Subject: Re: [lojban] coi rodo - mi'e .aulun.

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 27 May 2000 18:11:04 EDT

In a message dated 00-05-2, xorxes writes:
<< Chuang's argument is certainly better. If we ask a small
child what do planes like to do, the answer will probably
be that they like to fly. Even a child knows that the
pleasure of planes is to fly, just like the pleasure
of Chuang's fish is to dart about. That's what our feelings
tell us!

Hui might do better taking issue with Chuang's assumptions
rather than with his source of knowledge. If he grants him
that fish do take pleasure at anything, I don't see what
is so strange to think that darting about would be it.
More strange would be to think that they wouldn't be
indulging their pleasure. >
An interesting analysis and one that is possible for Chuang but does not make 
much fun of Hui. I would take it -- on the basis of this English, anyhow -- 
that Chuang's win comes from his point that the original question was "HOW do 
you know?" and that that question only makes sense when it is agreed that 
"you" DO know. Hui made his mark by just that kind of playing around with 
presuppositions and less formal assumptions. 

<<{do na me mi} maybe. The lack of parallelism makes it more
clear what is the flaw in the argument, which the formal
parallelism of the Chinese expression perhaps helps to cloud.>>

Well, on the assumption that there is a flaw in Hui's argument, which is not 
obvious. Notice that Chuang does not try to counter it, but returns to an 
earlier point. Is it a strange claim that you have to be a just like another 
person to really know what they think/feel? Chuang seems to accept it -- 
indeed insist on it -- but it is not a win for him, only a draw.