Return-Path: <@FINHUTC.HUT.FI:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET> Received: from FINHUTC.hut.fi by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi with smtp (Linux Smail3.1.28.1 #1) id m0rCuPW-00007FC; Wed, 30 Nov 94 21:09 EET Message-Id: Received: from FINHUTC.HUT.FI by FINHUTC.hut.fi (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 4473; Wed, 30 Nov 94 21:10:04 EET Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin MAILER@SEARN) by FINHUTC.HUT.FI (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 4471; Wed, 30 Nov 1994 21:10:04 +0200 Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin LISTSERV@SEARN) by SEARN.SUNET.SE (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 8681; Wed, 30 Nov 1994 20:06:24 +0100 Date: Wed, 30 Nov 1994 19:56:40 +0200 Reply-To: RRICCI@SCI.UNIROMA1.IT Sender: Lojban list From: Roberto Ricci Subject: Help! X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Veijo Vilva Content-Length: 1617 Lines: 27 Ok guys, you've won: I'm definitely lost!... The degree of my confusion hasn't stopped increasing since you started that interminable discussion on opacity-tranparence-veridicality-specificity-definiteness-.... I know I'm just a poor theoretical physicist, who spends his time trying to conceive a solution to the minor problem of the initial spacetime singularity in the Big-Bang model of the universe (not the universe of discourse, the *real* universe out there...:-), but don't you think that if your academical cluttering turns out to be almost unintelligible to people like me, it will hardly be of any use for "the man of the (electronic) street"? Keeping conceiving ingenuous counterexamples in order to destroy the faith in the communicability of thought among human beings has a lot to do with analytic philosophy and solipsism (nothing wrong with that, of course) but nothing at all with the goal of your Institute (at least if you're not masochist... :-) I'm *really* interested in the Lojban project: please let me understand what the hell you're talking about! If I don't understand, I cannot give my (poor) contribution either. But maybe your only interest is in building up a cryptic language for you initiates... Ciao Roberto PS - Trying to eliminate *any* ambiguity in communication by means of synctactical tools is (probably) a hopeless task... A provocative proposal: why don't we substitute most LE cmavo for a semantically neutral marker and let the context be the dirty work? As someone recalled, neither Chinese nor Russian have any article whatsoever but nevertheless they work fine! :-)