Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 13:29:19 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199802131829.NAA07243@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: Re: Summary so far on DJUNO X-To: jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR X-cc: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan X-UIDL: ad6a57da122acbeb7a2c0c9af9f5b387 X-Mozilla-Status: 8011 X-From-Space-Date: Tue Feb 17 10:13:08 1998 X-From-Space-Address: - >>In English, however, subjective context is not the default, whereas >>in Lojban it is. >What????? Is that part of the baseline? Since the x4 of djuno is tied to the x1, and not to anyone else (there being no place for the speaker in the (default - non BAId) place structure, and multiple epistemologies can generate different knowledge and even contradictory knowledge/truths, subjectivity does indeed seem to be the default. That we make an explicit distinction between fatci and jetnu which also brings in a form of subjectivity, we recogbnize that subjective truth is possible. The problem is that if one accpets subjectivity as possible then it necessarily becomes a default because you cannot assume that anyone else will necessarily hold the same truths/accept the same epistemologies as you. >Lojbab: >>djuno refers to the mental state of another, and hence I can report that >mental >>state without reference to my own mental state regarding the same subject. > >If that were the case, then {djuno} should be translated as "is convinced" >and not as "knows", which means something else. Given the baseline, I cannot change the keyword even if i wanted to. I am uncertain whether I am allowed to add this as a parallel/alternate reading in the place structure as a synonym. I was doing so on occassion while working on the dictionary before, adding in extra English words that would enable them to show up in the English side of the dictionary using the KWIC concept that the dictionary is based on. Given that you and others seem to think that "is convinced" would be a meaning change, I am not sure such an unqualified synonym addition is permitted without an explanatory note indicating controversy Still, the synonyms given in the place structures are also not rteally definitional, since they indicate a range of meanings (e.g. costly/expensive/dear for kargu where we also have dirba = dear/precious/darling). I'll have to consider this carefully, and I will err on teh side of caution. Indeed, maybe it is necessary regardless of whether I add in more synonyms, that I document in the dictionary that the meaning of djuno is controversial in its subtleties. At some point it miight be worth debating what we mean by baselining the gismu list - the sense has never excluded adding clarifications, but I never wrote the gismu list intending that any aspects of semantics be frozen. I might even have to put it to the membership, especially since at the rate things are going, we won't have the dictionary out before LogFest if only for financial reasons. >>that we assume that our own >>menatla state has any relevance to reporting another's mental state. > >Our mental state is relevant to reporting anything at all. To that extent >it is relevant to reporting another's mental state or another's redness, >for example. And YOU are asking ME why Lojban is inherently subjective by default? Taking this argument to the ultimate, the speaker's mental state is the ONLY thing relevant. If my menatl state attributes redness to you than you are red! There is no logic, because the rules of logic are whatever I want them to be. Humpty Dumpty rules all. The only thing I think MY mental state should have to do with what la xorxes djuno, is that I should be able to report that la xorxes finds le ve djuno a suitable epistemology for knowing le se djuno. le se djuno is its own abstraction, with its own prenex, and need have no tie to my mneatl word at all, only to la xorxes. >Plese exclude me from that "we". I have already said that I have >--More-- >found {fatci} quite useful, and I have seen several others use it too. People have used it, but wther they have used it in accordance with the baseline definition is unclear. If there is ANY debate as to the truth of a proposition possible, under any epistemology or metaphysics, then it is not a fatci. Since you seem to inject mental states into all assertions then nothing imaginable can be false. I think this debate is getting nowhere. lojbab