4 ms·

>One wonders why we have not developed something explicit like mathematical notations for legal stuff. Because you have to apply the law to fact and facts lack

>One wonders why we have not developed something explicit like mathematical notations for legal stuff. Because you have to apply the law to fact and facts lack mathematical precision. "No vehicles in the park" would require someone to categorize everything in the world into vehicle or !vehicle. Does a wheel chair count? It's easier to lay out the principle and let judges determine edge cases as they play out.

phpisthebest 4y ago
Even you example is more precise that most laws. For example Indiana recently changed their Turn signal law from "Must put in on 300 feet before a lane change" to "Must signal in a reasonable time" WTF is a reasonable time... well what ever time the cop, judge, or prosecutors says it is
- mountainb 4y ago
  Reasonable time is determined by case law, and when it's a judge deciding, it's the judge's estimation of what a reasonable juror in that jurisdiction would think about the case. It's not as woozy as it seems, and is usually called an objective standard in the legal jargon. It's something that could conceivably be determined by a computer looking at all the factors that a judge would look at, and/or the relevant jury instructions that might frame the issue for a jury.
- NikolaNovak 4y ago
  Right. The programmer in me fumes at that imprecision. The human in me says "thank God". Because there a myriad valid times you cannot turn on signal 300ft before lane change, but you should always do it in reasonable time :) If I turn on a new street and there's a car parked 200ft down the lane or if a kid jumps on the road or if I become aware of an obstacle or a car cuts me off or I want to give somebody room at a merge etc etc... I may not be able to do it in 300ft but I should still try to do it in reasonable time. There's no "winning". Overly precise is inhumane in some scenarios, Overly vague is inhumane in others.
  - drdeca 4y ago
    Perhaps we could both give a vague description, and also a precise condition which is to be considered a sufficient but not necessary condition for the vague condition to be true? Such as “must signal within a reasonable time (signaling at least 300ft beforehand while not speeding is to be considered a sufficient condition for signaling within a reasonable time)” Downside: that could make laws even longer. Hm, what if laws had, like, in a separate document, a list of a number of examples of scenarios along with how the law is to be interpreted in those scenarios? Though I guess that’s maybe kind of the sort of thing that precedent is for?
    - imoverclocked 4y ago
      That sounds like case law? Eg: It’s why we call “Roe v Wade” as we do.
      - drdeca 4y ago
        What’s the difference between “precedent” and “case law”? I had thought that when I said “Though I guess that’s maybe kind of the sort of thing that precedent is for?” that that covered things like citing “Roe v. Wade”.
        imoverclocked 4y ago
        I’m not a lawyer, I just play one on HN. I thought precedent was a broader term that also covers accepted practices or processes.
  - BoorishBears 4y ago
    > The human in me says "thank God". You're more charitable than me: I assume there will be infinitely more times where the imprecision is used for probable cause for a stop, than there will be times where someone was going to pull you over because you properly responded to a road hazard
    - 4y ago
- _aleph2c_ 4y ago
  It doesn't have to be precise. The founder should wear his own glasses, go to court to defend himself and use a fusion technique: have a lawyer and his AI both reach through his glasses. If he loses, he says, "we have a bit of work to do", if he wins, he wins. Either way, great publicity.
AlexTWithBeard 4y ago
Many legal things are evaluated lazily: the law may not specify exactly what the vehicle is, but if such need arises, there are tools, like precedents and analogy, to answer this question. The way to think about it is like a logical evaluation shortcut: if not ADA_EXEMPT and IS_VEHICLE: DISALLOW_IN_PARK Since wheelchairs are ADA exempt, a question of whether it's a vehicle will probably never be risen. Using the IT analogy, it's less like C++, where each statement must pass compiler checks for the application to merely start, but more like a Python, where some illegal stuff may peacefully exist as long as it's never invoked. EDIT: grammar
- timerol 4y ago
  None of ADA_EXEMPT, IS_VEHICLE, or DISALLOW_IN_PARK can be easily formally defined. And the mere mention of "wheelchair" adds an additional ADA-related logic exemption. What about bicycles? Strollers? Unicycles? Shopping carts? Skateboards? And even if IS_VEHICLE was formally defined, that doesn't help, because the concept isn't reusable. It's perfectly normal for "No vehicles allowed in park" and "No vehicles allowed in playground" to have different definitions of what counts as a vehicle, based on what would seem reasonable to a jury
  - ogogmad 4y ago
    I don't know if I've misread some people here, but it's silly to insist that the law be a formal system. It's impossible. Common Law uses judicial precedent to fill in ambiguities as they turn into actual disputes. If you had to formally define everything, then a) it would run into the various Incompleteness Theorems in logic (like Goedel's) and the Principle of Explosion, so it would go hilariously wrong b) No law would ever get passed, as people would spend years trying and failing to recursively define every term.
    - gilleain 4y ago
      Appropriately enough, Gödel had this very problem when getting US citizenship, where he tried to argue that the law had a logical problem: "On December 5, 1947, Einstein and Morgenstern accompanied Gödel to his U.S. citizenship exam, where they acted as witnesses. Gödel had confided in them that he had discovered an inconsistency in the U.S. Constitution that could allow the U.S. to become a dictatorship; this has since been dubbed Gödel's Loophole. Einstein and Morgenstern were concerned that their friend's unpredictable behavior might jeopardize his application. The judge turned out to be Phillip Forman, who knew Einstein and had administered the oath at Einstein's own citizenship hearing. Everything went smoothly until Forman happened to ask Gödel if he thought a dictatorship like the Nazi regime could happen in the U.S. Gödel then started to explain his discovery to Forman. Forman understood what was going on, cut Gödel off, and moved the hearing on to other questions and a routine conclusion" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_G%C3%B6del#Princeton,_Einstein,_U.S._citizenship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_G%C3%B6del#Princeton,_Ein...
ectopod 4y ago
An example in the UK yesterday. Climate protesters glued themselves to a petrol tanker and were charged with tampering with a motor vehicle. The protesters argued that the bit with the petrol was a trailer, not a motor vehicle. The judge agreed and acquitted them. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-64403074 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-64403074
pintxo 4y ago
My point was not about necessary ambiguity where precision is not attainable. It was about todays inability of the legal professions to write concise conditions within contracts or laws. E.g. as someone else said in this threat, there is useful ambiguity in requirements like: „within reasonable time“. But if you are enumerating a bunch of things and their relationships, ambiguity is often not what you want, but what you get without some clear syntax. In my experience it’s not uncommon to stumble upon legal texts like „a, b and c or d then …“. But what does that mean? Is this supposed to be „(a && b && c) || d“ or „(a && b) && (c || d)“? That’s stuff that could easily be clarified at times of writing by just using parenthesis. Or maybe using actual lists with one item per line instead of stupid csv embedded in your sentences.

phpisthebest 4y ago

Even you example is more precise that most laws. For example Indiana recently changed their Turn signal law from "Must put in on 300 feet before a lane change" to "Must signal in a reasonable time" WTF is a reasonable time... well what ever time the cop, judge, or prosecutors says it is

mountainb 4y ago
Reasonable time is determined by case law, and when it's a judge deciding, it's the judge's estimation of what a reasonable juror in that jurisdiction would think about the case. It's not as woozy as it seems, and is usually called an objective standard in the legal jargon. It's something that could conceivably be determined by a computer looking at all the factors that a judge would look at, and/or the relevant jury instructions that might frame the issue for a jury.
NikolaNovak 4y ago
Right. The programmer in me fumes at that imprecision. The human in me says "thank God". Because there a myriad valid times you cannot turn on signal 300ft before lane change, but you should always do it in reasonable time :) If I turn on a new street and there's a car parked 200ft down the lane or if a kid jumps on the road or if I become aware of an obstacle or a car cuts me off or I want to give somebody room at a merge etc etc... I may not be able to do it in 300ft but I should still try to do it in reasonable time. There's no "winning". Overly precise is inhumane in some scenarios, Overly vague is inhumane in others.
- drdeca 4y ago
  Perhaps we could both give a vague description, and also a precise condition which is to be considered a sufficient but not necessary condition for the vague condition to be true? Such as “must signal within a reasonable time (signaling at least 300ft beforehand while not speeding is to be considered a sufficient condition for signaling within a reasonable time)” Downside: that could make laws even longer. Hm, what if laws had, like, in a separate document, a list of a number of examples of scenarios along with how the law is to be interpreted in those scenarios? Though I guess that’s maybe kind of the sort of thing that precedent is for?
  - imoverclocked 4y ago
    That sounds like case law? Eg: It’s why we call “Roe v Wade” as we do.
    - drdeca 4y ago
      What’s the difference between “precedent” and “case law”? I had thought that when I said “Though I guess that’s maybe kind of the sort of thing that precedent is for?” that that covered things like citing “Roe v. Wade”.
      - imoverclocked 4y ago
        I’m not a lawyer, I just play one on HN. I thought precedent was a broader term that also covers accepted practices or processes.
- BoorishBears 4y ago
  > The human in me says "thank God". You're more charitable than me: I assume there will be infinitely more times where the imprecision is used for probable cause for a stop, than there will be times where someone was going to pull you over because you properly responded to a road hazard
  - 4y ago
_aleph2c_ 4y ago
It doesn't have to be precise. The founder should wear his own glasses, go to court to defend himself and use a fusion technique: have a lawyer and his AI both reach through his glasses. If he loses, he says, "we have a bit of work to do", if he wins, he wins. Either way, great publicity.

AlexTWithBeard 4y ago

Many legal things are evaluated lazily: the law may not specify exactly what the vehicle is, but if such need arises, there are tools, like precedents and analogy, to answer this question. The way to think about it is like a logical evaluation shortcut: if not ADA_EXEMPT and IS_VEHICLE: DISALLOW_IN_PARK Since wheelchairs are ADA exempt, a question of whether it's a vehicle will probably never be risen. Using the IT analogy, it's less like C++, where each statement must pass compiler checks for the application to merely start, but more like a Python, where some illegal stuff may peacefully exist as long as it's never invoked. EDIT: grammar

timerol 4y ago
None of ADA_EXEMPT, IS_VEHICLE, or DISALLOW_IN_PARK can be easily formally defined. And the mere mention of "wheelchair" adds an additional ADA-related logic exemption. What about bicycles? Strollers? Unicycles? Shopping carts? Skateboards? And even if IS_VEHICLE was formally defined, that doesn't help, because the concept isn't reusable. It's perfectly normal for "No vehicles allowed in park" and "No vehicles allowed in playground" to have different definitions of what counts as a vehicle, based on what would seem reasonable to a jury
- ogogmad 4y ago
  I don't know if I've misread some people here, but it's silly to insist that the law be a formal system. It's impossible. Common Law uses judicial precedent to fill in ambiguities as they turn into actual disputes. If you had to formally define everything, then a) it would run into the various Incompleteness Theorems in logic (like Goedel's) and the Principle of Explosion, so it would go hilariously wrong b) No law would ever get passed, as people would spend years trying and failing to recursively define every term.
  - gilleain 4y ago
    Appropriately enough, Gödel had this very problem when getting US citizenship, where he tried to argue that the law had a logical problem: "On December 5, 1947, Einstein and Morgenstern accompanied Gödel to his U.S. citizenship exam, where they acted as witnesses. Gödel had confided in them that he had discovered an inconsistency in the U.S. Constitution that could allow the U.S. to become a dictatorship; this has since been dubbed Gödel's Loophole. Einstein and Morgenstern were concerned that their friend's unpredictable behavior might jeopardize his application. The judge turned out to be Phillip Forman, who knew Einstein and had administered the oath at Einstein's own citizenship hearing. Everything went smoothly until Forman happened to ask Gödel if he thought a dictatorship like the Nazi regime could happen in the U.S. Gödel then started to explain his discovery to Forman. Forman understood what was going on, cut Gödel off, and moved the hearing on to other questions and a routine conclusion" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_G%C3%B6del#Princeton,_Einstein,_U.S._citizenship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_G%C3%B6del#Princeton,_Ein...

ectopod 4y ago

An example in the UK yesterday. Climate protesters glued themselves to a petrol tanker and were charged with tampering with a motor vehicle. The protesters argued that the bit with the petrol was a trailer, not a motor vehicle. The judge agreed and acquitted them. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-64403074 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-64403074

pintxo 4y ago

My point was not about necessary ambiguity where precision is not attainable. It was about todays inability of the legal professions to write concise conditions within contracts or laws. E.g. as someone else said in this threat, there is useful ambiguity in requirements like: „within reasonable time“. But if you are enumerating a bunch of things and their relationships, ambiguity is often not what you want, but what you get without some clear syntax. In my experience it’s not uncommon to stumble upon legal texts like „a, b and c or d then …“. But what does that mean? Is this supposed to be „(a && b && c) || d“ or „(a && b) && (c || d)“? That’s stuff that could easily be clarified at times of writing by just using parenthesis. Or maybe using actual lists with one item per line instead of stupid csv embedded in your sentences.