Re: Dao De Jing [was Re: Promoting Lojban]

[John Cowan <cowan@locke.ccil.org>]

la xorxes. cusku di'e:

> It is possible to say paradoxical sentences in any language, including
> Lojban. A common example is "this sentence is false", if the sentence
> is true, then it must be false, but if it is false, then it has to be true!
> That's as easy to say in Lojban: {dei jitfa}, as in any other language.

Easier, if anything: Lojban has the pronoun "dei" to unambiguously
refer to the current utterance, whereas the "this" in "this sentence"
has a rather unusual reference which has to be understood as such
for the sentence to be equivocal in the appropriate way.
Some people, when first exposed to this sentence, ask "Which sentence?"

A version of the equivocal sentence which is not open to this
objection is Quine's:

"Is false when preceded by its quotation"
is false when preceded by its quotation.

This sentence asserts that a certain sentence is false, and gives a
recipe for creating that sentence -- which turns out to be identical
to the original sentence!

-- 
John Cowan	http://www.ccil.org/~cowan	cowan@ccil.org
You tollerday donsk? N. You tolkatiff scowegian? Nn.
You spigotty anglease? Nnn. You phonio saxo? Nnnn.
Clear all so! 'Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)