Subject: Re: [lojban] fancu

From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 03 Oct 2001 02:33:19

la pycyn cusku di'e

> > In my view {makau} stands for the value that the relationship gives
> > when the ce'u place is filled. {makau} will take a value from x3
> > for each value taken from x2 and placed in {ce'u}.
>Ahah! I have accused you of that view several times and you have almost as
>often denied it, swearing that you believed that the answer to a question 
>was
>a proposition not a thing.

Please read again what I wrote. {makau} stands for the value.
{le du'u makau broda} does _not_ stand for the value.

>Now, to make a point you will go back to your
>true view. OK. But notice that will make {la djan djuno le du'u makau 
>mamta
>la bil) into perfect nonsense (of a highly forbidden kind: we can't use
>{djuno} for people).

What? My true view?

>Ah, but maybe what you mean is that somehow it is built into the operation 
>of
>indirect questions that they generate the proposition with the right 
>critter
>in for the {kau}. But then, of course, it is impossible to get the answer
>wrong, which, alas, goes against our experience: {mi jinvi le du'u maku 
>mamta
>la bil} guarantees I get it right (so only essay questions from now on).

I'm afraid I don't understand your point here. {la djan jinvi le du'u
makau mamta la bil} (to avoid first person issues) means that John
has an opinion as to who is Bill's mother. {makau} there stands for
whoever it is that John thinks Bill's mother is.

>And's view -- if I have it somewhat right -- at least misses that problem 
>and
>only runs into all the intensionality or interchange problems -- as well as
>missing several good answers. The set-of-answers theory (not mine, by the
>way) was not arrived at without looking at these kinds of problems but was
>rather what people were forced to to deal with them.

Sorry, I don't understand how this affects the ce'u-makau case.

> > Why would its values be more representative of a function than the
> > relationship that gives rise to it?
>
>"Is mother of," {le ka/du'u ce'u mamta ce'u}, is a relation and, indeed, a
>function, as a set of ordered pairs --though the order is reversed here, so
>{le du'u ce'u se mamta ce'u} . There are many functions for which it is
>somewhat unnatural to think of the corresponding relation (sum, product, 
>and
>the like, for example)

Unnatural or not, Lojban thinks of them as such (see sumji, pilji).

>and, indeed, the relations can usually be expressed
>only by an equation between the function with an argument and its value for
>that argument (though one way of doing Logic does take this notion as 
>basic,
>to simplify some kinds of metatheoretical proofs).

So my way of doing it is not that far fetched, or are you saying
something else?

>However, the shift from
>relation to function IN PRACTICE does require some indication that the
>relation IS a function and the {le ka ce'u... ce'u} does not show that,

No, but the pair ce'u-makau does show it. {makau} is whatever value
makes the relation hold for a given {ce'u}.

>while
>value-description form does (well, almost -- Lojban has this singular /
>plural problem, as you know, but that can be handled in a variety of ways).
>It is that information that makes the value-description form better.

It sounds wrong to me. I keep getting the feeling that it's the
wrong type. I just can't treat {le broda be ce'u} as an object
that is nothing like a broda.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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