Subject: Re: [lojban] ma smuni zo senva

From: Jim Peters <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 19:25:10 +0100

Bob LeChevalier (lojbab) wrote:
> At 09:46 PM 8/15/01 -0600, Jay Kominek wrote:
> >IMO, day dreams, nightmares, good dreams are all cases of senva. Hoping
> >that you get into graduate school isn't senva. ...
> >
> >However, I would form some sort lujvo for all of them, and use the
> >appropriate lujvo instead of senva directly, as it seems to be a gismu
> >which is fairly vague and best left to lujvo/tanru construction.
> 
> Note that this is precisely the opposite philosophy that Colin Fine once 
> expressed which was to Lojbanically use the broad if more vague term where 
> possible. He noted that English speakers are prone to being overspecific 
> about some things that are obvious, and that Lojban seems to make a bit of 
> art of being creatively vague or elliptical in leaving out things English 
> finds essential (like tense and number).

I'm very new to Lojban, and I haven't really got my head around how
meanings combine yet (in lujvo) and so on, nor the overall logical
structure of the language. However, I've been having a read at all
the documents on the web-site, and I'm especially interested in the
Sapir-Whorf stuff.

[ My background is as a UNIX coder/hacker, with a strong interest in
computer languages. However I've also studied a few human languages,
but only for the purpose of communication. I also use the I Ching
regularly, so I've been exposed to the thought-space of the ancient
Chinese ideograms. My other relevant interests are the more subtle
aspects of the world, such as dealt with by the I Ching, subtle
energetic interaction, healing, and other spiritual things. ]

The impression I get from what I've read is that Lojban is supposed to
improve thinking by providing a language that forces you to be clear
about what you're saying about what. However to me this is only one
side of the whole Sapir-Whorf thing.

The other side is the meanings of the words. These are the building
blocks that the thoughts manipulate. If the word-meanings fit badly
to the world-space you're trying to think about, then you are not
going to be able to think about it clearly without making up new
words. (Or am I on the wrong track here ?)

Take `to run' in English, which according to what I've read is `bajra'
in Lojban, meaning the physical action of running. However, in
English water can also run. In some way these two types of `run' are
the same, because the feeling of running (when it is going well) is
fluid, like water flowing. So at a more subtle level, water running
and a human running are the same thing, an expression of fluidity in
motion.

Does this mean, then, that Lojban is biased towards a physical
world-view, making it much less useful for discussing more subtle
aspects of the world ? I mean, are word-meanings being defined in
such a way that chooses a concrete physical-scientific world-view over
a slightly more abstract one.

In this example, English seems a better tool for discussing `running'
than Lojban. Am I being unfair in suggesting this ?

I hope I'm making sense and you can understand where I'm coming from.

Jim

-- 
Jim Peters (_)/=\~/_(_) Uazú
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jim@ (_) /=\ ~/_ (_) www.
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