Subject: acka-research Digest V4 #133
From: [email-masked]
To: acka-research digest users <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 00:00:04 -0400 (EDT)

acka-research Digest	Wednesday, July 28 1999	Volume: 04  Issue: 133

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From: Henry Towsner <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re:  Acka: Proposal 4275
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 10:51:02 -0400 (EDT)

>And while it almost goes without saying, I feel like stating the
>obvious... the reasoning is often much more important than the verdict.
>What good is it for us to know that something is TRUE, if we cannot reach
>a definitive agreement on how that truth impacts the game?

	The big one is so that we know what the game state is.  The
American court system works like that, and precedent is less powerful in
Acka than in the US because our rules change more quickly.

--
-Henry Towsner

	<[email-masked]>

	Thank heavens, the sun has gone in, and I don't have to go out and
enjoy it.
		-Logan Pearsall Smith

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From: John Frederic Mc Coy <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re:  Acka: Proposal 4275
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 19:41:10 -0400 (EDT)

On Wed, 28 Jul 1999, Henry Towsner wrote:

> >And while it almost goes without saying, I feel like stating the
> >obvious... the reasoning is often much more important than the verdict.
> >What good is it for us to know that something is TRUE, if we cannot reach
> >a definitive agreement on how that truth impacts the game?
> 
> 	The big one is so that we know what the game state is.  The
> American court system works like that, and precedent is less powerful in
> Acka than in the US because our rules change more quickly.
> 
> --
> -Henry Towsner
> 

I disagree, however, that knowing the verdict of a CFJ means we know what
the game state is. Time and time again the judge of a CFJ has determined
that something is TRUE (or FALSE) for reasons that have little or nothing
to do with the presumed cause for or focus of the CFJ. To stick with my
earlier example, the CFJ which Alfvaen and I judged (659? I looked it up
last night but now I can't recall) was questioning whether or not a quote
from a translation of a piece of a work on the Literature list counted as
Literature, or if the fact that it was not quoted from the original made
it invalid. What Alfvaen and I eventually concluded was that the quote in
question was not Literature, but as our reasoning demonstrated, this was
not because of the translation issue, but because it was impossible to
fulfill some of the other conditions of the Literature rule as it was
written.

While I am on the subject, I'll also point out the many so-called
"trivially TRUE" or "trivially FLASE" judgments. I've always rather
disliked that phrase, as it wrongly (well OK, often wrongly) implies that
there was no need for a CFJ. In most of these cases what the judge really
means is that the question the initiator is trying have addressed isn't
really brought into play by his CFJ. Usually because some rule or 
condition which he did not acocunt for in his statement indicates a
verdict, without ever addressing the underlying concerns (such as, how
do we harf this attempt chew the gumball?). So this frequently used
"trivially" term is a short-hand way of saying that the verdict for this
CFJ doesn't really tell us anything new about the game state.

Vynd

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From: Thierry Joffrain <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re:  Acka: Proposal 4275
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 20:06:07 -0400 (EDT)

>>And while it almost goes without saying, I feel like stating the
>>obvious... the reasoning is often much more important than the verdict.
>>What good is it for us to know that something is TRUE, if we cannot reach
>>a definitive agreement on how that truth impacts the game?
>
>	The big one is so that we know what the game state is.  The
>American court system works like that, and precedent is less powerful in
>Acka than in the US because our rules change more quickly.

I'm not sure what is meant here... let me just say that in the US legal
system, REASONING IS EVERYTHING. It may take decades for a "correct"
approach to wrestle itself away from a badly worded, supporting opinion,
which other courts are going to disregard for years, because of the poor
reasoning.

Reasoning is crucial. Even if two different reasoning will yield the same
result in all known cases, the aim is to provide tools to solve _future_
problems, for which the two different reasoning may yield different answers. 

Mind you, this is also true in civil law countries, like those of
continental europe. The difference there is that there is no
concurring/dissenting opinion system (there is an advocate general) and the
writing style is much more constricted. The rest of the system is pretty
much the same... all right, excluding evidence.

The power of judges and their reasoning however (often linked to the quality
of the lawyers before the bench on a case), is ultimately the crucial factor
in all systems.

See also: Hermeneutics. It is highly applicable to Acka.

Indeed, getting back to Acka... I would not say that Acka precedent is less
powerful. We have created our own unique (not totally, but significantly so)
way of interpreting actions, statutes and previous judgments together. This
ANALYTICAL precedent is, in the end, far more important than the way
previous decisions came down on a particular set of facts.

And no, I'm no longer studying computer science...

CnH

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End of acka-research Digest V4 #133
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