Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: zi'o & otpi

From: Elrond <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 18:35:12 +0200 (CEST)

> > 
> > >(Honestly, I feel that lojban here is constraining the way I'm thinking --
> > >it seemed obvious to me to be able to think about a "girzu be fi zi'o",
> > >even a "se gerku be zi'o", and all I'm hearing for several days now just
> > >states that it "cannot"... I just am more and more agreeing with the SWH!)
> > 
> > Remember that it is NOT that a dog breed cannot exist without a dog, but 
> > that a se gerku cannot exist without a gerku
> 
> 
> Where exactly does this leave us on the use of zi'o?
Same question, with one small addition: what is a gerku then ?

It makes me remind of a lesson a computer science teacher gave me one
day. We were talking about some theory on GUI building in windowing
environments, and we started at one point talking about the terminology in
a graphical library where all objects are windows, with several
properties:
location, size
child/contained windows
parent/container windows

Remember, this is not about the actual *implementation* of this example
window system. This is just a preparation to the rest of the theory where
algorithms on window management or drawings are explained.

If we were to discuss this subject in lojban, I am quite sure we would
build a lujvo/fu'ivla (let's call it W) with the place structure 
"W	x1 is a window with placement x2 size x3 childs/contempts
x4 parents/containers x5"
(several parents possibe in case of a single window "shared" along
several others) 
So far, all is well.

Now, the lesson went on talking about the algorithms involved in the
management of the window system as a hierarchical system, where any window
can have several sub-window, but only one "parent". And of course we
eventually came to talk about the 'root' window, which has a very special
status, which while very easy to implement, requires to imagine that the
root window "cu W fu zi'o".

Still, all is well, "zi'o" looks like the perfect word for this. However,
the problem is that for me who didn't think about it earlier, while being
quite fluent about the concept/relationship of "W", it was quite difficult
to understand.

At first, I went on thinking that this "fu zi'o" was just a speech trick
to say in the theory that in any trivial hierarchical system
implementation, the root is given itself as its own parent; I was simply
linking too much the x1 of "W" with its x5, and thinking altogether that
a correct theory would have been to nominate a different concept word for 
the root window. I was all wrong.

What I was imagining as "trivial" had been originally worked out far after
the theory. I was explained later that "lo xe W" are linked to the
"W" relationship exactly the same way "lo ve W" are, and so are "lo
W". The (now) common understanding of "lo W", induced by visual
observation, is only a part of the whole of what "W" features.

The point is, with such a system a "ve W be zi'o" or "xe W be zi'o" are
obviously clear. Any special object (such as a curve, a point, a picture)
added to the system that serves for drawing purposes, and thus do not, and
can not either, serve as container, are "ve W be zi'o". A special object that
contains windows but cannot apply to the x1 of a "W" relationship (such as
an X server with several root windows, like within a multiscreen
environment) would be a "xe W be zi'o" (and also "be fe zi'o fi zi'o fo
zi'o", probably). 

But what does this have to do with dogs ? Easy. I often think of "lo
gerku" as, somewhat, "meta-childs" of their "se gerku". And I strongly,
deeply feel like "lo se gerku" are separate "objects",
incidentally "meta-parents" of "lo gerku", but that can be thought
about separately. And as I tried to explain in my previous message, I can
somewhat conceive a situation where a "se gerku" can have no "gerku" at
all (and, why not, no *possible* gerku at all either).

If you say that the lojban word "gerku" is not *designed* to even
*possibly* carry the meaning I give to its x2 place, then we've got a
problem: can you define what is a dog breed in the lojban sense, then ?

Regards
raph