Re: [lojban] Sensations / qualia (colors etc.)

On Wed, Jul 29, 2015 at 8:35 AM, Spheniscine (la zipcpi) <spheniscine@gmail.com> wrote:

One question that comes up time and again is how to separate "red", the color, from an object that's red, {lo xunre}. E.g. "I like (the color) red". "Red is a beautiful color".

Is that very different from "I like elephants", "elephants are beautiful animals"?

{si'o} is often suggested (mi nelci lo si'o xunre / lo si'o xunre cu melbi), but may not be a sufficient solution. Compare with "I see the color red". This is not necessarily dependent on there actually being anything red; I might be hallucinating, or have synaesthesia.

Is that very different from "I see elephants" when there are no elephants around?

Selpahi has suggested making new brivla altogether for the colors, but I believe that they need to be regularized from {xunre} etc. Just making zi'evla for the colors ({xu'unre} etc.) is, I believe, an unsustainable solution; what of combinatory color words, or {skasmi} or {skarxetmele}?

Additionally, it isn't just colors that have this issue. How about "I feel dryness"? This is similarly independent of there actualy being anything that's {lo sudga}.

I propose that what is actually needed is a new type of object. I have defined it as {ganseti} on JVS: http://jbovlaste.lojban.org/dict/ganseti

So "I like elephants" becomes "mi nelci lo ganseti be lo ka xanto"?

x₁ is the sensation/qualia (abstract) associated with objects with property x₂ (ka), via sense x₃ (ka)

lo ganseti be lo ka (ce'u) xunre = "the color red", lo ganseti be lo ka (ce'u) sudga = "the sensation/feeling of dryness". x₃ is the involved sense, e.g. lo ka viska for sight; this can often be left unspecified. Proposed NU: ga'ei, with rafsi -gel- . See ganse, li'i.

Thoughts? Questions? Alternatives?

I don't see a problem with a word for "qualia", but I don't expect people to start saying "I like the qualia of being red" or "I like the qualia of being an elephant" instead of "I like red" or "I like elephants" though. It seems more natural that "lo xanto", "lo xunre" can be elephants (in general) and red as well as particular elephants or particular red objects. I'd rather these ontological distinctions be handled with brivla, not grammaticized with cmavo.

Additional thought: If {lo ganseti} / {lo ga'ei broda} is a new type of object, where does it go? nelci2 is flexible enough to accept both concrete and abstract objects of all kinds, but is a ga'ei-type suitable for ganse2 or viska2? If it isn't, we'd need new brivla for those. Perhaps a new gismu, {gelse} "x1 (entity) feels sensation x2 (ga'ei) via sense x3 (ka)". With rafsi -ge'e-, so that lujvo can then be built e.g. {visyge'e} = {x1 gelse x2 lo ka viska}

A brivla like that could be useful, whether it be gismu or something else. But I'm skeptical of argument places for ungrounded properties. What if you want to say "I saw elephants. They were pink with purple spots." Is there a way to refer back to the elephants in a second sentence?

mu'o mi'e xorxes