Multisensory legal machines and legal act production

This paper expands on the concept of legal machine which was presented first at IRIS 2011 in Salzburg. The research subjects are (1) the creation of institutional facts by machines, and (2) multimodal communication of legal content to humans. Simple examples are traffic lights and vending machines. Complicated examples are computer-based information systems in organisations, form proceedings workflows, and machines which replace officials in organisations. The actions performed by machines have legal importance and draw legal consequences. Machines similarly as humans can be imposed status-functions of legal actors. The analogy of machines with humans is in the focus of this paper. Legal content can be communicated by machines and can be perceived by all of our senses. The content can be expressed in multimodal languages: textual, visual, acoustic, gestures, aircraft manoeuvres, etc. The concept of encapsulatation of human into machine is proposed. Herein humanintended actions are communicated through the machine’s output channel. Encapsulations can be compared with deities and mythical creatures that can send gods’ messages to people through the human mouth. This paper also aims to identify law production patterns by machines

Transparency, state taboo and privacy : some remarks on Plato's "Myth of the Cave"

Principles can be directly expressed by law or may be found in jurisprudence, philosophy or literature. Often the principles are contradictory, as in the case of transparency and the taboo of state information disclosure. At the individual level, transparency and taboo, the sense and purpose of privacy may compliment each other. Moreover the rise of cyberspace has blurred the distinction between privacy and public. The taboo is widening. The development of the internet and of the social networks can alter the once apparently stable legal situation, bringing a new dynamic into play in both state and individual spheres. In the context of the internet it is as though the secret workings of the state are projected on its "walls and facades", reminding us of Plato's "Myth of the Cave". As Plato described, disillusionment and reflexive defensiveness can follow

Situativity – Textuality – Virtuality

Electronic virtuality is a component of a new level in the evolution of mankind. Who knows the past will form a different future. Therefore it is useful to look at the patterns of development, applying different evaluation criteria. This text focuses on situativity, textuality and virtuality

Meaning and metameaning as entities: content (IS) and institutional meaning (ought)

The “meaning of meaning” is addressed. This theme was addressed by Ogden and Richards in 1923 as a semiotic triangle. We, however, consider the operational treatment of legal meaning. We distinguish between two kinds of meanings: institutional meaning and content meaning. The latter represents the semantics of a legal act – the text. The research question is how to represent the institutional meaning. Operations are, for example, to strengthen or lessen the meaning. We relate the institutional meaning with its representation; cf. the FRISCO framework and the semiotic tetrahedron. Multiple representations make sense because various stakeholders view the legal act differently. Die Autoren befassen sich mit der «Bedeutung der Bedeutung». 1923 wurde dieses Thema bereits von Ogden und Richards als semiotisches Dreieck angesprochen. Die Autoren gehen allerdings auf die operative Behandlung rechtlicher Bedeutung ein. Sie unterscheiden zwei Arten von Bedeutungen: institutionelle und inhaltliche Bedeutung. Die letztere repräsentiert die Semantik eines Rechtsgeschäftes – den Text. Die Forschungsfrage lautet: Wie kann die institutionelle Bedeutung dargestellt werden? Eingriffe werden die Bedeutung entweder stärken oder verringern. Die Autoren setzen die institutionelle Bedeutung mit ihrer Darstellung in Zusammenhang; vgl. den FRISCO-Rahmen und das semiotische Tetraeder. Mehrere Darstellungen erscheinen sinnvoll, da verschiedene Interessenvertreter den Rechtsakt aus verschiedenen Perspektiven betrachten. (ah