Re: [lojban] Re: lujvo

[pycyn@aol.com]

In a message dated 00-06-12 18:12:27 EDT, robin writes:

<< If I read "lo <foo>" where foo translates to "the mother of
 God", I'm going to be pissed.  It assumes that there is an objectively
 observable God _and_ that said God has a mother _and_ that it's the God
 you're talking about.  I would find that set of assumptions offensive. >>

Since you have already withdrawn the basic one paert of this, it seems 
overzealous to work on another, but where in <lo> is the "objectively 
observable" part?  Real, sure,  existent, yes -- but not observable (let 
alone objectively observable -- a remarkably unlojbanic notion, even if it 
were meaningful).  If you mean to insist that that is what "real" means, then 
I have to tell you that, if so, then almost nothing is real at all -- nothing 
in science and almost nothing in your room.  Even Carnap got around to 
admitting that eventually -- and changed what was needed for soemthing to be 
real.   

I do agree that I would find the assumption that God was objectively 
observable or that God (as God, at least) had a mother offensive, and that 
may be your complaint, lese deite.  If so, sorry to jump at you.  But it does 
sound otherwise, and about that other view I wonder what is offensive (or is 
it just the assumption part) about the common view that God exists and 
interacts with the world.  It is hard to prove, of course, or even to make 
plausible, but it shares that position with its denial, by essentially the 
same arguments (and the denial has the added burden of the difficulty 
--legendary in detective fiction -- of proving a negative).  "We had no need 
of that hypothesis" just means we have not gotten the system complex enough 
to adequately represent reality.