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Lojbab: > At 12:54 PM 12/23/02 +0000, And Rosta wrote: > >Lojbab: > > > At 05:19 PM 12/22/02 +0000, And Rosta wrote: > > > > > > * Is there any scope to fiddle with default interpretations > > > > > > of bare gadri? > > > > > > > > > > By the fundamentalist imperative, not much > > > > > > > >I agree. But we know that CLL is partly broken, > > > > > > We don't "know" this. CLL does not claim to define a semantic theory for > > > Lojban, and it is that expectation that is broken > > > >We know that CLL partly defines an incoherent semantics for Lojban > > We also know that at the time, we did not consider it possible nor > necessarily desirable to define a coherent semantics I know. I have never thought that that was a good thing, but I do think that John knew exactly what he was (and wasn't) doing when he wrote and edited CLL. > >If we were able to take the view that nothing that CLL says about > >semantics is official, then our job now would be much easier > > But that is not what the decisions have been regarding CLL as part of the > baseline > > > > The ground rules of the byfy require that "fundamentalists" accept that > > > there be some changes to CLL, whether they (we) want it or not. I am > > > trying to destroy factionalism, so quit trying to force people into > > > factional modes > > > >I am not trying to force people into factional modes. I am trying > >to articulate a number of ideologies that have a degree of integrity > > I am an utter foe of ideology as an intellectual endeavor. The integrity > of an ideology rests on its assumptions as well as on the logical coherence > of its arguments based on those assumptions. When push comes to shove, > people do not share common assumptions, and logical reasoning based on > conflicting assumptions necessarily leads to conflict This is exactly my point! If I *understand* your ideology, then I can read your reasoning in the light of that ideology. The whole point of being clear about ideological positions is to overcome the lack of common assumptions and so STOP reasoning based on conflicting assumptions from leading to conflict. As soon as people with substantially different ideological positions start joining in to debates about technical issues, we all end up wasting our breath, because usually our views on technical issues will make sense within our own ideology. So if we just understood one another's ideology, we could avoid all the wasted technical discussion, and engage in such discussions only with people who share our ideology. > >and coherence such that one can predict their stance on any given > >question > > I'd rather not be predictable. Merely trying to always be perfectly > correct in my Lojban for so many years (since I was expected to be the > paragon of Lojban usage until others became as skilled as I was) was > stultifying to my developing language skill. I wouldn't want to be > predictable unless I was perfectly sure of my correctness, and that is > simply too much of a burden You risk seeming capricious or perverse, then, if your views on specifics don't follow from any general principles. > > If someone argues their own views from such a consistent > >ideological position then their ideological justification for their > >views is more estimable than if they vary their ideological stance > >from issue to issue > > We disagree I know -- I've had years of experience of you esteeming my views on the basis of your own ideological position rather than mine. > Because as you ask another post > >How can consensus develop when one person's judgements are conditioned by > >such different factors from another's? > > If people play ideological games strictly, then consensus cannot > develop. People have to not hold to any factors so strongly that they > won't bend to meet others It's not a matter of playing games. It's a matter of what we each think it is the best outcome for and from the Loglan project. I've spoken about this in other messages, so I won't repeat here. > > > The ground rules of the byfy are that changes are not to be made lightly, > > > and not merely because someone has a better idea > > > >I don't accept these 'ground rules' > > The policy statement is the ground rules. Your vote against the policy > statement was recorded As I said publicly though, that was a vote against the consultation process -- a vote against the vote, as it were. Nick's BF statement articulates the conservative position he intended to take as chair, but -- as I read it -- doesn't say that each BF member has to subscribe to his conservative views. If my reading is correct, then I wouldn't call these 'ground rules'. > >I am content to be outvoted by > >people who do, but if accepting them is a precondition of involvement, > >then we need to go back, formulate an explicit list of Articles, and > >require an Act of Confirmation from BF members > > Does Britain require a written Constitution now, in order for you to accept > citizenship? I don't understand the analogy. > >So perhaps instead of "broken" > >we should say "nugatory". The problem is not that it contradicts some > >school of logic or is vague but that it is difficult to find a way > >build a coherent, formalized and explicit semantics out of it > >And thus do we face the choice between baroque kludges that strive > >to be CLL compatible, and alternatives that can be more elegant by > >virtue of not striving to be CLL compatible > > It is too late for elegance. Elegance should have been proposed in > 1996-7. There is a time when language design has to stop, and that time > was nominally 1997. I'm willing to loosen up enough so as to get the > documentation effort done. But an argument from elegance would probably > move us back to 1986, and throw out the whole language as the Ceqli and > guaspi efforts did It is too late for elegance only if there are not enough people who disagree with you. It is definitely too late for root and branch reform, unless there are people willing to wait another 20 years for a speakable language. But it is not necessarily too late for elegance to be a prime criterion for motivating a change. > >Another related problem is that we don't have any arch-fundamentalists > >(participating in the current discussions) that are both able and > >willing to do what is required for the BF -- that is, construct a > >semantic analysis that is fully consistent with CLL, > > The arch-fundamentalists don't see a need for such a semantic analysis, > which may be why they are (still) arch-fundamentalists. They consider > other things more important than semantic rigor. I have no problem with that. I'd be delighted for jboske to become the province of Academic Lojban, and leave the Standard Lojban of the arch-fundamentalists as a static thing. An arch-fundamentalist BF can abort, by virtue of being essentially redundant -- "there is no truth but the CLL", and by virtue of there being no arch-fundamentalists able and willing to do the job. > The fact that jboske is > SO voluminous, even amongst those oriented towards semantic analysis, tells > me that semantic analysis is not an endeavor that is sufficiently > understood that it can be accomplished. The verbosity and obscurity and > inconclusiveness of the jboske debates weigh against them as a basis for > defining the language You by your own admission don't read the debates. The semantic aspect of debate (as opposed to how semantics should be implemented in Lojban) is usually resolved pretty quickly. Notoriously thorny problems, such as generics, naturally take longer. > But the bottom line is that we need a dictionary done, and we need the help > of the non-fundamentalists to get it done. So the arch-fundamentalists > will lojbanmassly work for a dictionary that the lojbanmass community will > accept. %^) That's meant in a conciliatory spirit, but I still haven't found my way to a decision yet about whether to be involved. --And.