Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 15:19:07 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199802202019.PAA09694@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: Re: Summary so far on DJUNO X-To: a.rosta@UCLAN.AC.UK X-cc: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan X-UIDL: eca86e049f1a883b10e2994a141779f0 X-Mozilla-Status: 8011 X-From-Space-Date: Fri Feb 20 17:00:26 1998 X-From-Space-Address: - >1. Why are three distinct notions conflated into the x2 of jetnu? >They should have been separated out. As it stands, if "ko`a jetnu >ko`e", you don't know whether ko`e is a metaphysics, a standard, or >an epistemology. Okay, that works, but it seems a bit weird to have a >common or garden *gismu*, rather than an abstruse philosopher's >jargon lujvo, meaning "x2 is either a metaphysics, a standard or an >epistemology for the truth of x1"! 1) because I was unclear on the terminology when I wrote the place structure 2) because I was sloppy on the terminology when I wrote the place structure 3) because using a standard or epistemology in that position may or may not implicitly indicate a metaphysics. >2. Why does {jetnu} have a standard-or-metaphysics place and {mlatu} >not? It seems to me (at least at the moment, but mi jinvi gi`e na >birti) that {mlatu} has an equally good claim to such a place. I am presuming that whatever goes into that x2 (wihtout compromising terminology by further misusing it) is that which resolves the truth of x1 given the acknolwedgement that truth is or can be subjective. Recent discussion leads me to believe that the term for this is "metaphysics" and not "epistemology" with the difference being shown by djuno - that a metaphysics would be tied to the x2 whereas an epistemology is tied to x1. If I am now correctly understanding, then the use of a standard or an epsitemology in the x2 would be a metonymy or metaphor for a metaphysics. Since we have no clear idea how to state standards, epistemologies, and metaphysics's as sumti, I am not sure how we would tell the difference in any event. Although I would presume that "tu'a mi in the x2 would indicate that thespeaker is acknowledging that the standard of truth or perhaps the metaphysics being relied upon is perhaps subjective and limited only to the speaker. >> In "la djan. djuno X" there is no need to resolve "mi", nor to know who >> the speaker is, to understand the claim. Therefore the truth-belief of >> the speaker should be irrelevant to the truth of "la djan djuno X". > >I agree. I have been saying this all along. Indeed, it's exactly what >I say in the quoted stuff you were replying to. > >It is only you who somehow thinks that the true-x2 version of djuno >somehow peculiarily requires a place for the speaker. Somewhere in the discussion, this idea crept through to me as being what you guys were arguing about. I now have heard from both you and Jorge that this is NOT what you were taking issue with. On the other hand, what you are apparently taking issue with is the necessaity for x2 to be true (you and Jorge are claiming that it has to be while I am claiming that because truth can be subjective, that only le djuno can decide the basis for determining the truth of x2). In English, I will admit that we would not normally say "John knows X" unless we ourselves consider X to be true (the earlier statement of this may be how I got the idea that the non-x1 speaker was relevant to the truth standard). But if we acknolwedge the possibility that John may be using a metaphysics different than one we would choose, and perhaps even one that we cannot choose, then djuno would be useful for reporting John's perception of reality without committing with regard to our own. I no longer think that the true-x2 version requires a place for the speaker, but it does require a place, corresponding to jetnu, that ties to the x2 as the epistemology ties to the x1. I think that Cowan wrote indicating understanding and agreement with this within the last couple of days, and saying that djuno should then have had such an x5, but it doesn't. >So what we disagree on is on whether >--More-- > > ko`a jetyju`o ko`e [where jetyju`o = true-x2 version of djuno] > >has a truth-value that is as independent of the speaker as {ta >mlatu}. I certainly have no problem with there being a jetyju'o limited only to x2 beuing true. I also agree that in most cases, djuno would suffice >> But I also realize that in such media, the speaker cannot know who his reade >> will be, and it makes a lot better sense for the standard of djuno to be >> le djuno. > >What "standard of djuno" do you mean? The choice of x4 and the choice of metaphysics by which x2 is to be judged unless they are explicitly stated. Now the x4 is called out in the place structure, and hence can easily be used and specified, thereby restrciting the knowledge claim. As baselined, djuno has no way for a speaker to specify any metaphysical basis as being distinct from that which le djuno might choose. I think thatthe usefulness of all this comes out in the possibility of a lujvo jifydjuno (false-knowledge) which would be used for example to talk about things that the ancient Greeks "knew" (i.e. they would have reported it legitimately as "mi djuno" using typical epistemologies for the time), but which later learning has proven false because our view of reality has changed. If one can have false-knowledge, then one can also talk about true-knowledge, those truths held by the ancient Greeks that we still recognize today. But I worry about the *necessity* of lo se jifydjuno, for which the ancient Greeks used djuno, being false today even with all places specified, including a tense - ca le dzexelso that was true then, merely because our concept of reality has changed, WITHOUT being forced to recognize that two different realities are involved. I don't think (jinvi) that this applies to "ta mlatu" on its own provided that mlatu has not changed meaning. >OK. So if there are multiple realities each accessible only by a >--More-- >different observer, and the observer actually cognizes the reality, >then what you'd need is > > x1 cognizes that x2 is true of x3 by observer-dependent metaphysics x5 >with > epistemology x4 > >You might then define {djuno} as: > > x1 cognizes that x2 is true of x3, by a possibly x1-dependent > metaphysics, with epistemology x4 > >Now my question would be this: if x1 is in error - if x1 thinks that >x2 is true of x3, by a possibly x1-dependent metaphysics, with >epistemology x4, but x1 is in fact mistaken and x2 is, by the >metaphysics, not true, *would this count as djuno*? Going back to this, I think that djuno requires a metaphysics by which x1 could conclude that x2 is true. Since the metaphysics is not stated or even statable in the place structure, then it would not count as djuno only if there existed NO metaphysics consistent with the other elements. But we are now in the epicycles within epicycles, and I am not sure that I can conceive of an x1-dependent metaphysics that would generate truths that x1 would consider false (or flasehoods that x1 would consider true). lojbab