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Re: [lojban] Random lojban questions/annoyances.

At 11:55 PM 03/22/2001 +0000, Jorge Llambias wrote:

>All this seems to be philosophy though, more than language.

To me saying that every se djuno has to be a jetnu is just like
saying that every mensi has to be a fetsi, I can hardly see any
philosophy there, just a definition of what the words mean.

>To be metaphysically neutral, we have to allow in the language such that A
>does not entail B where A and B use different selbri.

So we have to allow for non-female sisters too? Doesn't mensi
always require some form of fetsi?


Probably, but it might be arguable.
If I had a brother who underwent a sex-change operation, would he be my sister or my brother? Genetically he is still male, but genitally he is female.
Now you can say this is "some form of fetsi" But the djuno case in theory could be some kind of jetnu, since you CAN add some kind of observer place to jetnu.
But in any case I am wary about asserting absolute definitions, especially by prescription. 


>Indeed that may be a
>problem in a lojban-only dictionary that is not merely descriptive, that
>any defining of a brivla in terms of other brivla constitute metaphysical
>assumptions that may not be necessary.

What is special about Lojban in that respect? Isn't every language
like that?


We claim to be minimizing such assumptions.


>One need not accept such
>alternate philosophies, but rejecting a gismu as meaningful or useful (and
>perhaps also rejecting a cmavo as *you* often do) seems like such a
>metaphysical rejection.

Maybe, though I have no idea really what would constitute a metaphysical
rejection. I reject some cmavo mainly on practical grounds. For
example, some people like to use za'i/pu'u/zu'o/mu'e instead of
the simple nu that covers them all. But in order for me to understand
what they are saying I have to first recognize and then mentally
translate that word into nu, and I usually have no idea what additional
information the word is adding. I have not yet found an example
where I can say that it justifies the whole hassle of having to learn
four more words.


%^)
But that you don't see the value that justifies it doesn't mean that there won't ever be someone who does. Similarly, we can't say that there will never be someone who can think of a use for mensi that does not involve fetsi (imagine when we meet an alien species which might be asexual. Someone's father legally adopts a child of this species into the family. Would it be wrong to call that new family member "mensi"? 

lojbab
--
lojbab                                             lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:                 http://www.lojban.org