Message-Id: <199509130010.UAA21730@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Tue, 12 Sep 1995 22:18:57 GMT
Reply-To: ia@stryx.demon.co.uk
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu>
From: Iain Alexander <ia@stryx.demon.co.uk>
Subject:      Culture gap
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Status: OR

It is becoming apparent that there are different cultures
with regard to logic.

PC comes from the culture of Pure Logic, where e.g. certain
sets are implicitly assumed to be non-empty, and numeric
quantifiers are handled in a way which makes them commute,
but doesn't allow them to be expanded independently.

I come from the culture of Applied Logic, where any set may
be empty, and numeric quantifiers do not commute.

Unfortunately, it may not be easy to play the usual Lojban
trick and allow both cultures to coexist, since logic is so
fundamental to the structure and purpose of the language.
The best hope at the moment seems to be that we might agree
on ways of using combinations of PA to make our different
prejudices explicit.

Technical details of the known problems and some potential
solutions are in a separate post.  If anyone can suggest
another, perhaps metalinguistic, way of allowing our
conflicting views, of how best to express the underlying
logic, to coexist, I'd be pleased to hear it.
--
Iain Alexander                    ia@stryx.demon.co.uk
                    I.Alexander@bra0125.wins.icl.co.uk