Allow

(My discussion with BK continued.)

"Why not ?" she asked.

"That's against the principle of writing instructions," I explained, "You see, if we accept putting in the rule Do Not Do Thing X, there would be millions to follow. For example, we have to add do not kill your patient, do you chop off your patient's head, do not chop off half of your patient's head, do not use four-letter words in front of your patient - and being heard !"

My friend was speechless - she obviously found me intolerable.

But I was serious. Guidelines and instructions for professionals should, in general, be positive statements. (The same applies to medical textbooks.) They tell you what to do in a particular situation, but will not tell you what you should not do - because there are countless of them, imaginable or not. (For example, you should take off the appendix when it is inflamed. No textbook would tell you not to spit on the appendix and close the abdomen - but would any surgeon with a sound mind do so ?)

The real problem is, of course, many extra-terrestrial creatures could not comprehend this basic principle, and, whenever someone does something wrong, they keep asking for yet another written guideline to prohibit that particular wrongdoing.

I shall not elaborate further.

PS. The principle of professional guide is, in a sense, exactly opposite to that of legislation in democratic countries. In the latter case, law-makers tries to put down everything that is prohibited - and citizens are allowed do anything not overtly banned by the law.