Subject: Re: [lojban] A or B, depending on C, and related issues

From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2001 23:22:34

la pycyn cusku di'e

>Surely among the first to be dealt with would be the two
>versions of "if P then Q, else R," which are also pleasantly simple:
>(if P then Q) and (if not P then R)" and "(P iff Q) and (not P iff R)" 
>While
>I am sure there are easier ways to show that these are the simplest forms 
>for
>these functions, I confess to just having run all the possibilities from
>disjunctive normal forms on down.

Neither of them is "Q or R, depending on P" though. One of
the versions of that would be:

[(if P then Q) and (if not P then R)] xor
[(if not P then Q) and (if P then R)]

I have no idea whether that can be simplified.

And that is assuming "depending on P" means "depending on whether
or not P". If it can mean something like "depending on what the
weather is like", it gets a little bit trickier...

>I'm not quite sure what this has to do with anything, but it arose in some
>other discussion -- perhaps in a more general form -- and perhaps this
>answer, which is easily generalizable though with rapidly lengthening
>results, will help.

I suppose it depends on what you understand by "easily". :)

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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