Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: [jboske] RE: Anything but tautologies

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 12:31:23 EST

In a message dated 2/19/2002 10:41:46 AM Central Standard Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> > I see we have to go throuhg the whole {ka}-{du'u} bit again 
> > to sort that out, since there seem to be at least three versions still 
> > floating around.
> 
> 
> Okay, what's your view? Mine is that du'u and ka mean the same
> thing, except for their x2 place, and for the default number of
> ce'us (0 for du'u, 1 for ka).

Well, I have tried to summarize this in various ways and I seem to recall 
your version going around and being almost as universally shot down as the 
one I tried to satisy the various demands and which ended up satisfying no 
one. I now am of the opinion that {ka} out to be the qualitative analog of 
quantitiative {ni} -- I think this is what Lojbab was trying (with about 
average luck in these kinds of explications = 0) to say:
{le du'u ce'u sutra cu ka la bab bajra}. Properties and relations (functions 
from things to propositions or truth values -- we need to sort that out, too) 
are {du'u} with all {ce'u} in place or with none, defaulting to the first 
unfilled place.

<> I am at a loss to figure out what a rule for a function is other than 
> either a program or some other form of specifying how to compute the 
> value in terms of more basic functions. But these turn out to be just 
> other expressions of the same function.

An expression of the function is not the name of a function.
So "le ve fancu fo la faktorial." (left out fo last time)
means "the program, or whatever, that expresses the factorial function."
This is a Good Thing.>

One of the things that this trip (which began, incredibly, with pi,er asking 
about a better translation for a passage in Genesis) has shown is that we all 
need a lesson in use and mention and in what exactly various words mean in 
the light of that distinction. I am not sure what the expression of a 
function is if not a complex name that has the virtue of telling us how to 
compute a value given an argument and thus stands for a function and, if it 
is right, the same one as the name stands for. 

While I'm on it, we need to go through all the abstract object words and sort 
out what they and their places mean -- what are the components of a mass, for 
a recent example, along with what is fancu4 (or fancu1, for that matter). 
The gismu list is becoming a metaphysical nightmare -- not a good thing for a 
"metaphysically neutral" langauge (even if we accept the joke).

<MEX is the obvious way of expressing a program (mathematical
expression). With the article "li" it refers to the value of the
program; with the article "me'o", which is wanted here, it refers
to the text of the program.

We just don't have anything defined for "\x.".>

This looks like a massive use-mention confusion waiting to happen (and 
waiting only because no uses -- or even pretends to know how to use -- MEX). 
What is it that goes behind both {li} and {me'o}, what does it refer to in 
itself? And how did we manage not to have a word for "\x" ? I thought that 
was what {ce'u} was supposed to do.