From pycyn@aol.com Mon Jun 26 07:13:10 2000 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 13522 invoked from network); 26 Jun 2000 14:13:07 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by m1.onelist.org with QMQP; 26 Jun 2000 14:13:07 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO imo-r17.mx.aol.com) (152.163.225.71) by mta1 with SMTP; 26 Jun 2000 14:13:07 -0000 Received: from Pycyn@aol.com by imo-r17.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v27.10.) id a.a4.6338137 (4534) for ; Mon, 26 Jun 2000 10:12:57 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 10:12:56 EDT Subject: Re: [lojban] RE:Trivalent Logics To: lojban@egroups.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 3.0 16-bit for Windows sub 41 From: pycyn@aol.com I'm not sure whether there is anything readable about three-valued (or any more-than-two-valued) logic -- I have trouble with most of them and they're part of my job (but I have a strong bivalent prejudice, too). Most books on the topic or on Philosophy of Logic or Non-Standard (Deviant) Logics quickly get off into either constructing a calculus for the notion or trying to make sense (or show you can't make sense) of the third (and sometimes of the first two as well) truth values. In Aymara (as I understand it from the text), the point is less about truth than about certainty and commitment. So the three positions are roughly thoroughly committed to, thoroughly committed against, and uncommitted (leaving the notion of commitment vague). Different functors indicate different kinds of commitment depending upon the basic situation, the commitment to the unmarked claim. If I am committed to p, then I am committed to necessarily p, but if I am not committed to p (either uncommitted or committed against) the I am committed against necessarily p. And so on through all the conectives. As a tool, this could make for finer distinctions in the commitment categories of lb, starting with making the category itself much clearer.