Applied to the power self-amendment, the paradox is this: Can a clause in a constitution provide for its own amendment? If it can’t, then it doesn’t have the amending power it claims. If it can and does, then the new amended clause supersedes the old clause, but then by what legal authority is the amended clause law? Exercising its authority means the amendment clause abdicates its authority, which means it can’t exercise it. You might think this would lead to people using this to dispel constitutions, but it doesn’t work out that way in the real world.

Suber claims that logical paradoxes need not be legal ones. Legal systems very often make extensive use of self amendment clauses uncontroversially. The main substance of the book consists of going point-by-point in favor of a philosophical-legal position called the direct acceptance theory, in opposition to logical formalism. Essentially (if I understand it right): laws derive their authority not from being logical, but through socio-culturally determined approval. Political will, not logical consistency, is the foundation of law as it exists in the real world.

Like much philosophy the conclusion sounds pedestrian–even obvious–when it comes down to it, but that’s what the book says. I’m convinced, I guess. The only other thing I can think to say is it might score highly in a competition for ugliest cover. The index entry for "self-reference" references itself also, which is neat.

Nomic

Nomic makes up the final appendix of the book, a game intended to demonstrate in miniature the earlier philosophical arguments. You can find it online here: http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/nomic.htm#initial%20set

It is a set of rules which provides a basic quasi-constitutional legislative process for amending the ruleset of Nomic. There are 29 initial rules, spread across 2 classes (immutable and mutable). Players take turns proposing changes to the rules, scoring or losing points based on the results of those proposals. It is one of the most elegant games I have ever seen.

The aspect of Nomic which is most often celebrated is that players change the rules as they play. Nomic is associated with games like Calvinball, Fluxx, 1000 Blank White Cards, etc. While this is a reasonable association, I think what makes Nomic great is not its mutability as such, but rather its insistence that players look directly at the assumptions underlying play, at the act of playing a self-referential, self-amending game itself. Many rules most essential to Nomic would be superfluous if it were just a game about making up your own rules. Consider as a sample Rule 101 and 213, the first and last rules of the game:

101. All players must always abide by all the rules then in effect, in the form in which they are then in effect. The rules in the Initial Set are in effect whenever a game begins. The Initial Set consists of Rules 101-116 (immutable) and 201-213 (mutable).

….

213. If the rules are changed so that further play is impossible, or if the legality of a move cannot be determined with finality, or if by the Judge's best reasoning, not overruled, a move appears equally legal and illegal, then the first player unable to complete a turn is the winner.

This rule takes precedence over every other rule determining the winner.

101 is a rule assumed in nearly all other games–including even Calvinball–but in Nomic it is explicit. 101 is the most difficult rule to change in the initial set, but what would happen if rule 101 rule was repealed? Who wins? Nomic is a game where metaphysical conundrums about game playing itself are strategic threats.

Rule 213 authorizes a “win by paradox”--if you manage to twist the rules into something so obscure and incoherent that even other players can’t spin it in their favor, you win. At every point Nomic is steeped with this kind of meta-gazing and self-application.

Nomic is fiercely conservative. By this I mean that it is difficult to effect sweeping rule changes without a completely dedicated set of players. Rule changes are initially only effected unanimously, and this only works on the “mutable” rules (201-213). To alter the “immutable” rules (the 100s, where things like “rule-change” is defined) one first has to transmute it into a mutable rule. So to make substantive changes requires at least two unanimous turns. Getting these votes will be difficult, though, because the points structure encourages players to vote NO. You lose points for proposing rule changes which fail to pass, but you don’t ever get any points for voting YES on anything. In order to get the game going, players have to decide to cooperate, to build a relationship with each other that transcends the rules as written. It’s political will–the person to person diplomatic interactions between people–that makes the game do anything at all. Nomic is a social game masquerading as a logical game.

Nomic is an unfolding game. It develops as play continues; the interest comes from seeing what new form play will take. Dungeons and Dragons is also an unfolding game. But where D&D unfolds through the capacity of the DM to develop imaginative responses to creative player actions, Nomic unfolds as players come to agreements about what game is being played. The why and how of anything in Nomic is reliant on the interpretation and codification of its players as a whole, and this is thoroughly mutable, mutable into anything at all. Where Dungeons and Dragons offers unlimited creative-imaginative potential, Nomic offers unlimited bounded-agreed potential. You as players could in theory arrive any crazy illogical structure you want, through any method. With Nomic, you are always on the brink of making a breakthrough into a ruleset that is solid and sustainable, or unhinged and delightful. Always just a few rule-changes away from legislating ourselves out of this problem we discovered, or into another weirder one. It is magnificent.

Despite my praise, Nomic isn’t exactly fun to play. The rules are clunky and irregular–necessarily, fascinatingly so!--but the ride is not smooth. Nomic is about arguing, composing, and waiting impatiently. Nomic is about hope, yes, but also frustration and doom. It is endlessly compelling to despair. To play Nomic is to ask what it is to play Nomic. The stuff of obsession and nightmare. I highly recommend it.