[lojban] Re: Specific example of Sapir-Whorf in English OR How Lojban made me think more clearly

[Adam Raizen <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

de'i li 2002-11-30 ti'u li 10:33:00 la'o zoi. Avital Oliver .zoi cusku di'e

>MEANT_TO_BE: x1 meant for x2 to be
>
>Thus, "homosexual intercourse wasn't meant to be" would be something similar
>to
>
>zo'e MEANT_TO_BE lenu loi nanmi cu gletu loi nanmu
>
>But this means that there is something missing in x1 -- some intelligent and
>self-concious being that meant for it to be. In essence, saying that
>sentence would imply the existance of an intelligent self-concious creator,
>commonly reffered to as 'God'.
>
>My point: The notion of "meant to be" is meaningless if the expresser does
>not believe in the existence of what is commonly reffered to as 'God'.

I don't think that that's the case at all. "People are supposed to pay
taxes", "People are supposed to help each other", "People are supposed
to think rationally", etc., etc. All of these beliefs presuppose
certain laws or rules, I guess, but I think that they're all held
completely consistently by many atheists.

>The fact that english allows this to be said without having to notice the
>'missing' "x1" would cause, assuming Sapir-Whorf, for people to believe that
>there are things that were "meant to be" even though they do not believe in
>'God'.
>
>In Lojban, this could not happen, as if somewas was to say
><pe'i MEANT_TO_BE lenu loi nanmu na gletu loi nanmu>,
>one would immediately reply
><ma go'i>
>and thus leave the homophobic without words.

[in another message:]

>The sentence "Homosexuals aren't supposed to
>be" would be represented as <zo'e AMUR loi nanmu lenu na gletu loi nanmu>,
>or in Hebrew, "GVARIM AMURIM LO LISHKAV IM GVARIM".

Since that sentence doesn't suggest any animate being which prescribes
the event to happen (the English is "Men are supposed to not sleep
with men"), a brivla like "x1 is supposed to do/be x2" would work at
least as well to translate that sentence. (I think that x2 should be a
property in such a predicate.) Such a predicate is one whose x1 was
considered to be raised out of x2 at some point in the gismu definition
process, and was eliminated, so we might be left with "x1 is supposed
to happen".

You say that there's a place missing which would indicate an animate
being who prescribes that the event is supposed to happen, but it might
just as easily be a rule or law which prescribes it.

You could say "ma minde fi lo'e nu naku lo nanmu cu gletu lo nanmu",
but you might get the response "no da minde .i javni ma'i le ka rarna".
(I'm not sure what the difference is between the first and second place
of javni; if anyone has any ideas, it should probably go into the
bpfk's work.) I don't think that you'll be able to refute many
arguments in political debates just by translating them into Lojban,
but you may be able to reach each side's assumptions faster.

Likewise, information wants to be free and objects want to fall
downwards, probably according to some law or rule, which could be made
explicit.

Actually, I think that what we're trying to express here is deontic
modality, so you could say "nomu'eiku lo nanmu cu gletu lo nanmu",
understanding no to be quantifying over worlds where the rule is
followed. If we had a way to explicitly note that mu'ei is deontic,
we might also be able to note which rule or rule system is used.

mu'o mi'e .adam.