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

From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 23:55:00

la lojbab cusku di'e

> >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.

Thank you. That is all I am claiming.

> >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.

By "system" I meant veldjuno/seljetnu, nothing else.
Let me restate my claim more clearly:

ro da zo'u ro se djuno be fo da cu jetnu da

>The system
>wherein John knows c1 is the speed is not the same system wherein the value
>c1 is not the speed.

Of course not! The only system where John can know that c1 is the speed
has to be one where c1 is the speed.

>All this seems to be philosophy though, more than language.

To me saying that every se djuno has to be a jetnu is just like
saying that every mensi has to be a fetsi, I can hardly see any
philosophy there, just a definition of what the words mean.

>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.

So we have to allow for non-female sisters too? Doesn't mensi
always require some form of fetsi?

>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.

What is special about Lojban in that respect? Isn't every language
like that?

>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.

Maybe, though I have no idea really what would constitute a metaphysical
rejection. I reject some cmavo mainly on practical grounds. For
example, some people like to use za'i/pu'u/zu'o/mu'e instead of
the simple nu that covers them all. But in order for me to understand
what they are saying I have to first recognize and then mentally
translate that word into nu, and I usually have no idea what additional
information the word is adding. I have not yet found an example
where I can say that it justifies the whole hassle of having to learn
four more words. Unfortunately I don't have much choice in the matter
because others do use them (at least za'i and pu'u) so I have
already learned them. zu'o and mu'e I had to look up, as I don't
know them by heart yet, although mu'e does crop up from time
to time in usage. MEX words I have not learned, and mercifully
almost nobody uses them yet.

co'o mi'e xorxes

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