1982. Peter Suber — Nomic | by Joanne Cheung | Medium

"Peter Suber is an American philosopher known for his work in the philosophy of law and open access to knowledge. He leads the Harvard Open Access Project and is a Faculty Fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. In the appendix of his 1982 book The Paradox of Self-Amendment, Suber described the concept for a game called Nomic. In the description of the game, Suber writes, “if law-making is a game, then it is a game in which changing the rules is a move… While self-amendment appears to be an esoteric feature of law, capturing it in a game creates a remarkably complete microcosm of a functional legal system.” Suber’s initial ruleset outlines two types of rule changes that may occur in the game: mutable and immutable, the difference being that immutable rules must be changed into mutable rules before than can be amended or repealed. A mutable rule may be added, amended, or repealed. It can also transmute into an immutable rule. An immutable rule may become mutable."