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

["Jorge J. Llambías" <jorge@intermedia.com.ar>]

la lindjy,min cusku di'e

>IIRC, the Brochure claimed that one can even say some irony sentences
>, but the sentence itself is never contraditory, as long as you treat
>lojban as a meta language. (Indeely I doubt this statement. Is there
>some examples yet?)

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.
There is nothing special about Lojban here.

>IMHO, some old stuff like
> le jetnu cu na jetnu (1)
>is internally contradictory in the system of logic. And the old
>proverb
> ro da te poi mi do tavla zo'u ko na krici da (2)
>(Euh. I know there is some grammatical error...)

(Just a small one: {te} should not be there.)

>is symentically contradictory. In both situation, how can you
>answer a "go'i" or "nago'i" to the speaker? You just can say
>something like "mi tugni la'edi'u". 

Yes. Same as in English, Chinese, or any other language.
Nothing especially logic about Lojban there.

>Well, then the question split into two, while the prejudge of
>Sapir-Whold theory is right:
>1) Logban is internally based on predicate logic. We know that
>   is possible to _write_ something irony in logical form, like
> A is not A.
>   In formal logic, we know that the _statement_ is false; we
>   don't think at first glance that it could be something logically
>   false like
> (The statement is true that) A is not A.
>   So we know that is possible to _write_, but hard to _describe_.

I don't agree that a paradox or an evident falsity written in 
predicate Logic is any different from one written in standard 
English. They're just different notations to express the same 
thing. What truth value you want to assign to it, if any, is 
independent of the notation used.

>2) Can someone grew up in Logbanistan believe in / understand /
>   write something like the examples above? The pattern of their
>   thinking is limited by predicate logic, as ours limited by our
>   own culture.
>
>Discussion?

I guess we have to wait until there is such a person to get a
conclusive answer. But I don't see any evidence to suggest
that they would have a harder time understanding such things 
than any of us. 

co'o mi'e xorxes