Message-Id: <199602131508.KAA17906@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Tue, 13 Feb 1996 14:09:51 +0100
Reply-To: Goran Topic <topic@STUDENT.MATH.HR>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: Goran Topic <topic@STUDENT.MATH.HR>
Subject:      Re: PLI: gismu for <lojrfuzi>
To:         lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
Status: O
Content-Length: 1921

> I think it was Goran who pointed out that people who claim that a political
> system must be either capitalist or communist are committing a false
> dichotomy. Couldn't it be *in-between* the two somewhere? In fact, as Goran
> pointed out, most real political states *are* in-between. (See, Goran, *I*
> read your posts!) This is the sort of logical fallacy I see committed
> daily, even, I am sad to say, on this discussion group.

:) Sorry... wrong mail! I wouldn't touch politics with a mental stick.

> But lojbab prefers we avoid importation (should there be a language
> tariff?), so tonight I tried again to find a gismu for things
> Zoroastrian/discrete/distinct, and this time hit paydirt (maybe). What
> about <kantu>!!! But we need to use <ka>, thus suggesting "quantized" as
> opposed to "quantum". So we have our antonymal buddy pair:

selkantu is quantized. kamkantu is quantumness.

Also, I don't know if this is any good, maybe you could use selkle,
divided into classes. Because, if you say "It hurts like 3 on 10-valued
scale", you are not dealing with quants of pain, but much larger units
(I don't think anybody has defined a quant of pain yet... But then I am
no physician. Maybe minimal impulse capable of getting from the receptor
to the brain?). What you are doing is translating a continuous scale
into a discreet one, i.e. classifying the data. There are very few
things we can measure on a quantum scale (does this count as a pun?).

So, I think you basically have three concepts:

1. two-valued logic corresponds to Aristotle's (if this is what you call
   Zoroastrian, OK, I don't know what it is)
2. discrete multi-valued logic (a simplification of fuzzy logic for
   human use), and
3. continuous logic which nobody can really use, because we can't
   calculate, or even measure things to infinite precision (which is
   what a continuity of scale inspires in my mind)

co'o mi'e. goran.