Comment by rmc

13 years ago

I think that's impossible with the current English language, and the fact that human beings disagree about lots of things.

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rmc

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gsnedders  13 years ago

A nice example of the problem with natural language is Treason Act 1351[1] (this is still current law in the UK!), written in Anglo-Norman. This is problematic, as our understanding of the language is incomplete. Notably, in this case, there is no agreed upon meaning of "pvablement" — it means either "provably" or "probably": a rather major difference come a court of law!

[1]: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/aep/Edw3Stat5/25/2

minor_nitwit  13 years ago

you wouldn't write in English, you'd write it in Lisp.

  • rmc  13 years ago

    But then you either need to get people to talk in Lisp or some other logical language, or you need a way to translate it to English. It's the English translation where ambiguities will arise. You've just moved the problem around,

  • liscovich  13 years ago

    Do you know of any examples of actual legal documents written in Lisp, or some other formal language?

    • minor_nitwit  13 years ago

      haha, no. It was meant as a quasi-joke. I'd like to see one though.

      Certain laws are very cut-and-dry (speeding for instance) and perhaps laws could be proven on a functional basis.

      You could even make it axiomatic from the constitution and declaration of independence.

      Of course, you'd need to define the axiomatic meaning of things like 'the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed' - which is hard to do even with such simple language.

      And then after loading the axioms, you'd spend a lifetime going through errors in the existing laws.

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