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Re: [lojban] The end of the wiki

lojbab correctly points out that I have been a long time supporter of lojban. I read JCB's original 1960 Scientific American article around 1968 or so. (My father had an extensive collection of Scientific American magazines, and I enjoyed perusing them.) I learned most of the Loglan vocabulary, spoke with JCB a number of times by phone, and had an occasional correspondence by mail, and later email. I made some suggestions to JCB about the language. I lost interest in Loglan in the early 1990s when a friend of mine who was also interested in Loglan pointed out some logical inconsistencies in the language, or more accurately in JCB's description of the language. (I suspect these issues have since been resolved, but I no longer remember the details of my friend's critique.)
I was quite disappointed that the original Loglan vocabulary was discarded in lojban, although I understand the legal reasons why this was done. This disapointment was assuaged somewhat by the discovery that a number of technically savvy persons were continuing JCB's work, and extending it. One of the suggestions I had made to JCB was that fuzzy logic be included in Loglan's structure.
Later, I made the same suggestion to lojbab privately and to the lojban list. I felt that the fuzzy logic issue was an important one because lojban's claim to fame was that it was a "logical language", yet it did not explicitly include fuzzy logic. This was a somewhat frustrating discussion, as many of my correspondents were either unfamiliar with fuzzy logic or believed (falsely, in my view) that fuzzy logic was already easily expressible in lojban.
I persevered, in part because (as lojbab noted in his post) lojban had not yet been baselined, and I thought that perhaps with a bit of persistence I could correct what I saw as the only grave deficiency of the language. Through the combination of experimental cmavo such as <xi> and some discussion about the metaphysics of lojban, I came away from this discussion mostly (though not entirely) satisfied.
I believe that LLG was correct in baselining the language and in resisting changes to lojban that are not a product of actual speakers (or writers) of the lojban. As lojbab correctly points out, my fuzzy logic "monomania" evolved into a concern about how the language would be "rebaselined" in the future to address issues raised through experience with its use. This is still a bit vague, I think, but I have no quarrel with the progress to date.
To those who would invent the "perfect" logical language, I would say that the best is the enemy of the good enough, and that the likely outcome of developing such a "perfect" language is that only one person will ever use it. A language must have some stability to attract and keep a community of users.
I post infrequently to the list because we have 3 children, aged 1,3,4. The time I formerly spent posting or playing with lojban, I now spend with them. I do read the list (almost) daily. I am hoping to teach my children the language. On this point, what is the latest with Macintosh software for learning lojban? I am now using MacOSX, which is a UNIX based operating system, and I wondered if anybody could translate some of the UNIX based lojban learning tools to the new Macintosh operating system. 

-Steven
On Wednesday, November 28, 2001, at 04:46 PM, Bob LeChevalier (lojbab) wrote: 


At 06:39 PM 11/28/01 +0000, And Rosta wrote:

<thinkit8@lycos.com> 11/27/01 12:40pm >>>

#Because I'm interested in conlangs in general, and the lojban grammar
#in particular.  And Rosta...aren't you the same in that way?

Yes, but I joined the community in a kinder gentler era when my
bolshiness was treated most avuncularly by Lojbab, and now I'm part of
the furniture.
Lojbab has not said anything that should be taken as other-than-avuncular 
to tinkit (so far).  But then, Lojbab did not always feel as avuncular
about And's bolshiness as he may have acted.

One difference, of course, is that when And was most offensive that
language was not yet baselined.  LLG officially has NO interest in any
variants of Lojban, and our limited tolerance for differences is extended towards the remnant of TLI in the interest of rapprochement behind Lojban 
as the surviving version of Loglan.  This will be challenging enough,
without dealing with "reform" movements of the sort that have split
language communities in the past.

I have to offer to tinkit that I myself had my own "reform the world"
proposal, the base-12 time system that was in the original textbook draft, shot down by the community several years ago. While Lojban is a radically 
different language from other conlangs, we have taken a fundamentally
conservative approach to conlang design, sticking to JCBs original premises as much as possible, and changing things only as needed to make Lojban work 
as a living language.  The Sapir-Whorf test is already designed into the
grammar of the language; further radical changes from natlangs are not
needed and indeed could be harmful.


I don't think anybody mentioned, btw, that you do post to the list and
the wiki *in Lojban*, which by usual criteria ought to place you on the
side of the angels.


So long as he continues to do so, he is a Lojbanist.  However, I had the
impression that he was planning on getting those awful gismu out of his
head, which means that we should not expect further Lojban postings.

The wiki is not an official LLG site and is Jay's effort, so Jay has the
right to decide the sorts of things he wants to see on that site.  (The
fact that I agree 100% with Jay's attitude toward the language as expressed 
on his page makes supporting his policy easy).

At 06:48 PM 11/28/01 +0000, And Rosta wrote:

Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org> 11/27/01 07:52pm >>>

#On Tue, Nov 27, 2001 at 03:57:10PM +0000, And Rosta wrote:
#> Steve Belknap was similarly monomaniacal about fuzzy logic and (quite 
#> rightly) never got abused.
#
#I suspect he didn't post something titled "lojban uses fuzzy logic by
#default!!".
#
#I also suspect he didn't post something entitled "give me my brain cells 
#back!" bitch about how stupid the language was, and then continue
#posting anyways.  Mostly bitching about how stupid lojban is.
Steve started posting on his issues pre-baseline, though too late to make 
any significant changes.  He also spent a long while supporting the
language before he introduced his personal topic of interest, and he
continues to support the language (Steve bought ten copies of the book for 
distribution to libraries), even though he does not post.
I also never really saw Steve as posing any sort of radical change. He was merely asking how we would express various fuzzy logic concepts in Lojban 
and trying to determine to what extent the language supported fuzzy
logic. He apparently was satisfied by the conclusion, given his book purchase.
Steve's real challenge was over the long term management of the baseline, 
as to whether and how we would discuss changes that might prove needed
while during the baseline period.
Well maybe tinkit has the distinction of combining in a single person at once several much abhorred vices. But no single vice is unique to him. Just as 
Steve showed a similar monomania, so I've posted innumerable messages
criticizing Lojban.


And drawn your share of fire for it.  But I think you have also made
considerable effort to build bridges to key Lojbanists, and made clear when 
the chips are down that you support the language even when you disagree
with some elements of the design. tinkit has said just the opposite, that 
his disagreement has led him to abandon the language.
It remains unclear whether he has useful contributions to make if he ceases to post in Lojban, and has nothing constructive to say about the language 
or the community.  If he wants to go off and invent his own variant, he
would be well advised to look at the historical record of Jim Carter's
efforts, which did not offend LLG (though they did offend JCB), and Rex
May's efforts.  In both cases they set up their own site, and called the
language something different and have been low key about their criticism of 
the mainstream effort, letting their own language efforts speak for
themselves. Negative criticism does not help anyone in the conlang world - 
it only makes enemies.


 Plus, as I just pointed out in my last message, tinkit
mitigates his vices by the Virtue of having quite a good lojban-to-english ratio in his postings. He took the trouble to learn the language enough to use it a bit, which surely means he can't squarely be placed in the bad guy camp. 

For that matter, if he wants to assume a hexidecimal base in his Lojban
writing, he can.  But he should not be surprised when his numerical
statements are not understood as he intends.
But it is always wise to respect your audience in the community. If no one wants to hear more about his ideas, then to continue to promote them merely arouses enmity and makes sure that his ideas will never get a hearing. He 
would be better off making a personal web page advocating his ideas
(probably mixed with other stuff that is less controversial) and letting
people link to his pages via the webring or in free links.  Perhaps Jay
would even allow such a link on tinkit's page in the wiki. Arnt has done 
well in posting some of his personal opinions mixed with good content on
his Lojban pages, and this serves as a constructive model.

lojbab
--
lojbab                                             lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:                 http://www.lojban.org



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