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| In a message dated 10/22/2002 1:45:39 PM Central Daylight Time, jjllambias@hidden.email writes: << You have repeatedly pointed out _that_ ... >> I have pointed it out for each version of your tale, but that always turns out not to be the real tale. I suppose this can be put down to faulty exposition or faulty comprehension -- I am incline to the former view if those are the choices (and, if they are not all, I would put in a word for shifting positions eing expounded). << >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. Ok, let me start from scratch so that we don't have to worry about what I did or didn't do. I recant everything I said previously on this topic. I now give two definitions: >> Do you really mean "definition" here, a full expositon of what {buska} means or is this just a claim about what it means in certain situations, with the other parts left either undefined or to be winkled out by guesswork? I don't much care which your answer is, but I want to pin you down against further wiggling (or to make you esposition as clear as possible). << Let's forget about kairbroda for the time being.] >> Well, it is the only reason I can think of for being interested in {buska}, which is too strange to be of much use. But, OK -- if {buska} can be made to perform the necessary deeds, perhaps the analogy will turn up something about {kairbroda} . << Before even starting to talk about {lo'e broda}, do you think there is anything at all problematic about definition 1? >> We, yes, -- what does {buska} mean? How would we translate it -- into any langauge but first of all into Lojban? How would we determine whether {mi buska loi blabi} is true? And so on -- it seems to be a very incomplete definition (see above). << DEFINITION 2: I define {lo'e broda} such that: buska lo'e broda = sisku tu'o ka ce'u broda That's the definition. Is the definition in itself problematic? (It may turn out to be be useless, but is it somehow incoherent?) >> Well, I can move the expressions back and forth, I suppose (it is not clear what the definition means since I don't know what an identity sign between two sentence fragments means but I take it as either bertween propositional functions or else as material equivalence between the sentences formed by filling out the fragments in the same way). And, of course, it is not a definition of {lo'e broda} since it deals with it only in a single context -- and that not a particularly common one (indeed, one that has never occurred outside theis discussion, so far as I can tell). But, as a claim about {lo'e broda} it is not incoherent as it stands. The problems have arisen with its use. Since {lo'e} is already part of the language, this is not an introductory definition -- or, if it is, must be checked to see whether it coheres with how {lo'e} already behaves in the language. Unfortunately, such a check is not possible, since the recently introduced predicate {buska} is not defined for this context. So, I take Definition 2 to be defining an extension of {lo'e} into a new context, where it has no established use, since the opportunity has not arisen before. << Now, how is that definition useful? It is useful because it permits us to contrast: (A) buska lo broda = da poi broda zo'u sisku tu'o ka ce'u du da (B) buska lo'e broda = sisku tu'o ka da poi broda zo'u ce'u du da >> Was there a problem with these contrasts before or is this a new discovery. I have to admit that this version is novel -- false, but novel. I think the novelty comes from not having considered the various concepts that are identical (oof!) to tu'o ka ce'u broda. The falseness just comes from this not being what {lo'e broda} generally means. However, since this is about a whole new context, it does seem to be the case that, around {buska} and {sisku} these work out this way. << (B) is just definition 2 of {lo'e broda} written in a way easier to compare with (A). >> Well, it also involves the (not obvious) identities among \x(x broda), \x(da poi broda zo'i x = da), \x(x du lo broda) and \x(x du lo'e broda) The last of these works on your theory but has not been justified in it, so far as I can remember. It is a nice differentiation, as I noted, though not quite the right one, I think, outside this novel situation. << The RHS's of (A) and (B) clearly make a useful distinction, and the LHS's are a convenient shorthand for making that distinction, so my definitions, if coherent, are useful. >> The RHSs are clearly different and if that difference is of some use later on, then it is handy. I personally don't intend to use {buska} much so I don't see it as very useful. If this is somehow meant to say something about {lo'e} in more familiar situations -- with a normal predicate, {broda} for {busku} and {kairbroda} for {sisku}, then, again, I can say that it appears to work out that these moves work, but that tells me nothing about {lo'e} with familiar predicates only -- and, indeed, seems to suggest that the difference between {lo} and {lo'e} is just quantifier scope, which does not otherwise seem to be right. << If definition 2 is somehow incoherent or leads to incoherence, I would like to understand why. >> Again, what are going to do with these? That has been where the problem is all along. << >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?) I'm guessing I should be insulted by that, but I don't know what the acronyms stand for. I am not insisting with my definitions just to piss you off. I am confident that they make good sense. If they don't, I'd like to know where they fail. If you are equally convinced that I am wrong, and you care to convince me, then I'm listening. If you suspect I am ignoring some valid argument of yours out of bad faith, well, what can I do. I would not keep discussing with you if I thought you were not arguing in good faith. >> Oh, nice rhetorical turn! But ignoring the move, yes, I really want you or someone to come up with a good way of dealing with {lo'e}. So far in this exposition -- i.e., without using the definitions at all actively -- there is nothing incoherent. It deals almost exclusively with an area that is totally new to Lojban and thus not already determined, so it can't even conflict with usage or meaning. But, by the same token, it can't explain any of the older usage or meaning either. So, so far it is a pretty little closed exercise without any particular use -- unless we suddenly develop aneed for {buska}, which seems inherently unlikely (it has an unmarked intensional slot, for example, which would be really a bad idea in Lojban). I won't try to convince you that you are wrong, because so far you are not -- you've invented the game and made the rules and so far you are playing by them. It just has no relevance to Lojban. [Yes, you should be insulted: AFAMs are Masons originally and by extension people who innocently or ignorantly spread codswallop, AMORCs are Rosicrucians, i.e., those who do it knowingly and to fleece the gringos.] |