Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 14:38:24 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199712051938.OAA28977@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Lee Daniel Crocker Sender: Lojban list From: "Lee Daniel Crocker (none)" Organization: Piclab (http://www.piclab.com/) Subject: Re: psychotherapeutic lojban X-To: Lojban Group To: John Cowan In-Reply-To: <199712051725.JAA10238@red.colossus.net> from "And Rosta" at Dec 5, 97 05:19:40 pm X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 2258 X-From-Space-Date: Fri Dec 5 14:38:31 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU > In an ideal world, but is there really any chance that Lojban will > bring about any of this beneficial increase in logicality? > Would be prepared to say this to your peers & colleagues? I certainly have that hope. It is amazing to me the amount of useless information and pure idiom that can become second nature to all of us, and relish the idea of creating in a child's mind those same unthinking idomatic reactions that actually have some logical purpose. For example, a German 6-year old has no problem with the fine distinctions of noun case and gender in phrases like "aus dem Wasser" and "wahrend des Tages". They just "sound right" to him, and he can apply that knowledge to other cases without much thought. Such "rules" simply become idiomatic. Wouldn't it be great to have a language in which such rules actually had a logical purpose? So that a sentence that "didn't sound right" probably had some geniuine logical reason for not sounding right? I which we could teach a child about logical connectives in a language where he's already learned to use them naturally without necessarily understanding them, and in which understanding is not an exercise in fighting the language rules he's already accustomed to, as is the case in English? It sometimes takes a long time to explain to English speakers that "and" and "but" are logically equivalent. A native Lojban speaker wouldn't have to take any time to understand that--he's been using "and in contrast..." all his life. A Lojban native wouldn't have to spend a week understanding why {mi na nelci lo mlatu} applies to all cats--he would simply know that by idiom, and maybe later when it was explained to him, he'd say "of course", and move on. Even if it doesn't increase the use of logical thought, it can serve as a great auxilliary language for use where such logical thought is really needed--scientific and technical papers, contracts and treaties, stored information, etc. -- Lee Daniel Crocker "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC