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RE: [jboske] The ugly head of ni



On Mon, 28 Oct 2002, And Rosta wrote:

> > If you take that a step further, you'll see the logical error.
> >
> > If ni uses ce'u, then it can't express "the degree to which", because
> > that's an abstraction of a filled bridi. If ni doesn't need ce'u, then it
> > makes sense, but loses its symmetry with ka, and becomes completely
> > identical to jei.
>
> Okay. As I see it, ni doesn't have ce'u, it has no symmetry with ka,
> and the reason I had asked you to expand your ideas is that I'm
> interested to see how feasible it is to maintain that it becomes
> identical to jei.



It seems we're down to two uses of ni: ni + ce'u, used for counting the
valid sumti in a tergi'u, and ni without any ce'u, which is like jei, but
not restricted to [0, 1].



> > ni ko'a xunre: the degree to which A is red
> > ni ce'u xunre: the degree to which anything is red  <-- makes no sense
> >
> > If ni and jei are redundant, ni should be the one to go: it is roundly
> > abused, it seems to expect a ce'u but shouldn't have one, and its values
> > are not defined to be in [0, 1] like jei is, and it doesn't have the usage
> > history of working like jei.
>
> I have always used and understood ni in a way parallel to jei. Admittedly
> I am more than averagely free from semantic solecisms (my errors are
> largely syntactic).
>
> But the difference between ni & jei is analogous to (tho not synonymous
> with) that between "the extent to which" and "whether". That's a
> useful distinction in English, though I can see how it might also be
> useful to be able to conflate them.



Yes, indeed. The conflation is the essential insight of fuzzy logic.



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