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| In a message dated 10/22/2002 9:16:05 AM Central Daylight Time, jjllambias@hidden.email writes: << >But this is an explanation only if {tu'o ka ce'u brode} is of the >> Then why call its introduction a definition? OK, it is just an axiom about an undefined predicate {kairbroda}. But then it is undefined and thus of no use in explaining anything except in the cases where one of the axioms (or definitions) makes a connection. Now, we are asked on this basis to make an (not further explained) analogy between an equally undefined term {busku} and a normal predicate {broda} and {sisku} and {kairbroda}. But what is the analogy -- just this: we have no idea what {busku} means with any arguments other than individual terms and {lo'e brode} and so, we have no idea what {kairbroda} means with any arguments other than {tu'o ka ce'u du a}, for individual term {a}, and {tu'o ka ce'u brode}. To take a partiuclar case, we do not know what {busku lo'i brode} means nor {kairbroda tu'o ka ce'u du lo'i broda}. Thus, the explanation fails for being in terms even more obscure than before. << >The plausibility of its being of that form >depends upon its purported equivalence with >{tu'o ka ce'u du lo brode} or {tu'o ka ce'u du lo'e brode}. Is your problem with {ka ce'u brode} being equivalent to {ka ce'u du lo brode}, which is also equivalent to {ka da poi brode zo'u ce'u du da}? I thought you had accepted that these three are the same property at least for our purposes. I can't see any difference that matters among those three. >> Well, I serious doubts about these being the same property from withoin property tehory, but, since they necessary apply to exactly the same thing in every universe, I suspect these doubts are misplaced. << >When neither of >these give the result wanted -- one merely continues a circle, the other >puts >the quantifier in the wrong place and so reduced {lo'e} to something more >clearly said without it -- we deny that these are individual terms. I don't understand what you mean here. >> sisku tu'o ka ce'u du lo'e brode = busku lo'e brode by definition one but that adds no new information (explanation) since it is just definition 2. Taking {lo broda} as an individual term in {tu'o ka ce'u du lo brode} gets from {sisku ...} to {busku lo brode} which is {da poi brode zo'u busku da} with all teh attendant problems. The only way to avoid these is to insist that {lo broda} and {lo'e broda} are not individual terms (quite rightly, of course), but then we have no explanation for {busku lo'e brode} and so for {kairbroda tu'o ka ce'u brode} and thus for {broda lo'e brode}. << > But >then, to avoid the point that {kairbroda tu'o ka ce'u broda} is totally >unexplained, the analogy with {busku} and {sisku} is brought in -- since >{sisku} is perfectly with {tu'o ka ce'u brode} even if it is not reducible >to >an identity, then so should {kairbroda} be. Are you saying that my definitions work with {sisku} but not with any other {kairbroda}? (I don't understand what you mean by "it is not reducible to an identity".) >> Yes, it works for {sisku} because has a known function in the language, it does not work for other {kairbroda} because they are introduced only in so far as are specified by the axiom schemata for them. Now, in Llamban they are primitive and so ahave a perfectly well-established meaning. But the problem is to explain {lo'e} in Lojban, in which these new expressions have no more meaning than is given them by their axioms. "not reducible to identity" means "does not have an equivalent of the form {tu'o ka ce'u du a}. << >But, of course, this line of >chat ignores the fat that, compared to a normal predicate, {busku} is only >defined when {sisku} takes an identity concept, so an ordinary predicate >can >only be treated analogously in that case. {buska} is defined for any pair of values, just like any other normal predicate. >> And that definition is what? It is, of course, primitive in Llamban and so perhaps well defined there, but we are concerned with Lojban here and here {busku} is defined only for a limited number of arguments. << >And the two aspects of this theory >(incoherent in yet another sense, note) are then played off alternately, >depending on the line of attack. What two aspects? What is the first sense in which it is incoherent, and what is the other sense in which it is incoherent? >> Taking {lo} and {lo'e} as individual terms and taking them as complex quantifier terms. It was previously noted to be incoherent by deriving and yet denying that lo'e broda = lo broda. << >Thus, from Def 1, for defining {busku} in terms of {sisku} , we get that >busku lo'e broda = sisku tu'o ka ce'u du lo'e broda, taking {lo'e} as an >individual term. I did say that, but I didn't use it anywhere. If that is what bothers you, strike it from what I said. It doesn't change my derivation. >> Please tell me -- in advance -- what you are going to really assert on a given occasion. Having you deny each thing that creates a problem, makes it very hard to figure out what your actual view is (or, rather, confirms my claim that you do not ahve a coherent single view but are whipping back and forth between two superficially similar -- but profoundly different -- ones). I assume that this means that you ahve settled for the {lo} and {lo'e} are complex terms that in context mean something different. But absolutely, that is, in every context, they mean the same thing in the strongest sense (according to you elsewhere -- which I suppose you can say you don't mean but then most of what you had left disappears to, since this is part of your derivation): the concept of lo broda = the concept of lo'e broda (= the concept of broda). I'm not sure whether this is a third incoherence or another way of stating one of the earlier ones (which may, in their turn, be the same). << >But a few lines later, when the claim is {ro broda cu ckaji >tu'o ka ce'u lo'e broda}, {lo'e} is not an individual term, since that >would >mean that every set lo'i broda had at most one member (indeed, the one >And's >myopic observer sees, lo'e broda). {lo'e} is not an individual term. We agree there. It does not refer. >> Whatever does that mean? It is not an individual term because it cannot be used for the derivation just noted. It does not refer in the sense that there is no one object to which it refers, but, on the other hand it does refer, albeit obliquely, lo'i broda and its members, so it is not meaningless in an extensional way. What we have been trying to do is figure out what that way is and your program has not gotten any way along. << >But this claim is rejected, in favor >first of one that replaces {lo'e ka ce'u du lo'e broda} with {tu'o ka da >poi >broda zo'u ce'u du da} and when that leads to the result that -- once again >-- lo'e broda reduces to lo broda, this consequence is simply rejected >without an alternate proposal -- except the obvious one that we can >construct >for {lo broda} a form that does not follow directly from that for {lo'e >broda}. At no point do I replace {lo'e ka ce'u du lo'e broda} with {tu'o ka da poi broda zo'u ce'u du da}. I think they are equivalent, but no such move is needed. >> I'm sorry. You make the move that this would justify and I don't see any other way to justify it, but if there is, do tell about it overtly. How else do you get to {sisku tu'o ka da poi broda zo'u ce'u du da} from {busku lo'e broda}? The pattern seems to be just the one you followed to get to {busku lo broda}. Well, not exactly: the move is the opposite of the one you say you did not do, so I suppose that strictly you did not do that one and I revise my claim accordingly, with the same result, however. << you seem to be objecting even to the buska-sisku case. Am I abusing too much of your patience if I ask you to show step by step how (2) leads to an incoherence? >> Actually, I didn't say that led to incoherence (at least directly), I just said that it failed to explain anything of interest -- particularly in its analogical form, which is the main point here, I think. I do think and have repeatedly pointed out how trying to make something useful of this definition gets you into a variety of incoherences (or a variety of ways to express a single incoherence). Each time I do so, you say that you didn't really do what you overtly did. But you have not given an account of what you really did do that is not subject to the same objections. I really would like your (or somebody's) explanation of {lo'e} in Lojban to work. Yours deosn't yet and the defense of it is getting we worried about your bona fides (are you really an AMORC posing as an AFAM?) |