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Well, might as well burn the bridge now

Bob:
At 03:09 PM 1/11/03 -0500, Invent Yourself wrote:
>On Sat, 11 Jan 2003, Bob LeChevalier-Logical Language Group wrote:
> > Frankly I don't give a shit what has been discussed on jboske by 3% of the
> > Lojban community, while the rest were doing their best to tune out.
>The people who refuse to think about issues hardly have the same
>argumentation weight as those who do.
Since they aren't interested in argumentation or its fruits, why would they
care?

If they care that the current prescription is inadequate, then they should care about getting it more complete.

If they don't care that the current prescription is inadequate, then they don't need more. And that forces schism, because formalists do need more.

The solution is to have politic compromises between formalists and naturalists. That is why I kept saying "watering down" --- not outright elimination of any suggested extras.

The solution is not to have the formalists capitulate to the naturalists, and not propose anything that clarifies the language. By rubbishing what is going on here, that is what you are demanding. I will not accept that.

And it isn't that they refuse to think about issues, but rather that they
only want to think about issues in the context wherein they come up in
actual usage; they aren't interested in the theory of the language, and
they don't much care to define words in terms of their theoretical usages,
but rather in terms of how Lojbanists actually try to use them. Look at
how much debate there was over opening and closing files, which Robin
Powell got into, even though he disdains formal discussion as much as I do.

"We just want to use Lojban, man, we don't want to think about it." Uhuh. So until we did jboske-like work, how would you distinguish between 'together' and 'separately'? How would you distinguish between "x is a quantity of mooshed up kiwi fruit" and "x is a kiwi fruit"? How would you get a de dicto interpretation of "I'm drawing a hobbit", which does not mean "I am drawing a particular hobbit in this world?"

Oh, sure people can work that out in use and without theory. And then we get English. Or as And put it, McDonald's Lojban.

It is not a matter of effort, but a matter of assumptions. Immense effort
based on faulty assumptions is to others wasted effort.

Lots of people have said that to me about the Klingon Khamlet. Hell, lots of people have said that to you about Lojban, no doubt. If you don't care what we think Lojban should be like, why should I care whether you think we are wasting our time?

I fear that the direction that And wants to take the
language is like jimc's, taking some aspects of the language as so
important that he departs from the core of the language.

We will never agree as to what is the core of the language. I will not preside over schism, and talking about the core of the language is the kind of non-negotiable that sets up schism.

I don't know what I'd rather they do, except that when I went looking for
history of tu'o, I found this whole mess of usage quantifying du'u and ka,

And hympty-dumptying tu'o as a du'u quantifier, and Jorge humpty-dumptying lo'e as an intensional article, may well be aggravating, and perverting your natural evolution model. But you know what? Unthinkingly saying {lenu} with reference to non-individual events, and conflating de dicto and de re readings in non-propositionalist contexts (and even in propositionalist), is perverting Lojban itself as a logical language. Oh, you like those, because they have the weight of usage. Of course they do. They're calques of English.

The solution is calm consideration by all Lojbanists of the issues that have legitimately been raised. It is not letting Lojban remain just like English.

it precisely shows the problem of
prescriptive modification of the language as erroneous prescriptions spread
NOT because they make sense, but because "people who think more about these
issues" said it should be so.

As I keep saying to you: all artificial languages evolve by little cabals, since the communities are so small and the power of the individual so great. There is no such thing as natural evolution, which ignores what "people who think more" come up with.

Nick was wise in insisting that broad usage patterns be the sort of usage
that decides and not individual usages. But even broad usage patterns can
be skewed by factions "getting their act together in advance".

It has been, and it will be. The BPFK will need to exercise a judgement call. The commission has a charge to consider usage above logic (but design principles such as ambiguity above both.) Nonetheless, if enough people (outside the faction) think that what faction X cooked up is good, it becomes Lojban. End of story.

Nick has said that he is moving ahead to get the byfy going, and that is
the only solution. Having opened the door to possible baseline changes, we
have to get to work make what changes we will make, and close the door, or
it will continue out of control.

And we will use this time to get as many good and as comprehensive solutions to outstanding problems as possible. (And the problems are legion, unless you stick your fingers in your ears and sing "lah lah lah, Lojban works".)

Bob, I am trying to accommodate both parties, and I will continue to do so. I am trying to preserve the lojbanmass, a construct I find confused and historically addled, in the face of And's justified assaults on it; I am close to achieving it. But believe me, you stomping into what is, after all, formalist territory, and calling what is done here garbage and illegitimate, is not helping. Let me get on with trying to do the impossible; and I will give you something that comes as close to satisfying all sides as I can, when it is ready.

== == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == ==
Nick Nicholas, Breathing | le'o ko na rivbi fi'inai palci je tolvri danlu
opoudjis@opoudjis.net | -- Miguel Cervantes tr. Jorge LLambias