From xod@sixgirls.org Thu Mar 22 14:57:45 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: xod@shiva.sixgirls.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_0_4); 22 Mar 2001 22:57:44 -0000 Received: (qmail 73867 invoked from network); 22 Mar 2001 22:57:43 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by l8.egroups.com with QMQP; 22 Mar 2001 22:57:43 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO shiva.sixgirls.org) (206.252.141.232) by mta2 with SMTP; 22 Mar 2001 22:57:42 -0000 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by shiva.sixgirls.org (8.11.0/8.11.1) with ESMTP id f2MMwpS09422 for ; Thu, 22 Mar 2001 17:58:51 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 17:58:51 -0500 (EST) To: Subject: krici Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: Invent Yourself X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 6131 How different would this discussion have been in Lojban? We've come to the final phase of the discussion, where the word "evidence" must now be analyzed. Naturally, English impedes us from understanding. English words are not as well defined as gismu places are. Specifically, the word "evidence" has two usages. Usage one is the informational basis for a belief. (velji'i?) Usage two is the quality of the informational basis for a belief. (jezvelji'i?) This is invoked chiefly when criticising the evidence of another. People will say "you have no evidence for that"; a sentence which, using usage one reads "the evidence you are using has insufficient quality". The evidence is there. Something convinces the believer. But the skeptic is not convinced by that evidence; they feel it has no quality. In English, they will often apply the second usage and assert that the believer has no evidence. The difference can also be resolved with the revelation of tacit subjectivity. The skeptic, in an E-prime mood, can better say "the evidence you are using has insufficient quality TO ME". In these discussions, we must distinguish the question of "What is your evidence -- what convinced YOU of this?", from "What is the evidence that you can provide that is up to MY standards?". Furthermore, there is a distracting conflation occurring. Let me sketch it using the example of a scientist who is deeply religious. He uses rigorous standards of evidence in his work, and possibly in his daily life, but may make an exception when dealing with religious issues. Let's assume he believes a certain statement because it is found in his scripture. The evidence for his belief of the statement is the sentence in the scripture! ("Why do I believe that? Because the Bible tells me so!") This issue is different from the question of why he takes that as sufficient evidence; why his standards of evidence (the QUALITY of evidence) are so low or so exceptional in this case! Evidence means evidence for a particular belief; not a rigorous defense of ones entire belief system, or a psychoanalysis of the person's motivations and the resolution of apparent contradictions of character! To summarize the distracting conflation: the question of WHAT constitutes evidence for a certain individual is different from the question of WHY that person chooses to allow it to constitute valid evidence! Therefore I restate: No belief is ever held without something existing as evidence in the mind of the believer, whether or not this piece of evidence is acceptable to any other human being. And I re-issue my challenge: Show me a case of somebody believing something without evidence according to the first usage, not the second. ----- "The trees are green, since green is good for the eyes". I agreed with him, and added, that God had created cattle, since beef soups strengthen man; that he created the donkey, so that it might give man something with which to compare himself; and he had created man, to eat beef soup and not be a donkey.