From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Wed May 17 18:04:57 2006 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Wed, 17 May 2006 18:04:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1FgWw1-0001za-Jz for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Wed, 17 May 2006 18:04:13 -0700 Received: from nz-out-0102.google.com ([64.233.162.203]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1FgWvx-0001z9-JD for lojban-list@lojban.org; Wed, 17 May 2006 18:04:13 -0700 Received: by nz-out-0102.google.com with SMTP id f1so380348nzc for ; Wed, 17 May 2006 18:04:08 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=hZPXGFUCZ7QrhnMjikoNt1XPharL5Puc7PlL4lr41bmPo0AzTjOvFmokbWnoqPOIhdnJnsZ7esD+OtDNu/+wgBmj0l1ijGc9Sj4sgsQeQ/UNZBAmV8RGD5JBsOFMCb/e7/ULlBmSRaa/QQ6TLxuO967qyckHiH99HGFewZHSGP0= Received: by 10.36.121.6 with SMTP id t6mr1668064nzc; Wed, 17 May 2006 18:04:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.36.153.14 with HTTP; Wed, 17 May 2006 18:04:08 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Date: Wed, 17 May 2006 19:04:08 -0600 From: "Maxim Katcharov" To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: A (rather long) discussion of {all} In-Reply-To: <20060517163746.45101.qmail@web81305.mail.mud.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=WINDOWS-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis Content-Disposition: inline References: <20060517163746.45101.qmail@web81305.mail.mud.yahoo.com> X-Spam-Score: -2.6 (--) X-archive-position: 11593 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: maxim.katcharov@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list On 5/17/06, John E Clifford wrote: > MK's proposal in a nutshell. (For corrections, > additions, explanations, etc.) A draft, yep. > 1. 1. Lojban's method of introducing new > referents is inefficient, ineffective and > incomplete. No. I believe that it's clearly efficient, and it's effective, but: a) it does not cover situations where context is ambiguous b) it is ineffective where it's critical (or where you want) to be fully unambiguous I'd like it to be very clear that I am not arguing /against/ the current method, but that I'm essentially arguing for a method to cover areas where the current method fails. I see the method that I'm presenting as the proper way to say things, where the method currently used is a /very/ useful shortcut. But we shouldn't have to rely on this shortcut - a paved road should be available if we need to haul something important. I argue against anyone who says that the current method covers everything. I argue that this method will cover (a), and will just about completely cover (b), and so is better than the current method (shortcut) on its own. > Lojban descriptions depend upon unmentioned > factor which conversants infer from the flow of > the discourse and from the physical environment > in which the discourse occurs. In particular, > the set of things having a mentioned property is > restricted to those things of that sort that are > relevant to the discourse at the moment. The > inferences involved in correctly identifying the > referent of a given description may be long and > complex and the factors on which they are based No. They needn't be long and complex at all. They are usually quite simple, it's just that there is a significant number of cases where there are a lot of simple interpretations. > may not be obvious to all the conversants. Thus, > there is a strong possibility that the referent > will be missed, requiring further discussion to > correct the mistake. But especially, this > relativization of reference makes it impossible > to refer to the things which have the property in > question but are not relevant to the discourse so > far, forr example, to jump from the bears we have > been talking about to all bears absolutely (ever, > existent, imaginary, merely possible, etc.) or > even just all in the area, including those we > have not been talking about. It's not strictly impossible to refer to things completely now. It's just that the method proposed for doing so is very crude and attempts to solve problems after the fact. And sure, you can clear up what you meant after the fact, but sometimes that's not very useful, and it's never as useful as clearing it up pre-emptively. > 2. In every situation (a discourse carried > on in a given environment), for any object or > group of objects, there is a description that > applies (and will be seen to apply) to exactly > that object or group. Further, this description > does not rely on the flow of discourse and > relies on the environment only for ostention; > that is, it relies only on overtly mentioned > properties and deixis. It thus avoids the > difficulties that make Lojban descriptions so > fallible. And, being not relativized to the > discourse, it can introduce things that are not > already relevant to this discourse. Yes, roughly, though I'll have nothing to do with the phrase "that make Lojban descriptions so fallible" - they aren't "so" fallible: they're very good for most circumstances. It's just that they don't cover things as well something could be covered. darves: I hope that John has addressed your objection, because I'm uncertain of how it relates to this point #2. It seems to relate to what I said previously regarding how we all have a limit of what we no longer consider a bear. Most of the time, our differing limits will not cause a problem. Even the nominalist, for all practical purposes, will understand me when I talk of some three bears, and won't argue that they aren't bears because they don't perfectly match the "ideal" bear. > 3. Lojban needs a way to use these > descriptions ("complete descriptions") clearly I call them "complete restrictions" - that is, no other restrictions implied by context are applicable. > marked as such. Since these descriptions tend to You don't quite mark them. You simply say that you mean *all* (every single...), and this incidetally always is a sign that the restriction is complete. > be longer than the ones Lojban ordinarily uses, > and the ordinary ones work well enough for > ordinary cases (when we mean to stay within the > already given bounds of relevance), Lojban should > keep most of it present descriptions for the > ordinary cases, but some redundant or little used > form should be set aside for complete > descriptions. Yes, roughly. But this implies that I want to include some marker or whatever, which makes this sound somewhat weird. Let's just say that I want {ro} to mean "damn well *all*. Every one. Not just the ones in context - no. I mean every one, that will exist, exists, has existed, [and so on]". I'm saying that the idea that {L_ ro cribe} should mean "all such that are relevant and such that are bears" is *strange* - {L_ ro cribe} should be "all such that are bears". If you want to say "the most contextually sensible number", just leave the inner blank, and the listener will assume exactly that. > 4. The form {lo ro broda} is redundant for > relativized descriptions and so could be used for how are you defining "relativized descriptions"? > complete ones (and only for them). In > relativized descriptions, {lo ro broda} refers to > all the brodas relevent to the discourse so far, > but this is just what {lo broda} refers to in > relativized descriptions. Further, since a Yes, I find the blank inner and the inner {ro} redundant. > complete description exactly specifies its > referent, we are indeed interested in all such > things. The expression {lo ro broda} would thus > be accurate in terms of Lojban meaning, which the > present, relativized, {lo ro broda} is not: in > the latter {ro} does not mean "all" but "all > relevant ones" or some such. I'm not sure I understand what is being said here, but yes, {lo ro broda} by my proposal does /not/ mean "all: such that are brodas and/'intersect' such that are relevant/in context". > 5. So, Lojban should adopt the convention > that {lo ro broda} indicates that {broda} (which > may be complex, of course) is a complete What is meant by "which may be complex"? That you can {poi} it? Yes, you can, and most usually will {poi} it. > description of the intended referent. And, > wherever the using a relativized description > involves vagueness or ambiguity – or even just > complications that extend the needed inferences > unduly -- in the background on which description, > complete descriptions should be used instead. Yes, this seems correct. > And, of course, always for cases where the domain > of relevance in aa discourse is being changed, > whether by restriction or expansion. No, not always. If it serves your purpose to change context in the usual way (which I've referred to as "saying something that makes no sense in the given context, therefore you must be talking in a different context"), you can go ahead and do that. But if you want to be precise in this context shift, you now have that ability. > A. Tied in with this, though not essential to > it, is the claim that, for every property, P, > there is a set (or whatever) of all the things > that have (now, at some other time, in the realm > of possibility, …) and that this set (…) is the > referent of {lo ro P} (as corrected by the Yes, though the bounds of this set may vary from individual to individual. This is rarely a practical problem, especially if one assumes that the speaker's bounds (assuming that the bounds are somewhat sensible) at the time they said it are the bounds that should be considered. This is the 'vagueness' that isn't quite covered by my proposal, and it surely isn't covered by the current usages. And the odds of it being a problem are drastically slim. > proposal). Relativized descriptions may be made > complete by explicit restrictions carvving out > subsets of this set. If I understand what you mean correctly, then not quite: they're made complete when you say "listener, I mean *all* of them, and therefore it is implied that you shouldn't use context to cut the set down further". To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.