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by hkt 1125 days ago
I suspect for clarity of communication we'd need to start with clarity of thought - the reason legalise doesn't eliminate ambiguity is because people aren't effectively omniscient, regardless of the level of their training. Add to that a shifting environment (new considerations etc) which can make previously valid documents ambiguous and you have a recipe for difficulties.

tl;dr cognitive ambiguities and changing circumstances are what make this hard, not language as a medium

1 comments

I agree and disagree. I do think that the purpose of legal documents is to take a given set of inputs and dictate a predictable output. But (1) sometimes ambiguity is deliberate (for instance, to kick the can on a business point and hope that it never actually manifests itself after the deal is signed) and (2) as you note, sometimes totally unexpected circumstances arise.

Wouldn’t any constructed/logical language (is that the right term?) also be susceptible to unpredictable future developments?