From LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Sat Mar 6 22:54:19 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI Received: (qmail 22415 invoked from network); 31 Aug 1997 11:12:01 -0000 Received: from segate.sunet.se (192.36.125.6) by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi with SMTP; 31 Aug 1997 11:12:01 -0000 Received: from segate.sunet.se by SEGATE.SUNET.SE (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <5.E8AA53B5@SEGATE.SUNET.SE>; Sun, 31 Aug 1997 13:11:51 +0100 Date: Sun, 31 Aug 1997 07:11:10 -0400 Reply-To: John Hodges Sender: Lojban list From: John Hodges Subject: Tenses for time travel? X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Veijo Vilva Content-Length: 1288 Lines: 25 Message-ID: Greetings- I wrote about my trip to Lojfest, including commentary on conlangs in science fiction and a little about Lojban in particular, and posted it to the list of our local science fiction club. I'm getting some interest from a couple of people about buying the textbook when it comes out. One friend in particular is interested about a claim I made, which I repeated from some Lojban intro literature I had, that the Lojban tense system was capable of handling the complications introduced by Relativity and by time travel. I have at least one, maybe two, printed copies of the "Imaginary Journeys" paper, though they are from several years ago. I have the draft textbook chapter on disk. The guy has web access, I included the Lojban website (and KLI, and several other sites) in my note; BUT, I was wondering if somewhere there may be a paper that addresses this question in more detail, more directly. Could anyone give me more info, specifically on how the Lojban tense system could be used to deal with time travel, and the complex plots that might arise in a story about same? My friend said, "Once you get several layers (of travel, changed timelines, etc.) English just loses it." Much thanks- John B. Hodges, jbhodges@usit.net Do Justice, Love Mercy, and Be Irreverent.