by "given" and this rule
still would have been VALID. So it would be possible, then, to
nullify any inconvenient restriction imposed by a previous rule. If
that's not contrary to the letter of the ROs, it's certainly contrary
to the spirit. Hence, if the ROs really permit rules like 179:2, then
the ROs probably ought to be fixed.
For obvious reasons, though, I'm glad 179:2 *was* judged VALID.
--
- Rich Holmes
Syracuse, NY
--
Rule Date: 2002-03-26 13:22:46 GMT
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