From LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu Fri Feb 17 21:06:33 1995 Message-Id: <199502180206.AA20067@nfs1.digex.net> Date: Fri Feb 17 21:06:33 1995 From: ucleaar Subject: Re: Not an atom of meaning in it (was: replies, etc.) 17 Feb 95 10:49:53 EST.) <199502171549.AA07565@access2.digex.net> John: > > I assume that Lojban is supposed to translate in pred calc and that that > > is one of its guiding ideas. You can translate {pa} simply as "1", while > > in contrast, {Q-kau} translates in a much more complex way. > Well, actually it's not so simple. The translation of "pa" as a quantifier > is something like "Ex Ay F(y) => x=y", which is hardly atomic. When you > need "pa" as a number, "li pa", it's even worse, and you have to drag in > one of various set theories which explain what a number is: "lo'i pamei" > with Cantor (and Jim Carter), or something else for von Neumann set theory. > Ugly. Perhaps you're asking too much of these translations. After all, we don't expect pred logic to define "gerku": the meaning of {gerku} for this sort of translation is an unanalysed predicate gerku(). "pa" as in "li pa" can be treated as an individual, a constant, for the purposes of this translation. As for "pa" as quantifier, we could translate all the cardinal numbers in {PA da poi broda} as: Ex set(x), cardinality(x,n) Ay member(y,x) -> broda(y) --- And