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

From: "Robert J. Chassell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 08:13:04 -0500 (EST)

> 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.

We have been over this before: 

every utterance is stated a `universe of discourse'.

The problem occurs because people live in difference universes.

Sophie lives within a universe of discourse in which her knowledge is
`real'. The statement is unfalsifiable. It addition, it very
possibly is known to her by internal experience (dream, vision, or
personal revelation) {se'o}.

You put those two together, and as Roy Rappaport said in 1979,

The unfalsifiable supported by the undeniable yields the unquestionable.

Let's turn to Aristotle and the Earth-centered universe. I don't know
what Aristotle did to convince himself of his ideas, but I once
replicated Ptolemy's observations of the sun using ad hoc tools that
were not as good as his. Ptolemy also described an Earth-centered
universe.

My observations {za'a} showed me that to the limits of my tools, the
sun-centered model was pretty good. About the only contradicting
information I could image would have come from an analysis of changes
in the brightness of Mercury, Venus (especially), and Mars, against
models that presumed them to be partially illiminated spheres. Tycho
Brahe's alternative model, still earth-centered, handled that.

(I never tried to make brightness observations. Moreover, it would
have been necessary to discover and appreciate the the inverse square
law of brightness and to relate the brightness of planets to the
brightness of nearby things, like a candle. Both could have been done
with equipment available 2,000 years ago, but neither were.)

Also, at the times of Ptolemy or Tycho Brahe, No one had thought to
build, or had a theory to interpret, the movements of a Foucalt
pendulum. The earth rotates underneath a Foucalt pendulum, so from
the point of view of an observer on the earth, the plane of the
pendulum's swing rotates, and by an amount dependent on latitude.

Hence, it is reasonable to say that in Aristotle's and Ptolemy's
universe of discourse, they `knew' that the Earth was the unmoving
center of everything.

The first experimental evidence against the Earth-centered universe
that I know of occured in the 1640s. Catholic priests used their
cathedrals as giant pin hole cameras. They projected the image of the
sun on a spot on the floor, and measuring where it was at noon during
the various days of the year. 

The priests found that the locations of the sun clearly contradicted
locations that the Earth-centered theories required they pass through,
and followed paths that Kepler's theory required. (These observations
a problem for Catholics since the Church had officially stated that
such observations could not be true in a theologically correct sense;
the Protestants, of course, argued that the evidence supported their
religious position.)

As I said, it is reasonable to say that in Aristotle's and Ptolemy's
universe of discourse, they `knew' that the Earth was the unmoving
center of everything.

But when you speak from a different universe of discourse, it is
appropriate to say that their `knowing' was wrong.

This, by the way, is why I still like the use of {lo} as a veridical
descriptor within a single universe of discourse. But we had that
argument a long time ago.

Incidentally, the single most effective of multi-cultural
communication we humans yet know is scientific communication. 

The mode of scientific communication is such that instead of trying to
persuade another by appealing to common cultural understandings, or by
appealing to widely accepted hearsay, a scienfic communication strives
to generate internal experience in the listener. Either the listener
replicates the reasoning, as in a mathematical proof, or replicates
the observations, as in astronomy or old-fashioned biology, and
reasons that there are no better alternative interpretations of the
observations, or the listener replicates the experiment. This method
of communication fails when directed towards older authorities, who do
not listen, reason, or experiment, but often works successfully with
their students.

Also, since it is useful, here is a list of the evidential and
descriptor smavo:

ka'u UI2 I know culturally
evidential: I know 

pe'i UI2 I opine
evidential: I opine

ru'a UI2 I postulate
evidential: I postulate

se'o UI2 I know internally
evidential: I know by internal experience (dream,
vision, or personal revelation)

su'a UI2 I generalize
evidential: I generalize - I particularize;
discursive: abstractly - concretely

ti'e UI2 I hear
evidential: I hear (hearsay)

za'a UI2 I observe
evidential: I observe

le LE the described
non-veridical descriptor: the one(s) described as ...

le'e LE the stereotypical
non-veridical descriptor: the stereotype of those
described as ...

le'i LE the set described
non-veridical descriptor: the set of those described
as ..., treated as a set

lei LE the mass described
non-veridical descriptor: the mass of individual(s)
described as ...

lo LE the really is
veridical descriptor: the one(s) that really is(are)
...

lo'e LE the typical
veridical descriptor: the typical one(s) who really
is(are) ...

lo'i LE the set really is
veridical descriptor: the set of those that really are
..., treated as a set

loi LE the mass really is
veridical descriptor: the mass of individual(s) that
is(are) ...
...

-- 
Robert J. Chassell [email-masked]
Rattlesnake Enterprises http://www.rattlesnake.com