Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by NEBULA.SYSTEMSZ.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Wed, 16 Feb 1994 14:21:45 -0500 Received: from odin.diku.dk by eli.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Wed, 16 Feb 1994 14:21:39 -0500 Received: from (localhost) by odin.diku.dk with SMTP id AA05332 (5.65c8/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Wed, 16 Feb 1994 20:21:33 +0100 Date: Wed, 16 Feb 1994 20:21:33 +0100 Message-Id: <199402161833.AA07823@access2.digex.net> Comment: Issues related to constructed languages Originator: conlang@diku.dk Errors-To: thorinn@diku.dk Reply-To: conlang@diku.dk Sender: conlang@diku.dk Version: 5.5 -- Copyright (c) 1991/92, Anastasios Kotsikonas From: Logical Language Group To: rauch-erik Subject: Re: Intro/AI/compound-nouns/concept-systems Status: RO X-Status: X-From-Space-Date: Ukn Feb 16 14:21:47 1994 X-From-Space-Address: lojbab@access.digex.net James Cooke Brown wrote: > >There are many criteria of 'primitiveness and this is > >one of them, the logician's. Another, perhaps more appropriate to an > >empirical science, is 'whatever carves reality at the joints' ... Doug Merrit writes: > And in *this* sense there will never be a universal set of primitives, > because in addition to whatever is hardwired by biology, there is a further > set that is based on both culture and experience, and those things are > primitives only in a subset of the human race. Ironically, I think this phrase is Whorf's, and if so, JCB is using it in a non-Whorfian and perhaps anti-Whorfian sense. The "joints" of which Whorf spoke were culturally based, but JCB talks of them as if they were hardwired by The Nature Of Things; i.e. physics and such, not hominoid biology, still less hominoid culture! Sidenote: I will no longer talk of "human rights", but of "hominoid rights". Hominoid are they born to Hominoidal Mitochondrial Eve. -- John Cowan sharing account for now e'osai ko sarji la lojban.