Re: [jboske] Lojban is fxxxed

[John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org>]

Invent Yourself scripsit:

> I say it's a bogus contradiction, because under the scrutiny of precise
> language, any rational person would understand that the uncertainty of the
> truth of the set of their beliefs would have to be distributed among the
> individual beliefs, because the certainty of beliefs is a conserved
> quantity which isn't affected by the number of beliefs held.

I never can understand you when you become metaphysical. Why on earth
would you think the certainty of beliefs is conserved? Do you suppose that
as I add additional tentative beliefs, the older firm ones that I hold become
more tentative?

> Furthermore, most people *suspect* there is a possibility that their
> beliefs *could be proven in the future* to be false, but at the current
> moment, the evidence has not yet been produced.

No, I do more than suspect it, I firmly believe it: some of my beliefs are
wrong, though I don't know which ones. Furthermore, I may and probably do
have erroneous beliefs that I will never have corrected.

-- 
John Cowan jcowan@reutershealth.com www.reutershealth.com ccil.org/~cowan
Dievas dave dantis; Dievas duos duonos --Lithuanian proverb
Deus dedit dentes; deus dabit panem --Latin version thereof
Deity donated dentition;
deity'll donate doughnuts --English version by Muke Tever
God gave gums; God'll give granary --Version by Mat McVeagh