[r-t] Falseness (was Re: The null change

[Philip Earis]

Marky:
> Yes, and this is why I am being such a miserable bloody git! For which I 
> apologise; but I do think that to make something happen, we have to keep 
> a precise focus on the subset of bellringing which matters to most 
> people - β-methods.

I have some sympathy for MBD's focus, in so much as I agree with the broad view that trying to come up with a neat universal framework that can describe every output of bells will end up doomed.

I also agree with much of what Don says, but do think a fundamental axiom, or "line in the sand", needs to be in place to enable progress.  For me, the axiom is that what we are describing is permutations / rows where each bell rings once and once only.

This doesn't cover every possibility of "bell sequences" - cylindrical is an example - but it does provide a minimal constraint that can is needed to allow any framework to be workable.

To be clear, I have no objection at all to ringing cylindrical (empirical evidence proves so...), nor to tune ringing, it's just that trying to describe either in the same framework used to describe permutation ringing will lead to an unsatisfactory framework for all camps.

Where I strongly disagree with MBD is with his aversion to jump changes (and also the null change). Both can be very easily incorporated into a permutation description framework, using current widely-understood language. Both date from the dawn of change ringing.

To purposefully exclude jump and null changes is not because they fall outside the family of permutation ringing preventing their description using a permutation framework (like tune ringing does). It is instead imposing a rather peculiar value judgement, the thing that has caused the myriad problems with the current CC decisions. And I find that very distasteful indeed.