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Re: [lojban] fancu


la pycyn cusku di'e


> In my view {makau} stands for the value that the relationship gives
> when the ce'u place is filled. {makau} will take a value from x3
> for each value taken from x2 and placed in {ce'u}.
Ahah! I have accused you of that view several times and you have almost as
often denied it, swearing that you believed that the answer to a question was 
a proposition not a thing.


Please read again what I wrote. {makau} stands for the value.
{le du'u makau broda} does _not_ stand for the value.


Now, to make a point you will go back to your
true view. OK. But notice that will make {la djan djuno le du'u makau mamta 
la bil) into perfect nonsense (of a highly forbidden kind: we can't use
{djuno} for people).


What? My true view?
Ah, but maybe what you mean is that somehow it is built into the operation of indirect questions that they generate the proposition with the right critter 
in for the {kau}. But then, of course, it is impossible to get the answer
wrong, which, alas, goes against our experience: {mi jinvi le du'u maku mamta 
la bil} guarantees I get it right (so only essay questions from now on).


I'm afraid I don't understand your point here. {la djan jinvi le du'u
makau mamta la bil} (to avoid first person issues) means that John
has an opinion as to who is Bill's mother. {makau} there stands for
whoever it is that John thinks Bill's mother is.
And's view -- if I have it somewhat right -- at least misses that problem and 
only runs into all the intensionality or interchange problems -- as well as
missing several good answers. The set-of-answers theory (not mine, by the
way) was not arrived at without looking at these kinds of problems but was
rather what people were forced to to deal with them.


Sorry, I don't understand how this affects the ce'u-makau case.


> Why would its values be more representative of a function than the
> relationship that gives rise to it?

"Is mother of," {le ka/du'u ce'u mamta ce'u}, is a relation and, indeed, a
function, as a set of ordered pairs --though the order is reversed here, so
{le du'u ce'u se mamta ce'u} . There are many functions for which it is
somewhat unnatural to think of the corresponding relation (sum, product, and 
the like, for example)


Unnatural or not, Lojban thinks of them as such (see sumji, pilji).


and, indeed, the relations can usually be expressed
only by an equation between the function with an argument and its value for
that argument (though one way of doing Logic does take this notion as basic, 
to simplify some kinds of metatheoretical proofs).


So my way of doing it is not that far fetched, or are you saying
something else?


However, the shift from
relation to function IN PRACTICE does require some indication that the
relation IS a function and the {le ka ce'u... ce'u} does not show that,


No, but the pair ce'u-makau does show it. {makau} is whatever value
makes the relation hold for a given {ce'u}.


while
value-description form does (well, almost -- Lojban has this singular /
plural problem, as you know, but that can be handled in a variety of ways).
It is that information that makes the value-description form better.


It sounds wrong to me. I keep getting the feeling that it's the
wrong type. I just can't treat {le broda be ce'u} as an object
that is nothing like a broda.

mu'o mi'e xorxes



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