From lojbab@xxxxxx.xxxx Fri Apr 23 06:14:43 1999 X-Digest-Num: 122 Message-ID: <44114.122.702.959273824@eGroups.com> Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 09:14:43 -0400 From: Bob LeChevalier-Logical Language Group From: Steven Belknap > >>The new "by standard..." does not solve that problem, nor does appeal to >>general paradigm cases. But people seem to get by just by using the rule >>they use in English (or whatever), which is what the original insight was an >>attempt to make explicit. >>pc > >I certainly agree with pc that the "by standard" place does not completely >resolve the problem of what we mean by . The dialectic >regarding this issue seems to drift aimlessly, never being resolved >definitively. Some time ago I suggested that this dilemma might be an >instance of circular definition or failure to acknowledge axioms. No, it is a dilemma of explcitly acknowledging a complex set of competing axioms, with no way to choose among them. Faced with the fact that we use color words in a variety of ways which imply a variety of oblique places, we chose to decide that none were obligatory and that any could be added using BAI tags. >Color is a particularly vexing issue, as it has cultural determinants. We >apparently do *not* all agree on what blue is. So leaving it is an >undefined term is problematic. We agree on what color "blue" refers to more or less, but we do not agree as to whether something is blue is dependent on a standard, on additive or subtractive color formulae, whether it is observer dependent (if a colorblind person sees only black and white, does that mean that nothing is blue?), whether blue is determined by prototype, by a spectral range, how much of the mass of the object is blue (a blue house does not normally have every square inch of its surface in that color). The ONLY thing we seem to agree about blanu is the relationship between the x1 and the concept "blue", so a truthful place structure for blanu might be "x1 pertains to some concept of the color blue". The right way to solve the problem is to add BAI places as needed. This could have been done for other gismu as well, but it is a clumsiness to be avoided where possible. lojbab ---- lojbab ***NOTE NEW ADDRESS*** lojbab@lojban.org Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: see Lojban WWW Server: href=" http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/ " Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.