I originally didn’t bother to do so explicitly, only wrote this reply that seems to have not been understood, but in light of Eliezer’s post about flow of the argument, I’ll recast the structure I see in the last few comments:
Wei: Bridge-building is a game, because FAI could just flick a switch. (Y leads to X having property S; Y=”could flick a switch”, X=”FAI’s world”, S=”is a game”) Vlad: No it couldn’t, its preference (for us having to make an effort) makes it impossible for that to happen. (Y doesn’t hold for X) Wei: But there are games where players don’t get free charity as well. (Z have property S without needing Y) Vlad: I’m merely saying that Y doesn’t hold, so if Y held any weight in the argument that “Y leads to X having property S”, then having established not-Y, I’ve weakened the support for X having property S, and at least refuted the particular argument for X having property S, even if I haven’t convincingly argued that X doesn’t have property S overall.
When I wrote “Bridge-building is a game, because FAI could just flick a switch” the intended meaning of “could” was “could if it wanted to”. When I cited WoW later, I was trying to point out that your interpretation of “could” as “could given its actual preferences” can’t be what I intended because it would rule out WoW as a game. I guess I failed to get my point across, and then thought the argument was too inconsequential to continue. But now that you’re using it as an example, I want to clear up what happened.
I originally didn’t bother to do so explicitly, only wrote this reply that seems to have not been understood, but in light of Eliezer’s post about flow of the argument, I’ll recast the structure I see in the last few comments:
Wei: Bridge-building is a game, because FAI could just flick a switch. (Y leads to X having property S; Y=”could flick a switch”, X=”FAI’s world”, S=”is a game”)
Vlad: No it couldn’t, its preference (for us having to make an effort) makes it impossible for that to happen. (Y doesn’t hold for X)
Wei: But there are games where players don’t get free charity as well. (Z have property S without needing Y)
Vlad: I’m merely saying that Y doesn’t hold, so if Y held any weight in the argument that “Y leads to X having property S”, then having established not-Y, I’ve weakened the support for X having property S, and at least refuted the particular argument for X having property S, even if I haven’t convincingly argued that X doesn’t have property S overall.
When I wrote “Bridge-building is a game, because FAI could just flick a switch” the intended meaning of “could” was “could if it wanted to”. When I cited WoW later, I was trying to point out that your interpretation of “could” as “could given its actual preferences” can’t be what I intended because it would rule out WoW as a game. I guess I failed to get my point across, and then thought the argument was too inconsequential to continue. But now that you’re using it as an example, I want to clear up what happened.