Message-Id: <199602061053.MAA08623@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Tue, 6 Feb 1996 05:53:07 -0500
Reply-To: Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Subject:      Re: tech: logic matters
To: Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 1482
Lines: 28

I may be missing soething.  In pc's clarification, he said that logic does
distinguish between "every" and "any", and that good logical usage supports
this distinction.  But that logicians are sloppy too and use "all" to mean
"every" when it is really ambiguous in English.

The problem is that "ro" is defined as English "all" and hence is currently
ambiguous.  It seems clear to me that at the very least the keyowrd for
"ro" should either be "every" or "any", and I'll go along with either,
presumably  "every" since that is what pc says has been the tradition in
Loglan, is the most useful in natlang, etc.

Unless the juxtaposition of "any" and"every" into one word "all" is a
semantics problem ONLY in English, then I fear that a failure to have
a discrete cmavo formulation of the "any" meaning will cause "ro"
to continually be misunderstod by new learners.

So, since this issue probably dates back that far, pc, what dd the Sanskrit
logicians mean by "all", what does Chinese logic use to make the
distinction, etc.  If the problems is truly English-only or European only,
then we may be able to get by by careful translation.  But I would hesitate to
have our stuff trnalsted into rare or different languages like Georgian,
Chinese, or Swahili knowing that this kind of confusion exists in the English
words being used to describe the language.

(Either that or Cowan has to be EXTREMELY careful how he words the logic paper
and the MEX paper in discussing "ro")

lojbab