Did you ever wonder why Dock tors are so specifically required to announce exact time of birth and time of death?

I understand the need for medical diligence. For example if the documentation was a collection of the time, condition (lying position, chemistry, open areas), and maybe a patient name or number. We would be interested in the circumstances of birth and death. On short notice, those 3 axes would be pretty useful.

Furthermore, our modern record keeping abilities through security cameras and the like would be able to track these events without a need for the dock tor to be so exclusive about it.

Somebody wants this information for something.

Birthdates are similar. One of the first things you're asked on anything legal at all is your birthdate. Now it could ask for some biometric quality like your eye colour, because we assume the purpose is to authenticate the person filling the form. But so prominently they want your birthdate.

It's almost as if time is a universal locater. To understand where you are, they need to know *when* you are.

You know what else tries to track time accurately? All shipping procedures. Truck, plain, boat whatever. And the record always needs to reflect a dock of some kind. Not, for example, when it left the seller's hand and when it landed on the buyer's hand, to ensure validity of transaction.

Our entire socio-political system thrives on cargo shipping logic, with the reasons dubious at best.

That is because of the law. A legal definition of the sales contract includes for example, when you buy something, inner will and outer declaration of will by the buyer and the seller. These must fit each other. The law the defines the point in time at which the declarations of the wills have been expressed as the time of the closure of the legal contract. From this point in time one owes the price and the other has to hand over the good. (A written contract or bill is just the documentation of the circumstances and conditions of the legal event.) The buyer has also the obligation to take the good if it is without damage. The contract is binding for both. Non-fulfillment might have other legal consequences, such as compensation for damage or punishment for treason (if one contract party gave a false declaration to get a gain). When you buy a truckload of strawberries and you do not accept the delivery at the agreed time, you will eventually have to pay the price for the fruits and also compensation for disposal costs, if the seller cannot sell them otherwise cheaper and hands you back the difference. If you want to document the sale you need the point of time when the declarations of the wills have been expressed. You print or write a reciept with a date and other details of the sale as a proof of the legal deal. Same with deliveries, the shipper documents the point in time when responsibilty for the good has shifted. E.g. from the shipper to the recipient, etc. The time (and place, which has often to be written down, too) acts as a reference for legal acts, also for legal decisions in case of disputes. This is also important for insurances (which often have a certain time span or range of validity), etc., etc. The time is very important for the law and legal acts, the law often defines a point in time as a legal event with consequences: If this event X has already happend (in time) -then so and so ... are the legal consequences. Just by definition. This definition is just an agreement by the lawmakers and does not need to make sense. Law is a system of definitions combined with if-then logic. Birth makes you a legal subject, a natural person, with rights and duties which end with the death (after death, or (even before it, in some cases) some rights and duties might shift to others and persist). Thus the time for these legal events is necessary for legal decisions. Example: you marry in Las Vegas during a wild night. The next day you wake up, look who is laying next to you and just want to get divorced from the dragon as fast as possible. Later you get a message that a relative has died just the same night and you inherit a million bucks. The time of the death will decide: either you can keep the whole million (the time of death was before the marriage-time) or it was the most expensive night in your live: you have to share it with your ex-wife in spe, because the death event was after you had been married. See: the time thing even makes sense... The doctor is just the responsible person who is defined by the law to be able/responsible to make a document which can act as a strong hint for the real the time of death. He has the legal obligation to do so (and he wants to keep his permission to work as a doctor).

As I say, time is a useful piece of information in settling legal disputes. Point of sale purchase receipts or "event horizons" you could say are the oldest known form of writing there is. The cuneiform tablets were mostly purchase receipts. What I'm saying is: it's not a bit surprising if there isn't a single cultural exception in the planet? I mean I think there's an island tribe somewhere, maybe their record of death is a little loose.

Here I'll put it this way. If we're going to say everything should be treated like a purchase receipt, why stop at the time? When I buy something, the receipt shows my identity as the new owner of the product. Or we could say that I'm the new liable steward, trustee, of said product. When someone is born, the "purchase receipt" doesn't have a family, just an informant. Under who's care is it under?

Your example of the fling marriage and the sudden death, you're right, time is always relevant. Your example is one of usable knowledge. With that you can establish who stewards the money. My question is not "why bother recording time?" but moreso "why time is the redundant piece?" I could use the marriage example by saying that a decent "Vegas marriage service" would at least be competitive and offer a mini-prenuptual service. Like: "if someone's pregnant, who's held responsible? Are you sharing money or not sharing?"

Your example is actually a good example for what I'm saying.

When someone is born, or dies, or marries, or travels, or gives stuff, or takes stuff - time is relevant to all these events but so are the terms of stewardship. Is there warranty? It's under who's protection? Products do this quite efficiently, you can track the contract through the manufacturer and vendor policies. Well then you can track the marriage contract with the Vegas vendor *and* the policies of the marrying people. You can track the contract if birth by the doctor ("vendor") *and* the parent issuing the birth.

You wouldn't have to give all the money to the "dragon" because more terms were recorded than time. You could track the newborn being under who's protection because the guardian is implicit , not just the time. You could track the reason for death more accurately, not just the time.

You're explaining how logistics of time implicates a contract. What I'm saying is logistics of time is only a piece of a contract, and we are oddly silent outside of those facts. Birth, marriage, death - be they implications for very critical often irrevocable contracts - well then don't just record time, record intent. You can stipulate that it doesn't mean you share money. You can stipulate that the child is under so-and-so's protection. If the humans involved in these things are not stipulating the terms then yes, the contracts are binding by default and they acquiesce but more than that - they start behaving less like the contractor and more like the product.

If you know the law you can do it. It is not just about time... You may write a long contract text defining the intents of the parties and scope of the deal in detail, as it is done in business with MOUs, NCNDAs, Project desciptions etc. Think about the huge amount of small print in insurance contracts or even rental contracts. Same with birth and death. One can write a last will or living will and healthcare authorization, define caretakers for a child in case of legal incapacity. Etc. Etc. The better you know the law, the more options you can use... School does not teach that... So one is kind of victim of the complex legal system, because lack of knowledge and one also has the problem that others do not know the details as well. Even if one is acting legally correct, one might get mistreated in a situation and has to fight for compensation afterwards. This fight needs time, money and energy. So it is often cheaper and less stressful to choose the other way and just let go the legal rights or to behave in a way which prevents such conflicts.