Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: I like chocolate

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 14 Sep 2002 18:38:25 EDT

In a message dated 9/14/2002 10:22:50 AM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

<<
> No it gives a relation between ta and lo'e sincrboa on the surface.
> 
> But only on the surface. Since {lo'e sincrboa} is not a referring
> term, talking of "a relation between ta and lo'e sincrboa" doesn't
> mean much, because it suggests that there are two things being
> related, which is not the case. There is only one thing, ta, and
> something is predicated of that thing.
> >>
OK, I see you are moving along. "That is of a pictures an object [so there 
is a relation after all, but not to lo'e sincrboa ] which has the visual 
properties associated with boas" -- what the association is depneds upon 1) 
what {lo'e} means and 2) which boas we are talking about (genus -- is there 
more than one? or which ever species). The object part can be further 
unpacked in terms of a hypothetical "pictures what, were it an object, would 
have..." or directly in terms of paint patterns or using {li'i}.

<<
>The issue
>is what does all that come down to at the bottom. I suppose that {ta pixra
>lo'e sincrboa} means something like "That presents an image which manifests
>[some condition here] visual properties associated with boas" where, with 
>the
>Lojban {lo'e} the box is filled with "some visually adequate typical".

Most of that is contained in {pixra}, not in {lo'e sincrboa}.
What does it mean to say {ta pixra le vi sincrboa}? Something
like "That presents an image which manifests [some condition here]
visual properties associated with this boa here".
NO. Just "that is a picture of this here boa." Why go after all the 
hypothetical stuff if the real thing is to hand? It is {lo'e} that is (for 
the moment) the problem, not {pixra}, so, if binding is normal, why go off 
into complicated cases, which would turn out to reduce back to the normal in 
this situation?

<<
>But {pixra lo'e sincrboa} behaves
>differently and her we have to come up with some other properties, since 
>the
>property of being a boa, as such, is not picturable.

If a particular boa is picturable, then boas are picturable.
There is no need to bring in other properties in the generic
case any more than in the particular case.
Yes, lo sincrboa is picturable, but you want a picture of lo'e sincrboa, 
which we can't drag out an look at and compare with the picture. All we have 
to go on in the generic case is the (weighted?) list of properties that 
somehow (still haven't said how) characterize the members of lo'i sincrboa. 
If it works the same as for lo sincrboa, then it just is lo sincrboa and all 
your hoopla about it being different is just vacuous.

<<
>We have to go inside
>and see what that means in visual terms.

To understand what {pixra} means, yes. But not to understand
what {lo'e sincrboa} means.
To understand what {pixra lo'e sincrboa} means -- this is no longer something 
we can take piece by piece --though I think that {pixra} emerges unchanged at 
the end.

<<
[{lo'e}] basically is {lo} without the quantification, but that is
not saying much, since {lo} in itself is an empty gadri. Indeed
Loglan does not have anything equivalent to it, it just uses
{su'o broda} (or often {pa broda}) where we use {lo broda}.
Thgis is where this all started lo these weeks ago. It was horseshit then 
and remains so today, barring you finally come up with some even vaguely 
intellible meaning for it. I take back the remark about progress, since we 
(well, you at least; I think I have gotten a bit more understanding about how 
{lo'e} and {le'e} work in Lojban) are back to (or still at) the rridiculous 
place you started. {lo} without quantification makes no sense at all, since 
{lo} just is a quantifier in a different format for ease of use in certain 
contexts. It is not an empty gadri, though (like every gadri) it can be 
replaced by other expressions to the same semantic sense, though often with 
different rhetorical force. Loglan's usage is -- I am constantly being told 
(but not by you,admittedly --as far as I can remember) -- irrelevant to 
Lojban. I take the addition of {lo} to have been an important step in the 
separation. I now was about to think we could dispense with it again, since 
it has brought (I would have bet before your remark some weeks ago) us to an 
understanding that no longer requires it, except as a malglico crutch.

>My question is now "what preoperties are delimited by your {lo'e sfofa} . 
>If
>nothing beyond being a sofa, then this is just {nelci tu'a lo sfofa} and as
>uninteresting as cases where it amounts to nothing more than {lo sfofa}.

{tu'a lo sfofa} is either {le nu lo sfofa cu co'e} or
{le du'u lo sfofa cu co'e}, neither of which would fit
as replacement in {nelci lo'e sfofa}.
I think that, in fact, barring the miraculous appearance of a better 
explanation, {nelci le nu lo sfofa co'e} is exactly what {nelci lo'e sfofa} 
means. In what does it differ. DON'T "in that it deals with generic sofas 
not particular ones" since {le nu lo sfofa co'e} doesn't deal with any 
particular sofa either -- that is what intensional contexts do best. I 
suspect that {co'e} is something about lying on 'em or looking at 'em, just 
as {nelci lo'e cakla} = {nelci le nu lo cakla co'e} is about eating 'em. Nor 
-- your other line -- that it can't be quantified over, since neither can 
{tu'a lo ...} What is different?
(I asked this question weeks ago and it was trying to puzzle out your reply 
that led to this mess: please give a different reply this time, so we don't 
have to go through ALL of this again.

<<
>{zu'i} doesn't mean "the typical value in this context," it is just 
>replaced
>by the typical value in this context.

Well... I have never seen it in use, so I have started using it
to translate generic "one", as in:

i fa'a le sirji crane zu'i na ka'e klama lo'e darno mutce
Droit devant soi on ne peut pas aller bien loin...
(Going straight ahead, one can't go very far...)

You can use it any way you want, but at a certain (rather early) point what 
you are doing ceases to be Lojban and becomes Llamban (don't tell me that 
means the language of llamas or some such thing). I would have used {da} 
there, since it is meant to be totally general. Or, failing that, {zo'e}. I 
don't think there is a typical goer, even with all the other places filled in

<<
That of course is not meant to be replaced by a typical value.
Which is why it is wrong (amazingly to some folks on this list, there is 
such a thing as wrong Lojban and it is OK -- indeed obligatory -- to point it 
out.)

<<
{zu'i} in the sense of "one" is not bindable to {da}.
Of course it is; indeed, it is equivalent to {da} already. Or would be if 
legal at all.

<<
I would say that the only relevant property for {lo'e broda} is
lo ka ce'u broda, just as it is the only relevant property for
{lo broda} or for {lo'i broda}. They are all different ways of
dealing with the same class.
Hey, I agree that they are all different ways of deling with the same class. 
But, in Lojban, {lo/e'e} takes into account othere properties of the members 
of that class than the one by virtue of which they are members. What is 
typical of lions, is often not what makes them lions at all; what we think is 
typical of lions, may not even be a proerty of any lions at all. Now, if 
your {lo'e} really deals only with the defining property, then it is going to 
come down to just hypothetical universals. There is nothing the matter with 
that, but there are usually other, less obscure ways to do them: regular 
universals for example. And a lot of cases will fail. {mi nelci lo'e sfofa} 
amounts eventually to "anything that were a sofa, I would like," which won't 
do, given that you say there are some sofas you don't like -- and similarly 
for other cases of that sort. And, of course, {ta pixra lo'e sincrboa} won't 
work at all, since whatever choices one makes about color or pattern or.... 
there will be real boas, let alone hypothetical ones, that are like that at 
all.

I don't really think you mean this. But I don't think you have thought 
through what you do mean in practical terms. Get back to this topic when you 
ahve.