[lojban-beginners] Re: Almost there!

[Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org>]

On Tue, Jan 27, 2004 at 12:41:10AM -0600, Ken Comer wrote:
> > > 2) A genetically-engineered chimerical sub-species of homo
> > > sapiens have chosen a name for themselves based on their love
> > > of learning. Currently, this is Nelpei (or possibly nelpensi)
> > > from nelci pensi -- comments or suggestions no matter how
> > > whimsical are welcome.
> >
> > Seems perfectly reasonable, as does "neiclipre" or something.
> >
> > Remember to come up with a place structure for all Lujvo!
> 
> Why?  This is for incorporation into an English-language short
> story.  

Ah.  Nevermind.

> I'm not sure that I got what the cli came from, 

cilre.

> but after checking many gismu, I happened upon kucli which I like
> better than likes to think.  Your inclusion of construction "pre"
> is a definite improvement.  Would it be kucyprenu or kucprenu ?

Neither; jvocuhadju says kuclypre

> > > These beings have a "hard-wired" instinctual understanding of
> > > lojban,
> >
> > That doesn't seem reasonable; how big are their heads?
> 
> The term `` "hard-wired" '' was being used figuratively above to
> mean something like ``artificially innate.''  No wires are
> actually involved. I'm not sure why you don't think it seems
> reasonable, but if you thought it involved physical wires, it
> doesn't.

Actually, the possibility that by 'hard-wired' you meant something
to do with a technological enhancement never occured to me.  I
assumed you meant that it was built in to the biological brain
structure, in which case you're going to have to explain how these
beings brains can encode orders of magnitude more concrete
information then a normal human; hence the question "how big are
their heads?".

If there's a non-biological enhancement going on, then no problem.

> The story presupposes that there is such a thing as an "engram,"
> which term has been in use by non-fictional Earthling researchers
> to mean "a theoretical memory unit consisting of a relationship
> between a network of neurons, electrical charges and chemical
> neurotransmitter emissions," and that these engrams can be
> "implanted" (figuratively speaking) in a person's brain (and mind)
> using a combination of millions of nanobots and hundreds of
> thousands of viruses specifically designed for the task.

OK.

> Moreover, the story also presupposes that engrams can be
> established genetically (in the same sort of way that a spider
> knows how to weave a web) as a result of custom-designed genes on
> the X chromosome (or any chromosome, for that matter).

See, now, there's the problem; the evidence is that human brains are
As Full As They Can Possibly get; that's why we aren't born knowing
how to walk.  Adding something as complicated as language to
genetic brain structure requires a number of things:

1.  It requires genetics to do something much more complicated then
they have ever been seen to do in nature.

2.  It probably requires that the babies be born able to speak and
walk and think coherently and such, otherwise you're going to have
to explain how something as complicated as a whole language can
possibly be part of *latent* brain development, at which I wish you
luck.

3.  It will without question require more brain space then we
currently have, so they'll either need to give something else up
(allow me to suggest emotional centers for a start) or much bigger
heads.

> If it still sounds unreasonable, then I'm disappointed because I
> failed to establish suspension of disbelief.  Nonetheless, I feel
> that there is a reasonable scientific basis to believe that a
> sufficiently advanced technology could accomplish pre-natal and/or
> hereditary incorporation of knowledge about lojban (and other
> subjects) into a child.

"Pre-natal" and "hereditary" are *completely* different issues,
although if you're going to have it be pre-natal rather then
neo-natal, you can't have the babies being delivered through the
vaginal canal: one of the reasons babies start out so stupid is that
their heads are too small to fit, and get rather severely crushed,
so the brain needs to be neurologically elastic enough to withstand
it.

Furthermore, the brain grows *substantially* in the first five
years, so again, you're going to have to explain how you fit
language into the smaller brain.

Allow me to strongly suggest that you have something like latent
nanites that start re-writing things as soon as the language centers
have developed enough (around 2 years old).

Of course, very few of your readers are likely to be
Singularitarians who study cognition research in their spare time,
so you are certainly welcome to ignore me as way too picky.  :-)

> > > 5) zbaxum -- a miniature chemical processing and Virus/RNA/DNA
> > > manipulation tool from zbasu xukmi
> >
> > That's a cmene.  Is that what you wanted?
> 
> After looking up cmene, I think it is.  I want it to refer to any
> instantiation of that type of device, like zbaxum : x1 is a
> (miniature) chemical processing thing for special purpose x2
> located at x3

That's got a place structure; cmene (names) do not.  Allow me to
suggest xumymi'i

> > > 7) steppes / arid plains  en->lojban ?
> >
> > sudga foldi
> 
> For ease of reader comprehension and aesthetic reasons, I much
> prefer a continuous string of letters when inserting a foreign
> language into my story.  Would it be nonsensical for me to use
> sudgafoldi? or, on the "less is more" principle, sudfoi?

sudyfoi

> > > 8) people who end wars / noble warriors / warriors of the
> > > heart / those who suffer from war the most...  Like 1) above,
> > > but these folks are the ones who are saddened by the
> > > destruction they were created to bring about.  They are
> > > actually more like jesus/buddha/mohammed than warriors, and
> > > especially so when among their own.  From the perspective of
> > > humankind--who are animals in the eyes of the warriors--the
> > > warrior's philosophy is relatively unimportant.   en->lojban ?
> >
> > Uhhh.  Some random name.  Or did you want a translation of the
> > whole paragraph?
> 
> My goal was any one of the above (dealer's choice) or anything
> similar. They are loving, caring, selflessly-serving masterful
> annihilators.  This is a "species name" sort of word.

papspopren -- From 'panpi daspo prenu' -- peaceful destroyer, more
or less.

> Again, could I make that something like selfinpre?  sefinpre?
> selfintprenu? ("na" as a separate string works well enough)

nalselfinpre

> (pain-drugs kicked in-- can't proofread, but I think I got everything said)

Just out of curiosity, what are you on?

-Robin

-- 
Me: http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/  ***   I'm a *male* Robin.
"Constant neocortex override is the only thing that stops us all
from running out and eating all the cookies."  -- Eliezer Yudkowsky
http://www.lojban.org/             ***              .i cimo'o prali .ui