Template:Notification of default paradox

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

—Bishop Berkeley

Perhaps unwittingly, George Berkeley addresses the language-dependence of reality. For what no human ear registers cannot be articulated, and what cannot be articulated carries no weight in our ontology. One only articulates things one cares about — the world wide web seems to gives the lie to this, come to think of it — so, for something to matter, someone who cares about it must see or hear it.

So it is with contracts. There are two kinds of obligations: overt ones, that cannot help but announce themselves to someone who is on record as caring about them — payments, deliveries, the rendering of agreed-upon services — and implicit ones, private matters that can only be determined by enquiry — one’s good standing, license to do what one has undertaken, one’s solvency". These latter obligations are generally I direct: I don’t care exactly that you hold a licence to drive a taxi, I care that you are a competent driver and my journey will be safe. A licence is a basic proxy for that enquiry. It obviates due dilly.

What has this to do with trees in uninhabited forests? Well, I cannot hide my loss of licence. There is a third-party agency there exactly to confirm, for people like my customers, whether I have one or not. o determine whether I have a license