RE: [jboske] more true (was: RE: Re: ka ka (was: Context Leapers)

["And Rosta" <a.rosta@lycos.co.uk>]

pc:
> a.rosta@lycos.co.uk writes:
> <<
> 
> I think there are three degrees of truth: true, sort-of and false.
> Degrees of quantity map to these degrees of truth, so that
> scale of quantity can be divided up into portions corresponding
> to the three degrees of truth.
> 
> If we distinguish quantities that correspond to different truth
> degrees, we can collapse truth and quantity. E.g. "X is true"
> can be understood as "X has a quantity in the True range",
> while "the quantity (in True range) of X exceeds the quantity
> (in the True range) of Y" can be paraphrased as "X is truer than
> Y".
> 
> >>
> I'm with you to the last sentence, then you throw it all away. 

Then delete the last sentence. I made that point in the first place
only because I wanted to indicate the validity of the points made
in the previous sentences. 

> There 
> are only three truth values (say). If two claims have the same truth 
> value, they have the same amount of truth, whatever that is (T, 0, F, 
> say). One may have more of the quantified matter that makes for 
> truth than another, but given both have enough to be true, then both 
> are equally true. They are also, obviously, unequal in that 
> quantitative aspect -- one has more of what makes for truth, but 
> having made truth, it doesn't make more. (All of this is based on a 
> very simple relation between quantitative aspects of an event and 
> truth of propositions about events, and probably -- in thinking it 
> through, anyhow -- has mixed together to some extent quantities in 
> the event with quantities of the event. Thus, in much of the talk 
> about "He is inside the room," much of what leads up to Truth as 
> presented (implicitly at least) in terms of feet and inches from the 
> door to some significant part of his body (nearest, farthest or 
> specific part). These are quantities in the situation, but not off 
> the situation, although almost certainly relevant to the latter, but 
> maybe not decisively so (from another example, skinny people are tall 
> shorter than fat people). And, of course, the quantity(ies) of the 
> situation are likely relevant to the truth of the claim about it, but 
> not necessarily decisive.) Of course, there are functions that will 
> distinguish cases with different underlying factors "barely," 
> "totally," and so on.

I'm sorry to have put you to the trouble of writing this, but I
accept it all as correct.

> 
> <<
> "ja'a cai" = "it's very very true that (he's moving)", which
> implies that he's moving a lot, or fast, or suchlike. It is
> not a robust way to assert that he is moving fast, but it's
> a convenient shorthand.
> >>
> Well, literally "strongly true," though what emotion truth is is 
> unclear (but it passes the parser, so we can find a use for it 
> somehwere). Now, maybe we have a slough (?slue?, slew?) of truth 
> values, a half dozen or so, and this is a comment to the effect that 
> "He's moving" is evaluated at a fairly hight member of the set: above 
> "very true" but, perhaps, below "totally true." [Remember though 
> that the comment may be wrong.] 

Just to make sure we are on the same wavelength here:

{na ku ko'a ja'a cai bajra} means "It is not the case that he
is very much running (but he might nonetheless be running to some
other (lesser? -- details yet to be thrashed out) extent", IMO. 
That is, the information added by {cai} falls within the scope
of the negation.

> This means that he the conditions 
> for perfect moving to a high degree (xorxes' style, I think) and/or 
> the quantity of the event as a case of him moving is very high and/or 
> some quantifiable physical features of the event which are 
> significant for his moving have high values or the truth value 
> ddepends on a bunch of other factors altogether. 

My preferred scale is "how much the world would have to change for
p to become false", with all further details of how that is to be 
measured glorked from context or general cognition.

> But, even if these 
> more or less quantitative factors are significant, it may be that the 
> high truth status comes from something else -- grace in motion, say, 
> rather than speed in any of its several senses here (largely matching 
> the various senses of "moving"). Now, if we are agreed on a 
> particular set of connections among these various notions and those 
> connections allow it, then we can infer back from a high truth value 
> to certain levels in other factors. But I don't think that the 
> relations implicit in the shorthand here are so obviously the natural 
> ones that we can assume they are in use as defaults, whatever "moving 
> fast" or "moving a lot" mean.

Well, in English, "very true" means pretty much what I want "ja'a cai"
to mean. That is, "It's very true that she's beautiful" does not
*encode* the same meaning as "She's very beautiful", but the former
would tend to be understood as the latter, to an extent that I find
satisfactory.

--And.