Return-Path: <@segate.sunet.se:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET> Received: from segate.sunet.se by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi with smtp (Linux Smail3.1.28.1 #1) id m0ssfPw-0000ZLC; Wed, 13 Sep 95 03:11 EET DST Message-Id: Received: from segate.sunet.se by segate.sunet.se (LSMTP for OpenVMS v0.1a) with SMTP id 8E0E9A3E ; Wed, 13 Sep 1995 1:56:07 +0200 Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 22:18:57 GMT Reply-To: ia@stryx.demon.co.uk Sender: Lojban list From: Iain Alexander Subject: Culture gap X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Veijo Vilva Content-Length: 1124 Lines: 26 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