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Subject: Re: [lojban] Reasoning by analogy
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From: Jacob Thomas Errington <jake@mail.jerrington.me>
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Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2020 14:21:13 GMT
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Often times when translating from English to Lojban, it turns out that a 
conjunction such as "just like" winds up being the main claim of the 
Lojban. In this case, I'd translate as:

.i lo xance lo jamfu cu simsa lo ka cilre da'i lo du'u ta'i makau cadzu 
sepi'o ce'u

the hands the feet - are-similar-in the property learning hypothetically 
the fact by-method what?-indirect walk using it

Here the idea is exactly the observation you made too: to abstract what 
is common between the hands and feet, namely that there is a method by 
which you can walk using them, and that you can learn this method. The 
abstraction {lo ka cilre da'i lo du'u ta'i makau cadzu sepi'o ce'u} 
represents exactly that common property.

(If you're familiar with functional programming or lambda calculus, it's 
kind of like writing \X -> learn hypothetically the fact by-method 
what?-indirect walk using X. The "what?-indirect" essentially acts to 
say what the output of the function is, and in this case to identify the 
thing that is similar between the hands and the feet.)

I'm not sure if trying to express it using .inaja is right. In 
principle, if someone knew how to walk on their hands and not on their 
feet, then the same analogy would also apply to them trying to learn to 
walk on their feet! So really, I think the main claim here is that hands 
and feet are similar, but in a very specific way.

.i mi'e la tsani mu'o

On 2020-12-17 22:04, scope845hlang343jbo@icebubble.org wrote:
> As imprecise human beings saddled with the inheritance of natural
> language, much of what we say involves reasoning by analogy.  For
> example:
>
>    "You can learn to walk on your hands just like you learn to walk on
>     your feet."
>
> How would you express such a notion in Lojban?  The English suggests
> that the method of learning (perhaps {ta'i} or {xelcli}) is the same in
> both instances, but there is also an implication: IF you can learn to
> walk on your feet, THEN you can also learn to walk on your hands.  In
> Lojban, I might render this:
>
>    do cilre fi lonu do cadzu fi lei do jamfu kei ku fu da
>    .inaja do cilre fi lonu do cadzu fi lei do xance kei ku fu da
>
> or even
>
>    ta'i da do cilre fi lonu do cadzu fi lei do jamfu
>    .inaja ta'i da do cilre fi lonu do cadzu fi lei do xance
>
> But that only works if there happens to be a FA place or BAI cmavo that
> expresses the common property of the analogy (in this case, the method
> of learning).  And it requires that I express that property explicitly.
> In some instances, there might not be a BAI cmavo, or a {FIhO SE BRODA}
> tag, suitable to express it.  Or, I might just want to elide the
> relationship, and leave the relationship implicit.  I could use {do'e}:
>
>    do'e da do cilre fi lonu do cadzu fi lei do jamfu
>    .inaja do'e da do cilre fi lonu do cadzu fi lei do xance
>
> But this still strikes me as kind of clumsy.  Is there a neater way to
> express reasoning by analogy, like this, in Lojban?
>

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