may be of use? .. from a new (non benefits) house of lords decision, in re B (Children) (FC) ....

'If a legal rule requires a fact to be proved ... a judge or jury must decide whether or not it happened. There is no room for a finding that it might have happened. The law operates a binary system in which the only values are 0 and 1. The fact either happened or it did not. If the tribunal is left in doubt, the doubt is resolved by a rule that one party or the other carries the burden of proof. If the party who bears the burden of proof fails to discharge it, a value of 0 is returned and the fact is treated as not having happened. If he does discharge it, a value of 1 is returned and the fact is treated as having happened.'

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldjudgmt/jd080611/child-1.htm

Or put more thoroughly by Baroness Hale at paragraph 32 of the judgement: -

"In our legal system, if a judge finds it more likely than not that something did take place, then it is treated as having taken place. If he finds it more likely than not that it did not take place, then it is treated as not having taken place. He is not allowed to sit on the fence. He has to find for one side or the other. Sometimes the burden of proof will come to his rescue: the party with the burden of showing that something took place will not have satisfied him that it did. But generally speaking a judge is able to make up his mind where the truth lies without needing to rely upon the burden of proof".

Hmmm. I'm intrigued by this interpretation. After all, there is nothing to say that the Judge was relying on a one-bit calculation.....

Even a two-bit calc would allow for four possible values - 00 / 01 / 10 / 11 .

I thought this distinction was very important.......

Er, right. Therapy session being arranged.....

I hope you're not thinking of claiming DLA on the back of this 'illness' are you?

There are only 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't