Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 16:06:31 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199802172106.QAA28215@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: Re: more epistemic perversity X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan X-UIDL: 7f4a2868c4aedf8e7f85f750bbf5dadd X-Mozilla-Status: 8011 X-From-Space-Date: Wed Feb 18 16:02:22 1998 X-From-Space-Address: - > la djan djuno le du'u mi rirni pa da kei fo le nu senva > John knows that I have only one child because he had a dream. > >It's definitely not how I would say it. The kidnap victims mother knows her child is still alive on the basis of her dreams. >>Note that the other end of the ju'o scale is "impossibility" - this points >>to the "certainty" there as being something other than "emotionally >>convinced that". > >I'm still confused as to why you think {birti} has to do only with >emotions. Is this another one of your intentions that didn't make >it explicitly into the gi'uste? It has to do with the division of semantic space that I used as the basis for deciding on which gismu to include, and what their place structures should be. No this is not in the gismu list, which was originally written SOLELY as an input file for LogFlash. There was not sufficient space to get into semantic discussions, and it was not considered that semantics was going to be prescribed by the baseline. But since people seem to be thinking that the paritcular English words I chose are heavily frought with semantic import, as opposed to merely pointing the direction towards the meaning and sevring as memory hooks, then my original intent becomes lost in the non-documentation and has less status than the words I (rather haphazardly) chose. My only altrernative is to speak up strongly as to what my intent was when someone asks about semantics, but what the Lojban will come to mean now seems likely to be relatively independent of that intent. In this case (birti), I look at the contrast with djuno and krici, which I consoider to be the closest words, semantically. djuno is justified, and true-to-the-knower, on the basis of some identifiable epistemology. krici is pure belief, whether or not and indeed perhaps in spite of evidence. Now what is a claim of certaint y? is it just a claim of strong belief? If so, there would be little justification for having it in the gismu li st. But there is nothing in the place structure that suggests any other meaning, and indeed I could not think of a usage for certainty (using only the two places and dependent only on them) that meant something other than a very strong belief. belief, on the other hand, has two meanings - one relating to what we think th true based on all the epistemological bases that we have available to us, but independent of actual truth. This is most akin to "certinty". The other definition of belief commonly ised is that associated with religious belief, which is a kind of epistemology in itself - a combination of internal experiences and outside sources. A synonym used mostly in religious contexts is "faith", but we have beliefs other than those associated with religion. The commonalty of beliefs is that they are held whether or not, and ofte n in spite of countering evidence. Thus, I intended that krici meant this sort of belief. I think that I did a better job of conveying this intent wit h krici than with the other words. As a shorthand for the intended comparison and contrast of meanings I am using here, I took advantage of earlier thesaurus work, especially by Veijo, and the gismu have a bunch of "cf." notes added to indicate that comparison with other gismu are needed to determine meaning. But note that krici and birti both refer to internal states independent of evidence. No one can know another's internal state, and internal states are largely colored by emotion. I have used this argument before in regards to the se'i/se'inai, and empathy attitudinals. In particular, I don;t t hink that we would ever say that someone was certain of something if they denied it. So birti seems by implication to be at the extreme of an internal state and hence mostly emotive. We can on the other hand sometimes attribute belief to someone on the basis of external evidence - we attroibute certain beliefs to people who call themselves "Christians" without having access to their internal states. We also can believe in contradictory things, while i don't think we can be certain of contradictory things. Sokrici is again distinguished from some purely internal and emotively dominated state. But krici, being indpendent of evidence, is still a subjective determination on the part of le krici. Getting back to djuno - it differs from both birti and krici in that it has an x4 epistemology. That is its primary distinction in terms of place structure - thus the epistemology must be important metaphsyically to its definition. It is still an internal state, but now we ahve to provide some explicit sense of the basis for the knowledge. "Knowing" is usually seen as being as strong as "certainty", so the contrast is primarily between birti and djuno - krici ends up being just another epistemology that might go in the x4. But knowing is still an internal state albeit one that has the judgement associate with attributing a basis to that knowledge. Now if George says "I know X", how does John report this. he can say that "George says that he knows X". But if knowledge is an internal state not judgea ble by others, then "george says that he knows X, b ut he doesn't" means that we are accusing George of lying about his internal state. If George is presumed to be telling the truth about his internal state then John should be able to report this fact as "George knows X". But as I understand it, you would have John's opinion/presumption/knowledge somehow enter into the definition of djuno, without any justification based on t heplace structure - so that John could not say "George knows X" unless John also can say "I know X" or at least "I assume X" whioch in the case of djuno could be stated in the x4 of John's claim of self-knolwedge. Your argument seems to be str You have cited various wording choices as the basis for your belief about the meaning of djuno, but those choices were made for other r easons. For example the word "fact" used to describe x2 has nothing to do with fatci, but is a codeword for "you need to put a du'u abstraction in here". I would not use "proposition" which you might consider the logically correct term for a du'u because it is longer, and most people don't know what it means anyway - but they accept that fact can include factoids and other data that are still disputable in English. You have also largely based your case on arguments asosciated with objective facts - things that indeed most people can agree are true such as numbers of children and dates of armistices. BUt people use the word "know" for other things that are not OBJECTIVELY knowable. Whether there is a God, where someone loves someone else. These are things that we say we "know", and they are things that we sometime s say that other people "know", though I agree that we are more likely to couch the statement in terms of "believe" if indeed we ourselves do not share the presumption of truth. But that sense of "believe" do esn't apply to krici, which is a different and particular kind of belief. - one which is independent of evidence. jinvi comes in here at this point, though it was added mostly to cover the other sense of English "think" from "pensi". The key word used here was "opine", and opinions are generally held on some basis, as consrasted with krici which need not. But opinions are restricted to areas that are subjective, where truth is not agreed upon univerdsally even using th e same bassi. So I do not see jinvi contrasted with djuno - that is not where it entered the language, and not how it is defined. >>butpostmodernists and biblical literalists do not presume that all >>knowledge is objective (or that only objective truth can be called >"knowable"), >>and I am suyre that there are other classes of people who hold to >subjectivity >>as the default assumption. > >But those people don't call that "knowledge" opinions! They don't >say: "I think that it will rain, therefore I know that it will rain by my >opinion". But they might say "I know it will rain." without anyy qualification. And if you ask them how they know, they will sna answer you. The English word "know" does not require or imply a "by X", but djuno does. But people use the English word know as if it had such a requirement, because they will be able to accept the question "how?" as meaningful, I think in all cases. This is not the case for "believe" or "be certain", where "how?" or "why?" are not always meaningful. >>My opinions are knolwedge iff I put jinvi in the x4. > >That's what you keep claiming, but that doesn't follow from the gi'uste >definition of {djuno}. How does it not follow? If I claim to know it, and the basis for my claim is subjective jusgement about the evidence then, and jinvi is indicated to be a kind of epistemology, then there is no reason why it cannot be so stated. Your arguments seem to be stated based on a speaker other-than le djuno, whose own opinion as to truth is somehow relevant. But there is no basis for such an assumption in the gismu list definition either. >> But then maybe astrophsyics isn't your field, since most >>astrophysical knowledge is quite subjective,beimg based on subjective human >>observations, and interpretations of observations by subjective humans >basing >>their interpretations on subjective human theories. > >I don't have anything against subjective human theories. You make >the strangest extrapolations. The "perfect" scientist according to the scientific method, never pr esumes that anything is "true", only that it has not been proven false. If you require the presumption of truth, then no such scientist can ever use djuno , because the scientist is unwilling to make such a presumption. >We already went through this before. Of course people make new discoveries. >People can recognize that what was once believed to be true no longer is >so recognized. Or what some people regard as true others don't. So what? I don't think that this can work, especially in a language without mandatory tense, for which tensed statements thus have strong meaning. I can say mi djuno le du'u so da cu plini le solri and provided that no new planets are discovered during my life, this will be true throughout my life after 4th grade when I first learned this factoid. I think it is reasonably safe to say that most others consider the sa me to be true (barring recent discoveries that may indicate planet-like objects beyond Pluto). So most people would say la lojbab djuno le du'u so da cu plini le solri After I die, people will be able to report this as la lojbab pu djuno le du'u so da cu plini le solri because after I die, la lojbab ca djuno noda barring consideration of an afterlife. But you are claiming that if by some chance after I die that a tenth planet is discovered, that la lojbab pu djuno le du'u so da cu plini le solri somehow becomes false You would apparently have to relegate my former knowledge to krici, or jinvi, or birti or something else, even though no one while I was alive would say that this was necessary. I submit that the meaning of la lojbab pu djuno le du'u so da cu plini le solri should not change depending on externalities such as what some peop le may possibly find out at some future time. It is a report on what my internal state was at the time implied by pu, including the epistemology on which I based that state. You seem to think otherwise. >>I would rather be able to use "djuno" for scientific discussions, but your >>definition would require me to use "jinvi". > >Nope. "My" definition would let you use {djuno} where you use "know" >in those scientific discussions. But not after the fact, when some new knolwedge unrelated to the orig inal knower or to his epistemology comes into play. lojbab ---- lojbab lojbab@access.digex.net Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: ftp.access.digex.net /pub/access/lojbab or see Lojban WWW Server: href="http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/" Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.