Subject: Re: [lojban] Random lojban questions/annoyances.

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 09:25:55 -0500

At 11:09 PM 03/21/2001 +0000, Jorge Llambias wrote:
>la lojbab cusku di'e
> >Each observer knows a
> >certain value measures the speed of light based on an experiment. By
> >moving to an observer-independent frame, we can say that at least one of
> >the two values is not the speed of light as measured by the experiment once
> >observer dependencies are removed.
>
>So you claim that:
>
>John knows experimentally that c1 is the speed of light.
>It is not true experimentally that c1 is the speed of light.
>
>To me those two statements are contradictory.

They are semantically in contradiction. Propositionally there is the 
hidden assumption needed that one cannot know something to be true that is 
in fact not true, which is the issue we are discussing, I believe. Under 
most philsophies that assumption would be valid, but a philosophy that 
rejects existence of an objective reality might not accept that assumption.

>(They are also
>wrong because an experiment can only tell you a range of
>possible values for c with a certain degree of confidence,

You know that and I know that, but *John* might not know 
that. Furthermore, if the experimental error is unusually high for the 
experiment John knows about, the value c1 could be outside of the 90% or 
95% confidence range or whatever the standard is.

>but that is beside the point that we are dealing with, which is
>whether something can be known in a system where it is not
>true.)

You've made an assumption here - that there is one system. The system 
wherein John knows c1 is the speed is not the same system wherein the value 
c1 is not the speed.

> >It would be true to ko'a by ko'a's senses.
>
>Then it is {jetnu} by the same epistemology by which it is
>{djuno}!

ko'a's senses are not an epistemology. I could not use jetnu with the 
above sentence, since jetnu has no place for ko'a as observer (I could add 
such a place with BAI, but we seem collectively of mixed minds as to what 
adding places does to the basic meaning of a selbri.

>Why do you say it is not? How do you translate
>the above sentence into Lojban?

Not using jetnu %^)

> >But ko'a's senses are not
> >generally considered to be a valid epistemology for observer independent
> >truth (jetnu)
>
>Generally considered? Some epistemologies are valid only for {djuno}
>and not valid for {jetnu}?

We are dealing with a case where the value stuck in djuno yields truth to 
John who is explicitly called out in the bridi, whereas if you stuck any 
name other than John in that djuno sentence, it would be false. Since 
jetnu has no observer place, I would be reluctant to use it for information 
that different observers do not agree on. I do not have that reluctance in 
using djuno, in part BECAUSE we have jetnu and fatci for stronger 
assertions (observer and epistemology independence), and krici, sruma, 
jinvi for weaker ones.

All this seems to be philosophy though, more than language. To me the 
question is how to accommodate philosophies that differ from the ones 
assumed commonly in English (and perhaps many other languages). Robin 
wants to be able to reject the possibility of objective truth, and for 
someone like that, we have the difference between jetnu and fatci referring 
to metaphysical dependent truth, and the distinction between djuno and 
jetnu, which can refer to observer dependent truth. (We don't have a word 
for observer dependency without also metaphysical dependency, but I'm sure 
someone will come up with one should it be needed).

To be metaphysically neutral, we have to allow in the language such that A 
does not entail B where A and B use different selbri. Indeed that may be a 
problem in a lojban-only dictionary that is not merely descriptive, that 
any defining of a brivla in terms of other brivla constitute metaphysical 
assumptions that may not be necessary. And Lojban by design is required to 
shun unnecessary metaphysical assumptions.

I don't like my brief English-language definitions being used to concretize 
metaphysical assumptions into the language. Already we have the problem 
that people attach too much literalness to my largely off-the-cuff notes 
and synonyms in the gismu list, such as my "without evidence" in krici. I 
never defined "evidence" nor looked it up in a dictionary before adding it 
- I added it as a clarification to distinguish it from jinvi and djuno, 
each of which requires something more of an assertion than merely asserting 
it, in order for them to be true. krici, not having any places for other 
information can be true merely because le krici thinks it is true with no 
justification, evidence, or metaphysics. So the brief "without evidence" 
was not intended to be a deep philosophical statement about the nature of 
krici or of belief, but merely a 2-word abbreviation suggesting how it 
might differ from related words. I would much prefer a longer explanation, 
but the gismu list was originally set up merely for LogFlash, and was not 
intended to be dictionary definitional (though it is likely that this will 
indeed be the case at least for early editions of the dictionary).

I think that anyone concluding, as xod did, that the definitions I wrote 
make some gismu unnecessary/irrelevant are coding some kind of metaphysical 
assumptions in the language rather than looking for ways or philosophies 
wherein the differences COULD be meaningful. One need not accept such 
alternate philosophies, but rejecting a gismu as meaningful or useful (and 
perhaps also rejecting a cmavo as *you* often do) seems like such a 
metaphysical rejection.

lojbab
--
lojbab [email-masked]
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org