[EM] Re: paradigms...

[Jobst Heitzig]

Dear Rob!

you wrote:
> However, let's assume that the ranking system in question allows you
> to, rather than flipping a coin, simply rank A and B equally.  In
> other words, declare them a tie.

That would be fine as long as I could really do so! But as long as I can
only express rankings I cannot do as you suggest! In a ranking, I cannot
tie A=C, B=C, A=D, and B=D and simultaneously express A>B and C>D.

Even if I could express these 6 pairwise relations, for example on a
pairwise ballot, most of you would deem this "irrational" because it is
not transitive (transitivity would require A=B whenever A=C and B=C).

But as you will notice, my original incomplete preferences are
*perfectly* transitive, they are just in*complete*. So, it is nonsense
to misrepresent undecidedness as equivalence. Equivalence is most often
transitive, undecidedness is not! Don't you see that it is a difference
whether I consider A and B equivalent, that is, equal with respect to
all relevant aspects, or whether I just cannot decide which is better
because I have too few information or too few expertise or two
conflicting criteria or any other reason to abstain from *this* pair
(without abstaining altogether of course)?

> It is almost like you are insisting that you be able to explicitly
> vote for whoever wins, rather than just not vote.  What is the point?

I don't think we should force voters with only partial information to
either not vote or distort their preferences. The former would waste
valuable information and violate equality, the latter would
unnecessarily introduce "noise" into the information we get from the
ballots.

Sincerely, Jobst