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Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2020 12:38:34 -0500
From: Jacob Thomas Errington <jake@mail.jerrington.me>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [lojban] Sensations / qualia (colors etc.)
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Why even bother with {tu'a}? What's hiding under that implicit abstraction anyway?

One could just say {mi nelci lo ka xunre}. Even though modern dialects
of Lojban use {ka} in a particular way (mostly unrelated to the
presentation of {ka} in the CLL), {mi nelci lo ka xunre} could make
sense.
I would interpret it to mean something like "I like to-be-red" and I
use dashes here to distance this interpretation from what the English
"I like to be red" means. The Lojban would mean something like "I like
it that things are red" or that "I like redness". This is in contrast
with {lo ka xunre cu pluka mi} which would actually mean "I like to be
red".

mi'e la tsani mu'o

On Wed, Feb 05, 2020 at 11:33:25AM -0500, Michael Turniansky wrote:
>   I mean, I'm reading emails from 3.5 years ago, and Lord knows i don't
> grok modern dialects of lojban, but.  What's wrong with "mi nelci (tu'a) lo
> ka xunre"? isn't the whole point of ka to be a quale extractor?
>            --gejyspa
>
> On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 5:06 AM Gleki Arxokuna <gleki.is.my.name@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > 2016-05-12 11:43 GMT+03:00 Curtis Franks <curtis.w.franks@gmail.com>:
> >
> >> Throughout this response, I use "qualia" rather than "quale" at some
> >> points because there may be more than one quale associated with that thing,
> >> I do not want to assume.
> >>
> >> > "Is that very different from "I like elephants", "elephants are
> >> beautiful animals"?"
> >>
> >> Yes, at least from a technical standpoint in Lojban. In Lojban "lo xunre"
> >> is a red thing. So, we can only say "I like red things" and "red things are
> >> beautiful things". To actually capture the essence of redness, we need a
> >> new mechanism. We could also use it in order to capture the qualia of
> >> elephantness, but that is only sort of what you probably like or find
> >> beautiful. There is an added layer of abstraction or instant-experience
> >> there. Red (the color) is a sensation, independent of what is causing it
> >> (the stimulus). The essence/being of an elephant is similar, but not really
> >> a sensation that I, at least, directly register normally. However, if you
> >> had never seen an elephant and I described everything about them to you,
> >> and then you eventually experienced one in real life, any new information
> >> that you gained from the experience would presumably be the qualia of
> >> elephantness and that is something which you would have a firmer grasp on
> >> and might like. I would not say, though, that most people are thinking this
> >> way when saying that they like elephants, although maybe they could or
> >> should (or should could).
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> > "Is that very different from "I see elephants" when there are no
> >> elephants around?"
> >>
> >> Again, a little bit. Seeing red is a direct sensation. There is no object
> >> involved and no processing/deeper understanding.
> >
> >
> > There is still some object that is red. How can you sense red without an
> > object?
> >
> > A red apple is on a red table together with a red knife and there is the
> > red sun that you can see through the red window. All of them together
> > (table+apple+knife+window+the sun) can be called "one single red thing (or
> > grand-thing if you wish)".
> >
> > All of the red things you have ever experiences in your life can be called
> > "one single red thing" (so that's why "set of all things" in gua\spi
> > definition although "set" needs more precise definition here, obviously,
> > the same apple seen two times are two experiences and therefore two
> > mini-things that are parts of one grand-thing).
> >
> >
> > Seeing an elephant is seeing an object which is an elephant and
> >> interpreting it as such (even if that object does not exist, there is no
> >> way of knowing that by instanteous vision alone). Of course, there are some
> >> qualia to it, but there is also, in the normal interpretation of that
> >> statement, something more. It is not impossible to see the qualia of
> >> elephantness, but that is not what you really mean, I think.
> >>
> >
> > So what is meant here?
> > I've seen several pictures of elephants in books and now I sense a real
> > elephant. It has the same set of properties as those elephants have
> > (pictures of whom I read earlier.)
> > I've seen that red apple, that red knife and now I can see a red ball.
> > Earlier experiences had red being 640 nm and 660 nm wavelength together (a
> > mixture of two properties, both wavelengths are expressed with "red").
> > This red ball is 640 nm only (+ many other properties like roundness etc.)
> > I've never seen red balls before but this one matches my earlier
> > experiences so I call it "red". This red ball also has this property of 640
> > nm as the aopple and the knife.
> >
> > This elephant also has this property of "has trunk + gray + four legs +
> > ears" just as those elephants pictured in those books I read earlier.
> >
> >
> >
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> > "So "I like elephants" becomes "mi nelci lo ganseti be lo ka xanto"?"
> >>
> >> No. That is "I like the qualia of elephantness". Liking the object of an
> >> or several elephant(s) is just "mi nelci lo xanto". An elephant is one
> >> object which has the qualia of elephantness (and, arguably, might be the
> >> unique class with this property). Analogously, "mi nelci lo xunre" is "I
> >> like one or several objects which are red". These objects are things which
> >> have the quale of redness (possibly and even probably/arguably necessarily
> >> among other qualia). To like redness itself, the very idea and essence and
> >> immediate sensation of it, one needs the qualia abstraction.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> > "I don't see a problem with a word for "qualia", but I don't expect
> >> people to start saying "I like the qualia of being red" or "I like the
> >> qualia of being an elephant" instead of "I like red" or "I like elephants"
> >> though. It seems more natural that "lo xanto", "lo xunre" can be elephants
> >> (in general) and red as well as particular elephants or particular red
> >> objects. I'd rather these ontological distinctions be handled with brivla,
> >> not grammaticized with cmavo."
> >>
> >> It is a matter of what people should say, not what they currently do say
> >> due to bad habits and the failings of natural languages and their own
> >> education and tendencies in using Lojban. If they are alerted to such
> >> issues, then they are more likely to improve. As they currently are, and if
> >> they ignore these issues, they are incorrect. Lojban is, in my opinion,
> >> meant to bring this realization to the surface and then to fix it and to
> >> provide the tools for doing so in a reasonable but uncompromisingly
> >> rigorous way. Natural usage has nothing to do with it because it is wrong
> >> in this case.
> >>
> >> I think that a cmavo is extremely beneficial and probably necessary in
> >> this case. In general, we may try to avoid staking out ontological
> >> positions via their establishment.
> >>
> >> Note that this is not just a philosophical position that is being
> >> hardcoded into the language's vocabulary, functionality/support, and
> >> grammar. There is already a major flaw in the language that must be patched
> >> somehow. This is one solution, and a versatile and robust one at that. And,
> >> like I said, it is good to bring awareness to the language's learners about
> >> this issue in their own conscious understanding of their cognition.
> >
> >
> > I think the only flaw here is to be still with morphology of English with
> > its adjective/noun distinction.
> > E.g. Russian language uses colors as verbs so what? Shall we borrow this
> > thing into Lojban?
> >
> > The only lack of precision I can see in red/elephant distinction is that
> > elephants are more stable in time but this is a vague distinction as people
> > mentioned many times (e.g. [1]
> > <https://mw.lojban.org/papri/Tl%C3%B6n,_Uqbar_and_la_gleki's_fishy_apples>
> > ).
> >
> >
> >
> >>
> >> --
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> >>
> >
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> >
>
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Jacob Thomas Errington
W: https://jerrington.me/


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