Message-Id: <199602080913.EAA25601@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Thu, 8 Feb 1996 00:41:10 -0800
Reply-To: Gerald Koenig <jlk@NETCOM.COM>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: Gerald Koenig <jlk@NETCOM.COM>
Subject:      Re: tech: logic matters
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Status: OR
Content-Length: 2525

pc quotes lojbab:
>
>lojbab:
>The problem is that "ro" is defined as English "all" and hence is currently
>ambiguous.
>pc:
>Actually, _ro_ is defined as the universal affirmative quantifier of
>logic and has been since 1955 (through several changes of spelling),
>"all" is just the keyword we use and we should use it with all the
>caution we should by now have learned to apply to keywords.  So the
>problem with English  (which has analogs, if not perfect parallels, in
>all sorts of other languages) is not really a problem (but, yes, "every"
>would have been a better keyword -- except that it would have
>immediately sent folks off in quest of "any," which, as I keep
>reminding any who read what I say, we already have covered).
>Sanskrit and Chinese logics go down different paths, being much
>more intensional from the beginning.  But a corresponding problem
>arises and gets solved in about the same way (under translation).
>
>Carter (on lojbab)
>>having "ro" NOT have existential import (any?) and rosu'o
>> be the version with existentiual import (every?)
>Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes (10 yesses outweigh one no :-)
>Definitely we need both.  To my mind, the more "logical" choice is to
>have "ro"
>mean "any" without existential import, while "rosu'o" clearly does explicitly
>have the additional "at least one" meaning, for existential import.


>pc:

>Well, by the principle of parity, 10 yeses reduce to five noes which
>reduce to a single -- and remarkably sensible, for Carter -- no.  We
>have both and have had since slightly after Carter wandered on the
>scene and both are _ro_.  Carter is, admittedly, about the only person
>I know who really wants an importless _ro_, since he probably has a
>language just for discussing an empty universe -- and, indeed, one
>for the inhabitants of that universe to speak.

Well, as one who has sat in Carter's computer den, I found it far from
an empty universe, although it did have a fair amount of 80 grit
sandpaper .  And I think he is in fairly good company with the
mathematical community which likes the importless ro, as in "Ro
trespassers will be prosecuted"

This is an example of an ad hominum argument which carries no logical
weight with me, and a good argument  for the committee for language
design, (CLD) where personal differences could be resolved and business
transacted.

By the way, the CLD grew out of the ro broda/ro lo broda thread, there
was no intent on my part to misrepresent the subject. I'm not into false
advertising.

dje