Subject: Re: [lojban] Set of answers encore

From: And Rosta <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 19:33:17 +0100

>>> John Cowan <[email-masked]> 09/26/01 06:12pm >>>
#And Rosta wrote:
#> Lojban needs an unambiguous way of distinguishing between
#> 
#> 'intensional believe': x1 has the thought that x2 is the case
#
#That is jinvi.
#
# > and
#> 
#> 'extensional believe': The states of affairs that x1 believes obtain include x2
#
#That is loi se jinvi be ko'a cu nibli ko'e, x1's beliefs entail that x2,
#which could be zipfed as seljivyselni'i.

I'm not convinced. At least, if you assembled a corpus of usages of
English "believe" and other cognitive predicates, you'd find that very many
would not be equivalent to strict 'intensional believe'. (E.g. "My mother
believes I was alive on 22 Feb 1994" -- an example exaggerated so as
to make the point obvious; or my earlier "John knows/believes that
Bill is at home" as a more naturalistic example.)

Or look at it this way: under the strict sense of of jinvi, it would be
perfectly possible for A to ask B a question, and for B to readily and
confidently answer it but with B not jinvi-ing the answer prior to
giving it. (Cf. my "Should fines be imposed for masturbation in bed?"
example, or "Was your son alive on 22 Feb 1994?")

As for your rendering of 'extensional believe', it is a fair rendering of my gloss,
but not really of the extensional sense of English 'believe' which means 
something more like "loi se jinvi be ko'a are such that ko'a would jinvi
ko'e if ko'a received the appropriate stimulus to make ko'a infer ko'e
from the ca'a se jinvi be ko'a". This is usually what we mean when we
talk about other people's beliefs -- we have little means to perceive
actual thoughts of others or even ourselves, but we're strikingly good
judges of gaugeing what people would think given the appropriate stimulus
to trigger the thought.

My inclination would be for jinvi to be 'extensional believe' and for a lujvo
of jinvi to be 'intensional believe'. All or most or many cognitive predicates
will need an intensional/extensional counterpart. 

My preferred solution would be to make the distinction on the x2, not
on the selbri, but thinking about it, it does seem that we really are
dealing with a selbri distinction.

--And.