From @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Mon Jan 24 20:05:55 1994 Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by NEBULA.SYSTEMSZ.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Tue, 25 Jan 1994 01:08:09 -0500 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by eli.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Tue, 25 Jan 1994 01:08:03 -0500 Message-Id: <199401250608.AA06134@eli.CS.YALE.EDU> Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 0859; Tue, 25 Jan 94 01:05:26 EST Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 8140; Tue, 25 Jan 94 01:06:59 EDT Date: Tue, 25 Jan 1994 01:05:55 -0500 Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: TECH quantity abstracts: quote To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu Status: RO X-Status: The following out of context excerpt from soc.culture.scientists struck me as revealing of the nature of "ni" abstraction. "ni" is the metric that the respondent is referring to. We may not always be able to define the scale or the metric value, but "ni" existing in the language implies that every relationship have an at least theoretical quantifiability to that relationship. >># (2) That there is a metric which can be applied to any proposition >># which will compute a number telling you how close that proposition >># is to such objective truth. >> >>Your formulation is a straw man. There is no requirement that one be >>able to "compute a number telling you how close" a proposition is to >>objective truth in order to be able to tell that some propositions >>are closer to truth than others are. > > >It is no straw man. I did not require that you be able to actually >compute the number. I only required that there exist some metric -- >some objective standard as to what it means for one proposition to be >closer to objective truth than another proposition. To talk about one >thing being closer to objective truth than another presupposes that >there is a measure of closeness to objective truth. Without such a >measure all of your arguments on closeness to the truth are just >meaningless banter. Comments? lojbab ---- lojbab Note new address: lojbab@access.digex.net Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273