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Disregarding the validity of your argument in itself, trust issues cannot be solved by black boxes. Humans laws have to be enacted by humans, because the real w

by s3m4j 8y ago

Disregarding the validity of your argument in itself, trust issues cannot be solved by black boxes. Humans laws have to be enacted by humans, because the real world is messy and rules and laws need "messy wiggle room".

DoctorOetker 8y ago
I respectfully disagree partially.(I agree black boxes are insufficient, unless the democratic process is modeled/accepted as a black box) I believe in the utility of separation of powers: a true democratic legislative branch, a provable executive branch, and a mechanically verifiable judgement branch. I don't mind if you call the democratic facet of the legislative branch messy. Learning to make proper decisions for novel situations tends to be messy, because we learn from our mistakes, and mistakes are messy. As long as the way the population would democratically prefer the case to be judged is captured/modeled accurately by the law, the formal mechanical law is suitable. If the way the mechanical law is applied does not capture the way we want things to be handled (what I presume you refer to with a messy case) the legislative branch should be activated to change the law, and we want the legislative branch to be democratic because it's what makes sure that the population consults their ethics and feelings (community taste can not be proven, except by poll). So the mess is restricted to just the first instance of unforeseen situations. ("History repeats itself, the first time as a tragedy, and from then on as a farce")
- Nursie 8y ago
  > As long as the way the population would democratically prefer the case to be judged is captured/modeled accurately by the law, the formal mechanical law is suitable. I would hate to live in your world. The law is the way it is because it governs humans, and because legislation cannot capture every aspect of all facets of the law. Mechanical application of the law is a pretty dreadful idea.
  - DoctorOetker 8y ago
    the transition towards mechanical would of course prompt an enormous amount of decisions to be settled democratically (since we have been doing them ad hoc all the time), but the democratic decision is a decision by humans, and all the following similar cases would mechanically follow the same ruling, until either the population changes its mind (through the democratic process) or the population realizes it misformalized a law by an unforeseen case which again prompts a democratic consultation. So it would still be decisions by humans, the resolution of the law would increase and capture more detail messy real world situations of our daily lives. The only horror is that it would force us to either treat everyone as equals before the law, or force us to democratically change the law back and forth when we choose to be inconsistent, forcing us to realize we are discriminating on some (un)identified factor.
    - Nursie 8y ago
      I'm sorry, but I don't believe we can get to a state where every edge case is encoded by law, nor that mechanical application of such would be a good thing. I would use my democratic mandate to vote against such a thing.
      - DoctorOetker 8y ago
        >but I don't believe we can get to a state where every edge case is encoded by law Neither can the current system, so any analysis would have to be comparative. I do believe we can approach such a state much quicker and more accurately through formalization. >nor that mechanical application of such would be a good thing. Was the formalization transistion from unwritten laws to written laws a good thing in your view? What makes quotability from a written corpus of law not horrible, but further formalization horrible? With mechanical application I only refer to the end result taken after the verifier (judging algorithm, i.e. MetaMath or other) as a result of either a passing proof of guilt provided by prosecutor, or passing of a proof of innocence provided by defense. There is no imperative algorithm that maps cases to sentences, thats not how the law can work due to combinatorial explosion. The law is like philosophy or mathematics. The society could unconditionally reward people for detecting inconsistencies in the law before we run into them during a trial after a tragedy thus potentially preventing it (i.e. finding a proof that the law simultaneously guarantees a right for a certain deed, yet also forbids it) btw I enjoy this discussion, so if you can come up with more criticisms or examples please do!

by s3m4j 8y ago

DoctorOetker 8y ago

I respectfully disagree partially.(I agree black boxes are insufficient, unless the democratic process is modeled/accepted as a black box) I believe in the utility of separation of powers: a true democratic legislative branch, a provable executive branch, and a mechanically verifiable judgement branch. I don't mind if you call the democratic facet of the legislative branch messy. Learning to make proper decisions for novel situations tends to be messy, because we learn from our mistakes, and mistakes are messy. As long as the way the population would democratically prefer the case to be judged is captured/modeled accurately by the law, the formal mechanical law is suitable. If the way the mechanical law is applied does not capture the way we want things to be handled (what I presume you refer to with a messy case) the legislative branch should be activated to change the law, and we want the legislative branch to be democratic because it's what makes sure that the population consults their ethics and feelings (community taste can not be proven, except by poll). So the mess is restricted to just the first instance of unforeseen situations. ("History repeats itself, the first time as a tragedy, and from then on as a farce")

Nursie 8y ago
> As long as the way the population would democratically prefer the case to be judged is captured/modeled accurately by the law, the formal mechanical law is suitable. I would hate to live in your world. The law is the way it is because it governs humans, and because legislation cannot capture every aspect of all facets of the law. Mechanical application of the law is a pretty dreadful idea.
- DoctorOetker 8y ago
  the transition towards mechanical would of course prompt an enormous amount of decisions to be settled democratically (since we have been doing them ad hoc all the time), but the democratic decision is a decision by humans, and all the following similar cases would mechanically follow the same ruling, until either the population changes its mind (through the democratic process) or the population realizes it misformalized a law by an unforeseen case which again prompts a democratic consultation. So it would still be decisions by humans, the resolution of the law would increase and capture more detail messy real world situations of our daily lives. The only horror is that it would force us to either treat everyone as equals before the law, or force us to democratically change the law back and forth when we choose to be inconsistent, forcing us to realize we are discriminating on some (un)identified factor.
  - Nursie 8y ago
    I'm sorry, but I don't believe we can get to a state where every edge case is encoded by law, nor that mechanical application of such would be a good thing. I would use my democratic mandate to vote against such a thing.
    - DoctorOetker 8y ago
      >but I don't believe we can get to a state where every edge case is encoded by law Neither can the current system, so any analysis would have to be comparative. I do believe we can approach such a state much quicker and more accurately through formalization. >nor that mechanical application of such would be a good thing. Was the formalization transistion from unwritten laws to written laws a good thing in your view? What makes quotability from a written corpus of law not horrible, but further formalization horrible? With mechanical application I only refer to the end result taken after the verifier (judging algorithm, i.e. MetaMath or other) as a result of either a passing proof of guilt provided by prosecutor, or passing of a proof of innocence provided by defense. There is no imperative algorithm that maps cases to sentences, thats not how the law can work due to combinatorial explosion. The law is like philosophy or mathematics. The society could unconditionally reward people for detecting inconsistencies in the law before we run into them during a trial after a tragedy thus potentially preventing it (i.e. finding a proof that the law simultaneously guarantees a right for a certain deed, yet also forbids it) btw I enjoy this discussion, so if you can come up with more criticisms or examples please do!