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To address this and the comment from epo, obviously such a system is not possible. I don't expect laws to be formally defined, I just expect them to be few, se

To address this and the comment from epo, obviously such a system is not possible. I don't expect laws to be formally defined, I just expect them to be few, sensible, and transparent. Reasonable people shouldn't have a hard time inferring whether a specific activity is illegal. Right now, our body of law is vast, complex, opaque and uncertain. Because of this, as I said above, most people likely break the law every single day. This gives rise to tyranny by selective enforcement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement), burdened economies and reduced investments due to untested and protectionist regulatory regimes, and an overall reduction in freedom and civil liberties. By contrast, yes, the knowability and certitude afforded by a hypothetical-but-impossible legal system based on mathematics would be preferable. This is really not a complicated idea. “Corruptissima republica plurimae leges. [The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state.]” — Tacitus, the Annals ca. AD 69

anigbrowl 14y ago
Right now, our body of law is vast, complex, opaque and uncertain. So's our society. Roman law was quite a bit simpler, but justice in ancient Rome was extremely unpredictable. By contrast, yes, the knowability and certitude afforded by a hypothetical-but-impossible legal system based on mathematics would be preferable. This is really not a complicated idea. As HL Mencken said, 'For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.' Godel's theorem tells us that in any sufficiently expressive formal system (such as mathematics), you can have consistency or completeness, but not both. A hypothetical mathematically-precise legal system would thus yield cases that either couldn't be judged because there was no prescription for such a situation (a div zero problem, if you will), or else would yield contradictory results on the same facts at different times.

anigbrowl 14y ago

Right now, our body of law is vast, complex, opaque and uncertain. So's our society. Roman law was quite a bit simpler, but justice in ancient Rome was extremely unpredictable. By contrast, yes, the knowability and certitude afforded by a hypothetical-but-impossible legal system based on mathematics would be preferable. This is really not a complicated idea. As HL Mencken said, 'For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.' Godel's theorem tells us that in any sufficiently expressive formal system (such as mathematics), you can have consistency or completeness, but not both. A hypothetical mathematically-precise legal system would thus yield cases that either couldn't be judged because there was no prescription for such a situation (a div zero problem, if you will), or else would yield contradictory results on the same facts at different times.