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Re: [lojban-beginners] Re: tanru/lujvo for [name] type of thing?

Am Montag, 10.02.03 um 19:37 Uhr schrieb Robin Lee Powell:


On Mon, Feb 10, 2003 at 12:09:40PM +0100, Jan Pilgenroeder wrote:

I need to say something like e.g.: "A Luhmann type-of Observation is
the drawing of a distiction between two states and the marking of one
of the states" and I would like the place structure to be  X1= the
operation of observing, X2= the marked state, X3= the unmarked state,
X4= the observing system (a human mind or a communications-system e.g.
science or an organisation).
lojbab has already spoken to using broda (which wouldn't have occured to
me; thanks Bob). Here's how you define the place structure above. Or
one way, at least, assuming broda has been bound to "me la luman." or
something.
Thanks lojbab and Philip :-)
zo rodzga cu bridi le si'o da .e de vu'o poi tcini zo'u karbi da de gi'e
tcitygau fi pa da ce de kei le zgana se zukte ku ce'o le tcita tcini ku
ce'o le na tcica tcini ku ce'o le zgana ciste
Wow, thanks Robin. Your definition is even pretty close to what I had in expressed in english ;-)
But when I saw the lojban translation I figured it was way off what it should have been like 8P.

After spending half a day on thinking about this definition (damn, I should rather work on my thesis lol), I came up with:

lu luman zei nunzga li'u cu bridi
le si'o gasnu le logji telsei be da bei de be'o
gi'e snigau fi da kei
le zgana se zukte ku
ce'o le sniselgau be fi da ku
ce'o le nu'o sniselgau be fi de ku
ce'o le zgana poi ciste fi lo luman zei nunzga

I've seen essentially no attempts to define lojban words in lojban,
though, so take anything anyone says about this with a grain of salt.
Defining and redefining words really is half of the work in building and explaining theories. If you do the definitions in natural languages, you really don't make use of the strengths of lojban. So it seems kind of strange to me that this is not done more often.

With this definition I can then say e.g. (if I have not screwed up):

.i brode cei luman zei nunzga

.i zo censa selbo'e fi le skeci'e na.e le lijdyci'e po'e
(holy vs. (unholy or secular or whatever) is a difference that science is blind to and religion alone can make)
.i la saske cu velbo'e zo jetnu po'o enai zo melbi
(science is a system that marks things as being "true" and not as "beautiful")

.i la brode ganlo ciste goi ko'a cu velbo'e da poi ko'a ka'e velbo'e ke'a ku'o de poi ko'a na ka'e velbo'e ke'a .ijanai ko'a velbo'e lu'e ko'a

(The operationally closed system observes the difference of observations it can make vs. those it can not make. If it can't do that It can't refer to itself)

I got all the Luhmannian systemness in there, even though I have not bothered to define social systems yet.

I can even define "Society" the Luhmann way (even without having "Communication" formally defined yet):

.i la jikce'u cu velbo'e ro sinxa poi ca'a selsku
.i le jikske to la'o gy sociology gy toi zo'u la jikce'u cu velbo'e lu'e ri

The usual view on society is:
.i la jikce'u cu gunma le prenu .ije le jikske .io prenu cu zgana le bebna .uu prenu

But that's not the only occasions where the abstraction of Luhmanns theory pays off. And it all seems really beautifull and simple and self-evident (and almost cheap) in Lojban. And I really would not want to re-build half of this theory in natural language if I can possibly do it in Lojban.

I have been reading hundreds of pages about Theory of Social Systems and have written a few papers on it myself. It really is a pain to do it in German. It's just too easy to slip from the abstract system-frame to the old people-frame. And it's way to easy to slip from "le'u le" to "la" to "le" to "lo" without even noticing -- because the natural language (and especially the worst type of natural language speakers) treats everything more or less like "lo" unless you are really carefull.

I think once I got my thesis and my final exams finished (and got myself a job lol) I will definitely want to spend some more thoughts on translating Lumann into Lojban. I am really surprised and pleased how much I already achieved with one basic bridi. I think I might even get a paper published. Social Systems Theorists are a pretty open-minded bunch and they are pretty influential in German sociology.

Bye,
Jan.

--
Jan Pilgenroeder
Theaterstr. 59
52062 Aachen