11–20 of 67 posts
> The aim is not to formalise or put into code all the law, because that would make no sense, but we are interested in the law that is already executed automatically, such as the calculation of social benefits, tax or unemployment. Can anyone explain why it's believed this "would make no sense"?
1. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27059899) - May 2021 (126 comments) 2. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28633122) - Sept 2021 (40 comments) 3. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37546874) - Sept 2023 (277 comments)
> The aim is not to formalise or put into code all the law, because that would make no sense, but we are interested in the law that is already executed automatically, such as the calculation of social benefits, tax or unemployment. Can anyone explain why it's believed this "would make no sense"?
Basically, all human knowledge is an application of either math or philosophy, and law is philosophy, so cant be modeled by math
Philosophy is not knowledge, it's pure speculation.
> law is philosophy, so cant be modeled by math
Law is not philosophy unless it was written based on sloppy speculations. In other words, what law is, depends on how it was written, it can certainly be modeled by logic and math methods can be developed for it too.
It's nothing new, lawyers have to master logic as part of their training.
> The aim is not to formalise or put into code all the law, because that would make no sense, but we are interested in the law that is already executed automatically, such as the calculation of social benefits, tax or unemployment. Can anyone explain why it's believed this "would make no sense"?
> If it is found that the defendant did the killing or wounding, but that it was not intentional or negligent, the court shall dismiss the proceeding. Otherwise, if it is found that the defendant did the killing or wounding intentionally, by an act of gross negligence, or while under the influence of alcohol, the court shall issue an order permanently prohibiting the defendant from taking any bird or mammal.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Basically, all human knowledge is an application of either math or philosophy, and law is philosophy, so cant be modeled by math
> Basically, all human knowledge is an application of either math or philosophy Philosophy is not knowledge, it's pure speculation. > law is philosophy, so cant be modeled by math Law is not philosophy unless it was written based on sloppy speculations. In other words, what law is, depends on how it was written, it can certainly be modeled by logic and math methods can be developed for it too. It's nothing new, lawye…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Basically, all human knowledge is an application of either math or philosophy Philosophy is not knowledge, it's pure speculation. > law is philosophy, so cant be modeled by math Law is not philosophy unless it was written based on sloppy speculations. In other words, what law is, depends on how it was written, it can certainly be modeled by logic and math methods can be developed for it too. It's nothing new, lawye…
Modelling intent, with math, is not going to happy. Law is based around the intent of those taking actions, and understanding intent is absolutely philosophy.
Besides, only a lesser part of law is about intent, the major part is about punishing and avoiding harm, finding the true facts and applying the written law to them.
Down-voting can't change the truth, we've been led by the nose for far too long.
> The aim is not to formalise or put into code all the law, because that would make no sense, but we are interested in the law that is already executed automatically, such as the calculation of social benefits, tax or unemployment. Can anyone explain why it's believed this "would make no sense"?
A computer program takes digital bytes, runs some discrete logic on them, outputs some more bytes. Laws take messy real world stuff, run some subjective decision tree on them, and output some messy real world actions to take. If you model the former with the latter you end up 'shelling out' to human judgement every 2 words. Suppose you accidentally shoot somebody while duck hunting, the meaning or value of pretty muc…
> The aim is not to formalise or put into code all the law, because that would make no sense, but we are interested in the law that is already executed automatically, such as the calculation of social benefits, tax or unemployment. Can anyone explain why it's believed this "would make no sense"?
Law isn't written to cover 100% of real life scenarios and potential cases, it's written with deliberate parts of ambiguity, that will ultimately be up to courts to set the precedents for, in various situations and context. I think the idea is that you can't really cover 100% of real-life cases in "code", either legal or software, so the areas you'll leave this out of would be those "not-entirely-strict" parts.
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Not even unrelated, Catala (the law-language) seems to be a French project, supported by institutions in France, and Catalan seems to have a intertwined history with France: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_language#France
from their repo: https://github.com/CatalaLang/catala
> The language is named after Pierre Catala, a professor of law who pionneered the French legaltech by creating a computer database of law cases, Juris-Data.
If law code is a repository: 1. Each trial should be encoded into a law. 2. If the trial is already covered sufficiently in the codebase, and both parties agree to it result. Then case is solved. 3. If not, the new judgement leads to a "pull request" into the codebase.