Subject: Re: [lojban] Knowledge (was: Random lojban questions/annoyances

From: Robin Lee Powell <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 01:05:36 -0500

On Sun, Mar 18, 2001 at 11:31:45PM -0500, Invent Yourself wrote:
> On Mon, 19 Mar 2001, Jorge Llambias wrote:
> > la xod cusku di'e
> > >But why bother djuno,
> > >since it is only a superposition of krici + tugni?
> >
> > krici + jetnu really. {ko'a djuno ko'e} => {ko'a krici ko'e}
> > & {ko'e jetnu}.
> >
> > But Lojban gismu are not supposed to be a minimal set.
> > There are many superpositions that occur often or were
> > considered useful for some reason.
> >
> > > > Every single Lojban word automatically inserts the judgments of
> > > > the narrator. Which word doesn't?
> > >
> > >krici doesn't.
> >
> > It certainly does. If you say that A believes B you are making
> > a judgment.
> >
> 
> 
> Not at all. I am objectively reporting the personal claims of A. "Sophie
> is a Muslim" is objective fact. "Sophie KNOWS Mohammed is Allah's only
> prophet" is not objective, because I am sneaking in my own agreement with
> her.

Ohhh... That is _SUCH_ a perfect example. I'm talking about this with
one of my sweeties and she said that it makes sense to say that "Sophie
KNOWS Mohammed is Allah's only prophet" because we all have our own
realities and having to change her knowledge into belief subsumes her
own reality into our own, and is hence disrespectful and patronizing.
She also thinks (and I agree) that having to say "I believe that Sophie
KNOWS Mohammed is Allah's only prophet" is just unnecessarily verbose
and silly.

She also proposed the example of colorblindness. It is ridiculous for
me to have to report Steve's observation of something I see as green,
which he sees as blue by saying "Steve believes that's blue". Bullshit,
he _knows_ it's blue, he can see it with his own two eyes.

Yes, I know color is subjective in lojban, but if djuno can only talk
about true things then it can't talk about subjective things at all, so
that doesn't help.

-Robin

-- 
http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rlpowell/ BTW, I'm male, honest.
Information wants to be free. Too bad most of it is crap. --RLP