On Fri, Aug 5, 2011 at 11:51 AM, Shadowfirebird
<shadowfirebird@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 5, 2011 at 4:13 PM, Buddha Buck <blaisepascal@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> As near as I can tell, your house rule is "Bad rules are invalid".
>> Can you clarify if that's the case (or give a better phrasing of it?)
>
> Presumably that is sarcasm. A bit insulting, but I'll assume that that's
> unintentional. Clearly that would be no rule at all. Like "a pig is an
> animal that looks a bit like a pig".
Actually, it wasn't intended as sarcasm. You have indicated that the
Scrabble rule would be invalid under a house rule you play with. The
closest official rule in Zendo which would invalidate it would be the
no externalities rule (with the Scrabble book as an externality)
However, it (like the "zip code rule" below) is equivalent, under the
"equivalency" rule of Zendo ( two rules are equivalent if, given any
possible koan, they both would mark the koan the same way), to an
admittedly exceedingly complex rule that is definitely valid, so the
Scrabble rule is valid, except for the your house rule. (BTW, both
the Scrabble rule and the Zip code rule have a problem which can be
fixed with additional specification: neither the list of Scrabble
rules nor the list of Zip codes are constant over time. But if you
fix a time for for the list, then either is simply a fixed list of
valid koans).
I am interested in how *your* house rule is phrased as to eliminate
the Scrabble rule.
> I personally think it would be useful to have a discussion about the best
> way to form a house rule to ban the scrabble example, for those players that
> feel inclined to do so.
You have also indicated a suggestion to change the official rules to
ban the scrabble example (if the official rules don't ban it already).
The discussion over the best way to form a house rule would work well
for coming up with a proposed official rule as well.
> As it happens it has never come up in this house
> because in order to do so (amongst our players) they would have to be
> playing in the spirit of "lets make a really hard rule that no-one can
> get". And we don't. Amongst other groups of players such a rule might be
> created in a completely different spirit, of course.
For many groups, the "don't be a dick" rule is self-enforcing -- dicks
are not asked back to the group. I suspect that in any group the
"Scrabble" rule would only be played twice.
> I've already said that I think the scrabble rule accesses an external
> object, the scrabble dictionary. That's close enough to a house rule that
> covers it for me.
>
>
>> Or shall we play a game of Zendo? As I understand it, two suitable
>> initial koans are:
>>
>> The koan "akhtbni it consists of a single stack where the initial
>> letters of the colors of the 'mids, reading from top down, spell a
>> word in the current edition of the Official Scrabble Dictionary as of
>> the start of the game" is marked "black"
>
> Agreed, I'd mark that black too. (I mark your marking it black with a white
> stone....)
>
>>
>> The koan "akhtbni the total pip count of the koan is prime" is marked
>> "white".
>
> Yep, me too.
>
>
> Nice way to reduce the discussion to the important things, BTW. I hope
> others follow it up. Here's one from me:
>
> The koan "akhtbni is consists of a single stack where the pip count, reading
> from the top down, make up a valid US zip code." is marked "black".
Master, does the koan "Define the 'color number' for a pyramid to be 0
for red, 3 for yellow, 6 for green, and 9 for blue, and the
'duodecimal digit' for a pyramid to be it's color number plus it's
pip-count less 1. Akhtbni it consists of a single stack which is not
capped by a small red and, when read as a duodecimal number from most
significant digit on top to least significant digit on bottom, is a
prime number" have the Buddha Nature?
Master, does the koan "Akhtbni it consists solely of a single upright
large red, OR a single upright small yellow OR a single upright large
yellow OR a single upright medium green OR a single upright small blue
OR a stack of two medium reds OR a medium red stacked on a small
yellow OR ...{insert continuation of enumeration of the large, but
finite, number of koans buildable with a standard 4-color, 3-size, 5
of each color and size Zendo set which would have the bn based on the
'duodecimal prime' rule above}" have the Buddha Nature?