From xod@sixgirls.org Mon Mar 19 23:34:14 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: xod@shiva.sixgirls.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_0_4); 20 Mar 2001 07:34:14 -0000 Received: (qmail 72785 invoked from network); 20 Mar 2001 07:34:14 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by m8.onelist.org with QMQP; 20 Mar 2001 07:34:14 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO shiva.sixgirls.org) (206.252.141.232) by mta1 with SMTP; 20 Mar 2001 07:34:13 -0000 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by shiva.sixgirls.org (8.11.0/8.11.1) with ESMTP id f2K7YvD00506 for ; Tue, 20 Mar 2001 02:34:57 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 02:34:57 -0500 (EST) To: Subject: Re: [lojban] krici (was: djuno [was: random lojban annoyance In-Reply-To: <69.12b73239.27e826d4@aol.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: Invent Yourself On Mon, 19 Mar 2001 pycyn@aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 3/19/2001 5:29:52 PM Central Standard Time, > xod@sixgirls.org writes: > > > > > > > Not in English nor (under {sruma}) in Lojban. > Damn. We're back on different pages. To what was I referring? I forget! Please don't cut away so much text! > Remember that these beliefs held invulnerable for the moment are, in their > own right, based on other evidence and so on. So, they are not merely > assumptions for argument; they are rather postulates, which need not be > discharged, as assumption must be (indirect proof of one sort or another) or > prejudice the conclusion/claim. They cannot in this argument be rejected, as > an assumption can be. I use sruma to mean "assumption" or "postulate". It may, in some contexts, be good to distinguish between these two, but I say sruma covers them both. For the gismu definition says "assumption", and ru'a says "postulate". Whether or not they have other basis in fact, they are taken for the purposes of an argument as true. (Do you want to define the scope of an argument?) Since no basis in fact is necessary (and the resulting argument, based on them, may become the evidence for their acceptance!) these are not beliefs. > They are, however, beliefs that the person holds (typically, as you note, on > the basis of some evidence -- which cannot now be the issue) and which s/he > then uses as evidence for the beliefs under attack. > > I think we are talking slightly at cross-purposes here. The evidence for the > truth of the claim that I am seeing a yellow patch is my seeing a yellow > patch, but what is the evidence for my seeing a yellow patch, which is a > du'u, something that I believe, but for which no evidence other than itself > is possible (the way the usual story goes). > "Evidence" as it is used in these epistemological uses is a logical concept, > propositions that support another proposition, what they are evidence for. > No experience can be that sort of evidence, since no experience is a > paroposition (whatever that is). But an experience can be a *cause* of > believing a proposition, one for which there is no evidence at all. (I know > that this is being fussy about language, and that people -- including > philosophers -- would call the experience evidence, but to do so leads to the > double problem of an impossible logic and one or another kind of problems > with evidence -- infintie regress or contradiction). (It also turns out, for > the sake of those who don't like objective facts, etc., that an experience is > never enough by itself to cause a belief, there has to be another belief > involved as well, an interpretation of the experience -- and that other > belief is subject to challenge, so that causation cannot literally be taken > as a species of evidence.) I could argue against this point but since it lends support to my assertion that "a belief without any evidence never occurs", I won't. ----- "The trees are green, since green is good for the eyes". I agreed with him, and added, that God had created cattle, since beef soups strengthen man; that he created the donkey, so that it might give man something with which to compare himself; and he had created man, to eat beef soup and not be a donkey.