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Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 17:36:17 -0600
To: John Cowan <cowan@locke.ccil.org>
From: sbelknap@uic.edu (Steven M. Belknap)
Subject: fuzzy lojban
Cc: lojbab@access.digex.net, ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk
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John-

I am hard at work on my recommendations to you regarding incorporation of
linguistic fuzziness into lojban. As Bob and & suggested, I am focusing on
"what is needed" rather than "how to implement it". Is conn.txt the "logic
paper" you refer to in your last post?

I also have some very stupid questions.

1. Where exactly does it say in the BNF, YACC, Refgrammer, or cmavo
definitions that crisp logic is being used? I don't see it. Other than some
vague statement that lojban is based on predicate logic, I don't see
*anywhere* where the set membership and logic functions are specified.

2. Is the language specification as to logic membership function ambiguous
or              merely unspecified? Is this agnosticism in the great fuzzy
vs. crisp debate intentional?

3. How do we know that lojban logic isn't already fuzzy?

4. Is <ni> a fuzzifying cmavo? (I first asked this question on 26 May 1995
in my *first post* regarding fuzzy logic in lojban. This question has never
been answered!)

26 May 1995 Fuzzy Ship of Theseus
mi cusku dihe
>If there is no clear meaning for ni, perhaps implementing a rich syntax
>for describing fuzzy sets with ni would be amusing and/or useful.
>Perhaps the capability exists but is simply unrecognized.

5. Would there be any obvious problem to using Max, Min, etc as the logical
operators for the default set membership function of lojban? (they would
work in the expected way for both fuzzy and crisp logic)

The available material appears to be agnostic as to the fuzziness or
crispness of lojban grammer. The conn.txt paper could be interpreted as
specifying crisp membership functions in its description of truth tables,
etc. But there is no actual explicit description as to whether the set
membership function is two-valued (True/False) or continuous [0,1]. In
fact, set membership functions are not even mentioned anywhere, (except in
the MEX). I am writing directly to you because these are possibly very
stupid questions, and I've posted enough of those directly to the list
lately!

cohomihe la stivn


Steven M. Belknap, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and Medicine
University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria

email: sbelknap@uic.edu
Voice: 309/671-3403
Fax:   309/671-8413