Message-Id: <m0owzQq-0000PYC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Tue, 9 Nov 1993 15:05:00 EST
Reply-To:     Jorge LLambias <jorge%PHYAST.PITT.EDU@FINHUTC.hut.fi>
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@FINHUTC.hut.fi>
From:         Jorge LLambias <jorge%PHYAST.PITT.EDU@FINHUTC.hut.fi>
Subject:      Re: more Eaton, anyone?
To:           Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 1607
Lines: 42

la lojbab cusku di'e

> I'm sure that I did respond re the probability in pacna but maybe only to
> clarify the gismu list.

I must have missed it.

> The intent is that one field allows the distinction between
> hope (which has some expectation of success ranging up to certainty) from
> wish (which has a very low to nil expectation of success.

The only distinction I see is that an event that is known not to have
happened, can be wished to have happened, but not hoped. If the event has
any non-zero chance of occuring (or having occured) then there is little
difference in wishing or hoping for it.

> In other words
> it was a way yot avoid adding a word for "expect" in one instance, at a time
> when we were facing the rabid gismu minimalists.

But this doesn't give a word for "expect". "Hope" says that the hoper
wants the event to happen. One can expect an event even if one hopes
it doesn't happen. "I hope it doesn't rain tomorrow, but I expect it will."
If I toss a fair coin, I expect to get heads half of the time, but
usually I'm totally unconcerned about the outcome, I don't "hope" to
get a head with 50% probability. I won't be disappointed if I don't
get a head. I'm disappointed when something that I hoped would happen
doesn't.

I think "hope" and "wish" are very close. They differ only in that in
English you can't hope that something hadn't happened. For future or
unknown events they are more or less equivalent. "Expect" is very
different.


> re platu.

Yes, after some more thinking (almost three minutes), I agree that
the planner is more or less implied.


co'o mi'e xorxes