Subject: Re: [lojban] So you think you're logical?

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 16:01:25 EDT

In a message dated 4/25/2002 2:26:26 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> Many times when we say 'if a then b' we mean that the iffy a causes the b if
> it is true.

A good case for {ri'a} then, suitably framed to prevent current explanation 
(needed also for {bai}

In these circumstances, bai is the obvious choice for if, since > 
> it derives from bapli (x1 [force] (ka) forces/compels event x2 to occur; x1
> determines property x2 to manifest). 

But this is a remarkably prescientific notion of causation, one surely dead 
by the end of the 18th century. Why would we preserve it in Lojban? Aside 
from physical links -- expanding gases on pistons, gears and wheels, 
fluctuations in magnetic fields, and, of course, grabbing a hand and moving 
it -- it does not function well. And in those cases, {ri'a} still works. (I 
skip over my problem about {ka} being a force of some sort.)

The 'I make you do it' use of bai is > 
> not very frequent - la rab.spir. found a mere 26 instances of it - and so 
> it
> is not unreasonable to suggest that a causative if would be best expressed
> by bai (la .adam. and I both have.)

26 out of how many? (That is, how mere is "mere" here?) I agree that "He 
physically forced me to do it" is pretty rare and I suspect that the other 
agentive "forces," where threat is the typical "force" are better handled by 
other words than {bai}. That does not mean it is right for the general 
causal case.

<'ro temci lo menli cu nibli'>

Also curiously prescientitic. Most time frames existed before there were any 
minds and so hardly entailed them, even as future existents, apparently. But 
I usppose there is some logic (at least set of premises) that does make this 
work out.