Message-Id: <9106191600.AA12825@dino>
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 91 12:00:32 EDT
From: cbmvax!uunet!dino.ulowell.edu!gryphon (Coranth)
To: lojban-list@snark.thyrsus.com
Subject: generalization and another try...
Status: RO


coi. rodo

"Eric says:
> My claim is that the "mass term" presupposition is both a) formally bogus,
> (in the sense of making hash out of any attempt at deductive reasoning fromit)
> and b) conducive to unsanity.  That is, it leads to unpredictive beliefs and
> bad behavioral choices.

In formal logic, we have the declarator "there exists an X such that"
which is implemented in lojban by 'le' and 'lo' (don't start an argument
about the semantics of described existance vs actual existance please :-).

There is in formal logic the declarator "for all X ...", this appears to me
to be what is being described with "lei" and "loi". It makes explicit what
is trying to be done wioth formal reasoning, whereas the removal of group
terms leaves us with ONLY implicit grouping, which is much more 'bogus'
in terms of unpredictability and muddied thought processes.

[** Eric - this is not an attack on you personally, simply on your position. *]

As far as being 'conducive to insanity' and 'lead[ing] to ... bad behavioral
choices', I ask Eric to extrapolate and defend his position.

"

co'o. rodo

				mi'e korant.