Message-Id: <199602081234.OAA24137@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Thu, 8 Feb 1996 07:07:48 -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: fuzzy logic proposals
To:         jlk@NETCOM.COM
Cc:         lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
Content-Length: 933
Lines: 18

The argument that Cowan's proposal is "idiomatic" loses me.  Of course it
is "idiomatic" - that is what "convention" means.  We have an expression
set that is plausible in the language and which has no well-defined meaning,
nor is it at all in use, so we define it to mean something useful to some
people.

As to whether "idiomatic" usage is appropriate in the logical portions of the
language - well scalar negation isn't the strongly truth-functional
logical portiuon of the language (though perhaps, Cowan intends that th
convention be used on ja'a as well as je'a).

But if anything, the recent discussion should have made clear that most of
what we call logic is a matter of convention.  We have two contradictory
assumptions as to what "ro" might mean, and djer has observed that math
uses on and pc has observed that logicians use another.  Whatever gets
decided is there a "convention" and hence in a sense an idiom.

lojbab