Re: [lojban-beginners] About {mi cu facki di'e}

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 8:28 PM, David Gowers <00ai99@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Referent is like expanding the named clause (in this case, the next
> bridi), right?
> I confused the referent (mi nelci lonu citka) with the subject (mi).

The "referent" is the "se sinxa", the thing that a sign refers to.

The referent of the sumti "lo mi pendo" is my friend. (Not the words
"my friend", the person I refer to with the words "lo mi pendo".)

The referent of a sentence is the proposition that that sentence expresses.


>> The choice between "du'u" and "nu" doesn't really depend on what a
>> liking is, but on what a se facki is. A se facki is a fact.
>
> I took your initial point (pay attention to explicit
> 'this-place-contains-an-XYZ' markers); however a se facki (ie. du'u)
> is not a fact, it's a predicate; that is, it's something that *can* be
> true, rather than something that *is* true.

Well... This could be a long discussion, but I would say that only
facts can be discovered. If you think you discover something that
later turns out not to be a fact, will you still claim that you
discovered something? If someone else mistakenly believes that they
have discovered something, but you know that that something is not a
fact, will you report that as "they discovered X"? I wouldn't. I think
discovering X, like knowing X, requires X to be a fact.

But in any case, yes, that aside, the issue here was that the x2 of
facki has to be a "lo du'u ...".

> (this is rather trivial to illustrate with Newton's Law; not 'TRUE',
> but a valid observation that fit the evidence and continued to do so
> for some time)

Suppose I mistakenly believe that I have discovered that you are a
murderer. Will you happily say to someone else "he discovered that I
am a murderer". If yes, then for you "discover X" indeed does not
require X to be a fact. If you would not report my presumed discovery
that way, why not?

> As far as I understand the idea of 'fact's, they denote an idea which
> significant (say, >50%) probability is assigned to (typically through
> collective observation and agreement). On the other hand, a
> du'u/predicate only has to have some probability (that is, nonzero; it
> could be as small as 10^-30 %). That places 'the sky is blue' and 'we
> were designed by an omnipotent god' as both being du'u* (which
> evidently would be a substantial problem if du'u or se facki really
> was representative of facts.)

A du'u predicate could be 100% false. "lo du'u lo mluni cu marji lo
crino cirla cu jitfa" is true. A jitfa is a false du'u, just like a se
facki, a se djuno or indeed a jetnu are true du'u.

> * if you accept the premise that assigning probabilities of exactly 0
> or 1 is statistically nonsensical.
>
>> So if what
>> you discover is that you currently like eating, that would be: "mi
>> facki lo du'u mi ca nelci lo nu citka".
>>
>
> Thanks for helping me understand time tense binding a bit better :)

je'e mu'o mi'e xorxes

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