From arosta@uclan.ac.uk Wed Sep 26 11:25:12 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: arosta@uclan.ac.uk X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_3_2_2); 26 Sep 2001 18:24:07 -0000 Received: (qmail 9336 invoked from network); 26 Sep 2001 18:24:07 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by 10.1.1.224 with QMQP; 26 Sep 2001 18:24:07 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO com1.uclan.ac.uk) (193.61.255.3) by mta3 with SMTP; 26 Sep 2001 18:25:11 -0000 Received: from gwise-gw1.uclan.ac.uk by com1.uclan.ac.uk with SMTP (Mailer); Wed, 26 Sep 2001 19:02:44 +0100 Received: from DI1-Message_Server by gwise-gw1.uclan.ac.uk with Novell_GroupWise; Wed, 26 Sep 2001 19:33:47 +0100 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 5.5.2 Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 19:33:17 +0100 To: jcowan Cc: lojban Subject: Re: [lojban] Set of answers encore Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline From: And Rosta X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 11075 >>> John Cowan 09/26/01 06:12pm >>> #And Rosta wrote: #> Lojban needs an unambiguous way of distinguishing between #>=20 #> 'intensional believe': x1 has the thought that x2 is the case # #That is jinvi. # # > and #>=20 #> 'extensional believe': The states of affairs that x1 believes obtain i= nclude x2 # #That is loi se jinvi be ko'a cu nibli ko'e, x1's beliefs entail that x2, #which could be zipfed as seljivyselni'i. I'm not convinced. At least, if you assembled a corpus of usages of English "believe" and other cognitive predicates, you'd find that very many would not be equivalent to strict 'intensional believe'. (E.g. "My mother believes I was alive on 22 Feb 1994" -- an example exaggerated so as to make the point obvious; or my earlier "John knows/believes that Bill is at home" as a more naturalistic example.) Or look at it this way: under the strict sense of of jinvi, it would be perfectly possible for A to ask B a question, and for B to readily and confidently answer it but with B not jinvi-ing the answer prior to giving it. (Cf. my "Should fines be imposed for masturbation in bed?" example, or "Was your son alive on 22 Feb 1994?") As for your rendering of 'extensional believe', it is a fair rendering of m= y gloss, but not really of the extensional sense of English 'believe' which means=20 something more like "loi se jinvi be ko'a are such that ko'a would jinvi ko'e if ko'a received the appropriate stimulus to make ko'a infer ko'e from the ca'a se jinvi be ko'a". This is usually what we mean when we talk about other people's beliefs -- we have little means to perceive actual thoughts of others or even ourselves, but we're strikingly good judges of gaugeing what people would think given the appropriate stimulus to trigger the thought. My inclination would be for jinvi to be 'extensional believe' and for a luj= vo of jinvi to be 'intensional believe'. All or most or many cognitive predica= tes will need an intensional/extensional counterpart.=20 My preferred solution would be to make the distinction on the x2, not on the selbri, but thinking about it, it does seem that we really are dealing with a selbri distinction. --And.