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Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2012 17:50:51 +0100
From: And Rosta <and.rosta@gmail.com>
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Subject: Re: [lojban] Revising mu'ei and CAhA once again. Possible worlds.
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I only found out in the last couple of years that {mu'ei} had ever attracte=
d any attention, and I was rather surprised by that, because in the era in =
which they were proposed, nobody paid any attention to experimental cmavo p=
roposals, and the notion of seeking to make Lojban a logical language was d=
eeply marginalized.

The rationale for {mu'ei} is this:

It allows the lexicosyntactic form of conditionals to be homomorphous with =
the semantic form of conditionals. In particular, the PA element makes expl=
icit the fractional quantification underlying the could/probably/would (som=
e/most/all) scale, and the sumti it governs expresses the restriction on th=
e set of states of affairs ("possible worlds") being quantified over, which=
 is the protasis. The contrast between different sorts of modality (epistem=
ic, deontic, counterfactual, noncounterfactual, futurate) could be expresse=
d within the protasis-expressing sumti or could be lexicalized (as in the c=
ase of the ba'oi proposal).

{mu'ei} makes {ka'e} et al redundant, with {ka'e} et al merely being very s=
lightly shorter alternatives to {mu'ei} with implicit sumti.

If you find {romu'ei} absurd, then you must have misunderstood it somehow.

I didn't really understand your remarks, but it seems to me firstly that yo=
u didn't apprehend the basic rationale for mu'ei (i.e. what its syntax make=
s possible) and secondly that you're erroneously trying to see it as involv=
ing not only possible worlds (your A-level) but also the actual world (your=
 M-level), when in fact it involves only possible worlds. The structure of =
mu'ei is "PA mu'ei (lo du'u p is the case kei), q is the case", and mu'ei d=
oesn't specify whether p or q are the case in the actual world. That doesn'=
t rule out having another 8 variants of mu'ei to specify whether or not p a=
nd q are actual, tho; but maybe ca'a could be used for that -- i.e. ca'a(na=
i) in the protasis and/or in the apodosis.

The use of {da'i} is interesting. For a logical language it's completely de=
plorable, because there's a complete mismatch between the lexicosyntactic f=
orm and the logical form, and no explicit rule about how to get from one to=
 the other -- it works by mere stipulated magic. But it caught on among tho=
se impatient to be actively using the language, and nicely illustrated the =
fundamental incompatibility between a loglang and a language governed by th=
e principle of "let usage decide".

--And.

Gleki Arxokuna, On 05/08/2012 18:16:
> Continuation of http://www.lojban.org/tiki/mu'ei
> Note:This topic should be analysed from the Trivalent logic point of view=
 as the latter also deals with Possible worlds.
> But let's get started with more simple stuff.
> mu'ei has always been a problem for me. Although the wiki was simple in d=
escribing it I felt something incomplete or illogical there.
>
> Luckily, Lojbanistan has some authority and one can always ask how others=
 solve the same problem.
> Here is the log.
>
>     /<gleki> Do you use mu'ei in real life? Do you have any thoughts of m=
aking a more generalised abstraction that will include both mu'ei and ba'oi=
?/
>     /<robin>I did for a bit and then stopped; I just use {da'i} tricks no=
w./
>     /<gleki>!!! just da'i or pada'i, su'oda'i, roda'i? how can you distin=
guish between ba'oi and mu'ei then?/
>     /<robin>I don't find ba'oi useful at all. Just da'i./
>     /<gleki>but how can we distinguish two meanings? i just wanna some ex=
amples how we can use da'i for each case. //If i can't use conditionals the=
n i cant speak this language. //Conditionals are the basics. //What are you=
r solutions for su'omu'ei, romu'ei, mu'ei. //I can clearly see differences =
in their meaning important when speaking. //Regardless the theory of altern=
ate realities behind MUhEI I need words with such semantics. //ko sidju mi/
>     /<robin>So use mu'ei ? There's nothing wrong with them. su'o mu'ei is=
 clearly ka'e. I have no idea what use ro mu'ei has; it looks totally point=
less to me. Erm, as a bridi tag; as a sumti tag it's fine. Looking at http:=
//www.lojban.org/tiki/mu'ei , for "If the train breaks down I'll be late" i=
s {da'i mi lerci ri'a lo nu le trene cu spofu} //"If the train breaks down =
I might be late" is not a structure I usually have to produce, but if I did=
 I would just use cumki ; {lo nu mi lerci cu cumki lo nu le trene cu spofu}=
/
>
>
> So having this absolution granted from lojbo nolraitru I started revising=
 mu'ei.
> Here is what I came up with.
> (if you can't see the image look here <https://www.facebook.com/media/set=
/?set=3Da.233361103451814.50762.100003337779349&type=3D1>).
>
>
> <https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-opUzSZGQJJM/UB6pRylT1AI/AAAAAAAAB94/F=
4vX6jWZkDo/s1600/ka%27e.png>We have two layers. One describes alternate (po=
ssible worlds). And it's {ka'e}.
> If you have balls of one color only there are no alternate worlds. i.e. o=
nly bag in the middle has more than one output at M-level.
> Therefore I opine that mu'ei is not a good cmavo as it's trying to expres=
s two levels and therefore two meaning at once. But cmavo should express on=
e meaning each (being more close to semantic prims).
>
> Strangely enough {pu'i} was out of consideration on mu'ei pages on lojban=
.org wiki. That's why mu'ei scheme is not complete and comprehensive.
>
> *Other issues including unsettled.*
> romu'ei is absurd.
> bi'ai is described as naka'ena which in my scheme is equal to {ca'a}. But=
 actually in the examples from the wiki bi'ai is used more like {pu'i}. In =
any case it's meaning is covered by the existing cmavo.
> ba'oi has extra meaning of alternate world identical to This World up to =
the present. This meaning is yet to be defined using new cmavo if my critic=
ism of mu'ei is accepted.
> da'i and va'o look like non-logical conditionals. Their meaning is out of=
 my understanding. But I'm gonna use da'i more like Robin in those cases wh=
en I'm not sure what alternate-world-cmavo to use or in order to reach ambi=
guity.
> ka'e is used more like an abbreviation of kakne. If the latter meaning of=
 ka'e is fixed we need to find another cmavo for that purpose (for A-level)=
.
> naka'e has no cmavo for the output at M-level. Luckily naka'e is short en=
ough to be used on it's own.
>
> *Conclusion.*
> mu'ei is not needed. If you wanna describe potential i.e. alternate world=
s at A-level use naka'e, ka'e or naka'ena=3Dca'a.
> If in possible worlds some balls are black and some are white then it's k=
a'e that can result either in nu'o or in pu'i.
> You can use all those cmavo as sumtcita as well which staisfies the need =
in most conditional sentences
> (conditionals are sentences like "If I hadn't swum I would have been heal=
thy" or similar).
>
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