From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Sat Jul 25 06:44:20 2009 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Sat, 25 Jul 2009 06:44:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1MUhXv-0007Oe-Bh for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Sat, 25 Jul 2009 06:44:19 -0700 Received: from web81304.mail.mud.yahoo.com ([68.142.199.120]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with smtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1MUhXp-0007Ne-0a for lojban-list@lojban.org; Sat, 25 Jul 2009 06:44:18 -0700 Received: (qmail 81776 invoked by uid 60001); 25 Jul 2009 13:44:06 -0000 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=yahoo.com; s=s1024; t=1248529446; bh=IzzjbcIL/cAp+LUyuJkSZdzJfPBlQ1cXPv9uQd/BoU4=; h=Message-ID:X-YMail-OSG:Received:X-Mailer:References:Date:From:Subject:To:In-Reply-To:MIME-Version:Content-Type; b=SWhrGNu7m0Iw6SL5m4emIoA1l7ukhQiYKezM8wc+z6i0AAAUqKkur44uARLe8Qb5PlD4hdIZJdjC3QTsddwWWIfZho098sAndAwJOKMIUMOVKEsTFRyUewrseLiGcbPTncQy1gxJRicVOMewb35x6fR1zUuHI+gfTArKoQdJWxI= DomainKey-Signature:a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=yahoo.com; h=Message-ID:X-YMail-OSG:Received:X-Mailer:References:Date:From:Subject:To:In-Reply-To:MIME-Version:Content-Type; b=C8kSr/InroByW8CvXySx/cCsSRwyPsBIvAYvsLimICyx5KHuq+tMW6ICw3RsErOZGUbBB27nEPdvwORlIM9ciIaXmMcGanIt10HWNtNFq9ODqyuDgYc4fFbsfPQ6LriOmRHNT9+Edr1acynenXH35eoYdeE90lpFSU1pBHTz6Q8=; Message-ID: <228475.79712.qm@web81304.mail.mud.yahoo.com> X-YMail-OSG: 7588RBQVM1lF7FAfi0RP9pduC4b3CEHEc0.XN_WXhjZ1IXUw2b8Xpk_wRXkjp6zc1Nhyu9JsLTsZY2gMK3CWMrTsgvhPSk6AyaIlhtSJg68PYPTlzxDzmtqM_2FaEm7p_U91XGmm524i8GUoL_1.Bi36WNcdEToit_4U_s.ka2_LslLCfBRiLJ0LwxWEXn0GcZbNF21YEmwSMmb2r57GpZebtg3VesWfkHluslOmN5WPPFCdmHlfu5z0iaUjLG.x2zmPWnVYP10C53i8Ycu1u3RYac2VOjmox0Ec.BzK6R8mdDZye3II6DyMXDrmwUlGsnUsbpIV1wu12gYtPi3KfPY_Gofk0Q1aIG8aVG2l Received: from [173.30.132.184] by web81304.mail.mud.yahoo.com via HTTP; Sat, 25 Jul 2009 06:44:05 PDT X-Mailer: YahooMailRC/1357.22 YahooMailWebService/0.7.289.10 References: <126025.43169.qm@web50408.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2009 06:44:05 -0700 (PDT) From: John E Clifford Subject: [lojban] Re: Philosophical differences. To: lojban-list@lojban.org In-Reply-To: <126025.43169.qm@web50408.mail.re2.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="0-859549897-1248529445=:79712" X-archive-position: 15799 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: kali9putra@yahoo.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list --0-859549897-1248529445=:79712 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Aside from being mildly ticked off by the use of 'philosophical' to describe obviously trivial arguments about how to say what or what words ought to be in the gismu list (real philosophical arguments are trivial, of course, but never look that way), I have little to add to this discussion except to mention (or stress) a couple of points; the substantive issues have been dealt with well by various hands. But 1) the strict inflexibility of the baseline, insofar as it depends upon people not wanting to relearn or scrap what they have worked so hard for, is on weak ground: English changes much faster -- and often more dramatically -- than Lojban could ever hope to (it's a function of having a billion speakers, give or take), yet no on complains or gives up trying to learn it: if the rewards are great enough, people will endure all manner of obstacles and, of course, a constant exposure to the living language actually makes the changes almost invisible (why we have lexicographers and grammarian, after all). But the baseline is not mainly based on this need, so that doesn't really matter (nor is it as inflexible as some would portray it). 2) Is xorlo still actually a matter of controversy? I thought we had long ago decided to leave it as xorxes described it and let the array of semantic anomolies that entailed (no worse than those for English in similar situations -- though not much better either) stand. I would assume that LoCCan 3 would take up the matter again, with less dregs of JCB to plow through. 3) I like the idea someone (sorry, I can't check back while I'm typing) put forward that, if a lujvo got popular, we would drop rafsi out of it at a great rate. This seems a rather likely (or, at least, useful) solution for avoiding the Zipf's wall, that affects all fixed source-vocabulary languages. Looking forward to this solutions is also a good mindset for avoiding various kinds of literalism in constructing tanru and lujvo (and circumventing the arguments about whether it is the 4th or 5th place of barfi that is needed -- or frabi rather than barfi altogether) 4) Lojban is to give a speakable Loglan. Well, Loglan was always speakable -- indeed, spoken -- through its many transformations (not really all that bad, for the most part) and, of course, it is still and open question whether anybody can (never mind does) speak (real time, not written with indefinite amounts of appeal to machine aids) the official Lojban to convey what they intended according to the natural semantics that goes with the parse trees. 5) The split branches idea, which comes up from time to time, is what is known in British politics as 'entryism,' joining in the common cause with the intention of killing the original and taking over. Rather than doing that sort of thing under the guise of just 'a variant of Lojban' (Lojbanido as it were), come out and say you are working on LoCCan 3 while temporarily using Lojban words for convenience; the two will not eventually recoalesce. ________________________________ Fr om: Lindar Greenwood To: lojban-list@lojban.org Sent: Monday, July 20, 2009 7:46:55 AM Subject: [lojban] Philosophical differences. I have spoken at great length with various people that frequent the Lojban IRC channel, and it has been recommended that I draft out issues that I have with various things in Lojban (which have been so adequately described by broca as "not obvious mistakes, but rather philosophical differences"). Before anybody jumps down my throat, the whole "baseline" speech, and every other counter-argument to date, has been made about why absolutely nothing must be changed and the gismu list is handed down from the very gods themselves. I understand that gismu space is not meant to cover absolutely every concept known to man. That being said, I would like to express my issues with a few words, and I welcome responses which include either supporting statements or reasons (other than the ones previously mentioned) why I may just be confused/misguided/wrong/misunderstanding things/etc. 1. vlagi It does not make sense to have a word which specifically refers to the external female genitalia when we have "plibu". fetplibu and nakplibu are perfectly adequate, in my opinion, for referring to the respective genitalia of either sex. We have plibu, ganti, and pinji, which are all non-gender-specific until we make a lujvo/tanru out of them, so we ought to be consistent. 2. xagji I've had this discussion at great length with people in the chat, over and over again, until everybody pretty much wanted me to go die in a fire. There is absolutely no way to describe "sleepy", and while my personal usage of the word may differ from others, it doesn't change the lack of such a concept in Lojban. tatpi means tired, as in physically fatigued, and one must rest a moment before continuing any activities. xagji means one is hungry, and must eat before continuing any activities. taske means one is thirsty, and must drink before continuing activities. None of these imply need, as there are plenty of people that get hungry without needing to eat, there are plenty of people that get thirsty without needing to drink, etc. This also does not imply desire as there are plenty of people that desire to eat regardless of hunger. Keeping this in mind, how do we express that one is sleepy? One does not necessarily need sleep, as outlined in previous examples related to food/drink/rest/etc., and one does not necessarily desire sleep, as also outlined in previous examples. Therefore, we have several concepts that have a unique value in common, which I could inadequately describe as an intrinsic physical need, separate from the desires of the mind, and separate from what constitutes actual need. I would like either of the following to happen: two new gismu be created to encompass 'sleep-hunger' (sleepiness) and 'sex-hunger'(there is no non-slang word in English), which still leaves room for things like air-hunger (again, no English word), exercise-hunger, and possibly even something like entertainment-hunger (boredom, I suppose), OR that the meaning of xagji be changed to reflect this concept, which can then be used as lujvo/tanru to express a very large variety of concepts, such as boredom, hunger, sleepiness, or any number of things that do not necessarily imply need or desire, which would manifest as ctixagji (hunger), sipxagji (sleepiness), glexagji, seljbexagji (a biological desire to give birth, commonly refered to as the 'ticking biological clock' in colloquial English), pinxyxagji (thirsty), pincyvi'ixagji (which just sounds completely horrible in standard Lojban, but considering the proposed change would mean something more along the lines of the English phrase "I have to go pee."). None of these imply an active and concious desire, nor are they always a need (I find myself constantly being hungry and not wanting to eat, nor to I actively need to eat for at least 24 hours after any given meal). 3. Cultural gismu. Just fix it already. 4. Computer words. Face it, we're pretty much all huge nerds. We need words for "window", "website", "internet", "software", "hardware", and various other things. We have computer and monitor, but not much else, and if we are to put this language into full use as quickly as possible, I see this as a dire necessity over most anything else. ---- So those are my philosophical problems with modern Lojban. (Before you bite at problem number 2, plenty of people have already pointed out, as the devil's advocate, that I may be making a wholly unnecessary distinction that can be covered by need/desire, but this brings culture into play, and this concept may be wholly unique to my own personal culture. In my own concept of the universe, needing to eat, wanting to eat, and being hungry are different concepts.) Disclaimer: I make no assertion that I am, in any way, flawless in my logic or beliefs. I admit that I could be severely wrong or mistaken about things, that I may just not have an adequate enough grasp of the language to know that there are ways to express these things, or that I am just wholly retarded and simply a barking lunatic that is annoying a good lot of people that have better things to do than listen to me. I greatly appreciate your time, and look forward to your lovely and helpful responses. --0-859549897-1248529445=:79712 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Aside from being mildly ticked off by the use of  'philosophical' to describe obviously trivial arguments about how to say what or what words ought to be in the gismu list (real philosophical arguments are trivial, of course, but never look that way), I have little to add to this discussion except to mention (or stress) a couple of points; the substantive issues have been dealt with well by various hands.  But
1) the strict inflexibility of the baseline, insofar as it depends upon people not wanting to relearn or scrap what they have worked so hard for, is on weak ground: English changes much faster -- and often more dramatically -- than Lojban could ever hope to (it's a function of having a billion speakers, give or take), yet no on complains or gives up trying to learn it: if the rewards are great enough, people will endure all manner of obstacles and, of course, a constant exposure to the living language actually makes the changes almost invisible (why we have lexicographers and grammarian, after all).   But the baseline is not mainly based on this need, so that doesn't really matter (nor is it as inflexible as some would portray it). 
2) Is xorlo still actually a matter of controversy? I thought we had long ago decided to leave it as xorxes described it and let the array of semantic anomolies that entailed (no worse than those for English in similar situations -- though not much better either) stand.  I would  assume that LoCCan 3 would take up the matter again, with less dregs of JCB to plow through.  
3) I like the idea someone (sorry, I can't check back while I'm typing) put forward that, if a lujvo got popular, we would drop rafsi out of it at a great rate.  This seems a rather likely (or, at least, useful) solution for  avoiding the Zipf's wall, that affects all fixed source-vocabulary languages.  Looking forward to this solutions is also a good mindset for avoiding various kinds of literalism in constructing tanru and lujvo (and circumventing the arguments about whether it is the 4th or 5th place of barfi that is needed -- or frabi rather than barfi altogether)
4) Lojban is to give a speakable Loglan.  Well, Loglan was always speakable -- indeed, spoken -- through its many transformations (not really all that bad, for the most part)  and, of course, it is still and open question whether anybody can (never mind does) speak (real time, not written with indefinite amounts of appeal to machine aids) the official Lojban to convey what they intended according to the natural semantics that goes with the parse trees.   
5)  The split branches idea, which comes up from time to time, is what is known in British politics as 'entryism,'  joining in the common cause with the intention of killing the original and taking over.  Rather than doing that sort of thing under the guise of just 'a variant of Lojban' (Lojbanido as it were), come out and say you are working on LoCCan 3 while temporarily using Lojban words for convenience; the two will not eventually recoalesce. 
Fr
om: Lindar Greenwood <lindarthebard@yahoo.com>
To: lojban-list@lojban.org
Sent: Monday, July 20, 2009 7:46:55 AM
Subject: [lojban] Philosophical differences.

I have spoken at great length with various people that frequent the Lojban IRC channel, and it has been recommended that I draft out issues that I have with various things in Lojban (which have been so adequately described by broca as "not obvious mistakes, but rather philosophical differences").

Before anybody jumps down my throat, the whole "baseline" speech, and every other counter-argument to date, has been made about why absolutely nothing must be changed and the gismu list is handed down from the very gods themselves. I understand that gismu space is not meant to cover absolutely every concept known to man. That being said, I would like to express my issues with a few words, and I welcome responses which include either supporting statements or reasons (other than the ones previously mentioned) why I may just be confused/misguided/wrong/misunderstanding things/etc.


1. vlagi

It does not make sense to have a word which specifically refers to the external female genitalia when we have "plibu". fetplibu and nakplibu are perfectly adequate, in my opinion, for referring to the respective genitalia of either sex. We have plibu, ganti, and pinji, which are all non-gender-specific until we make a lujvo/tanru out of them, so we ought to be consistent.


2. xagji

I've had this discussion at great length with people in the chat, over and over again, until everybody pretty much wanted me to go die in a fire. There is absolutely no way to describe "sleepy", and while my personal usage of the word may differ from others, it doesn't change the lack of such a concept in Lojban. tatpi means tired, as in physically fatigued, and one must rest a moment before continuing any activities. xagji means one is hungry, and must eat before continuing any activities. taske means one is thirsty, and must drink before continuing activities. None of these imply need, as there are plenty of people that get hungry without needing to eat, there are plenty of people that get thirsty without needing to drink, etc. This also does not imply desire as there are plenty of people that desire to eat regardless of hunger. Keeping this in mind, how do we express that one is sleepy? One does not necessarily need sleep, as outlined in previous examples related to food/drink/rest/etc., and one does not necessarily desire sleep, as also outlined in previous examples. Therefore, we have several concepts that have a unique value in common, which I could inadequately describe as an intrinsic physical need, separate from the desires of the mind, and separate from what constitutes actual need. I would like either of the following to happen: two new gismu be created to encompass 'sleep-hunger' (sleepiness) and 'sex-hunger'(there is no non-slang word in English), which still leaves room for things like air-hunger (again, no English word), exercise-hunger, and possibly even something like entertainment-hunger (boredom, I suppose), OR that the meaning of xagji be changed to reflect this concept, which can then be used as lujvo/tanru to express a very large variety of concepts, such as boredom, hunger, sleepiness, or any number of things that do not necessarily imply need or desire, which would manifest as ctixagji (hunger), sipxagji (sleepiness), glexagji, seljbexagji (a biological desire to give birth, commonly refered to as the 'ticking biological clock' in colloquial English), pinxyxagji (thirsty), pincyvi'ixagji (which just sounds completely horrible in standard Lojban, but considering the proposed change would mean something more along the lines of the English phrase "I have to go pee."). None of these imply an active and concious desire, nor are they always a need (I find myself constantly being hungry and not wanting to eat, nor to I actively need to eat for at least 24 hours after any given meal).


3. Cultural gismu.

Just fix it already.



4. Computer words.

Face it, we're pretty much all huge nerds. We need words for "window", "website", "internet", "software", "hardware", and various other things. We have computer and monitor, but not much else, and if we are to put this language into full use as quickly as possible, I see this as a dire necessity over most anything else.

----

So those are my philosophical problems with modern Lojban.
(Before you bite at problem number 2, plenty of people have already pointed out, as the devil's advocate, that I may be making a wholly unnecessary distinction that can be covered by need/desire, but this brings culture into play, and this concept may be wholly unique to my own personal culture. In my own concept of the universe, needing to eat, wanting to eat, and being hungry are different concepts.)

Disclaimer: I make no assertion that I am, in any way, flawless in my logic or beliefs. I admit that I could be severely wrong or mistaken about things, that I may just not have an adequate enough grasp of the language to know that there are ways to express these things, or that I am just wholly retarded and simply a barking lunatic that is annoying a good lot of people that have better things to do than listen to me.

I greatly appreciate your time, and look forward to your lovely and helpful responses.


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