Agreement to agree

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The sort of thing a co-calculation agent is expected to do — one that law students learn in lesson one of The Law of Contract one logically cannot be obliged to do, is agree that you will, later agree. This paradox curls back reflexively on itself, for if you agree to it, you must have agreed, but if you have not agreed it, you can’t have.

This sort of thing made Kurt Goedel very famous, but unpopular with Bertrand Russel and David Hilbert. It is an example of the necessary incompleteness of law as a logical system.

An organising principle of the law is that, within identifiable limits prescribed by public law (such as crimes), a citizen is free to agree anything. But the set of things one is free to agree does not include agreement itself. for if you agree it, you must already be consigned to it, so you are no longer free to agree it. And if you remain free to agree it, then you have not agreed it.

Drink that in a while, fellow aeronaut of the logical spirit.

See also

  • Co-calculation agent
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