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Lojbab: > At 12:51 AM 6/2/03 +0100, And Rosta wrote: > >Jordan: > > > The formalist > > > view requires that it be definitely proscriptive, if that's what > > > you're talking about with frozenness > > > > > > And the baseline is currently unfrozen, I remind you, but it is > > > still proscriptive > > > >Baseline = a definite specification that everybody heeds > >Frozen = baseline does not go through incremental version changes > > I contend that the baseline remains frozen. This is one reason that I have > argued (and did so again tonight on the Board list) that the byfy should > not be incrementally changing the language as issues come up for > discussion. The job of byfy is NOT to change the baseline but to complete > the definition of the baseline. As part of that completion, we've agreed > that it will be necessary to make some changes. I think that we should be > defining everything that can be defined before considering any resolutions > of conflicts, and we should have documented all resolutions of conflicts > before we consider any baseline changes > > And I contend that if we do that, the changes that NEED to be made, can be > relatively swiftly decided, and there will be a quasi-discontinuity in the > baseline freeze as the few changes deemed necessary become part of the > language > > byfy is NOT intended to be a vehicle for continuous incremental changes to > the baseline, and any attempt to make it so faces one implacable veto from > this member Better to say all that on the BF forum. AFAIK nobody thinks BF is intended to be a vehicle for continuous incremental change. I have been further assuming that any attempts to modify the baseline will be vetoed by hardline conservatives. I think we would try to keep a clear distinction between BF and Jboske not only as programs but also as forums. (For example, I for one would like to participate constructively on BF, while at the same time expressing skepticism about aspects of it on Jboske.) > > > In reality they're just naturalists: they support every attempt > > > to make lojban more english-like > > > >I'm a bit lost about who we're talking about here. If we're talking > >about the "I don't understand the logic, so I'm going to use Lojban > >as if it were my native English" school, then I agree. But if we're > >talking about the "Certain natural languages can express conceptually > >fundamental notions that Lojban cannot express in any practical way" > > I should not in passing that such a claim requires a rather strong version > of the SWH that anti-SWHers should not be lightly invoking No, it doesn't. The practicality of an expression partly involves how longwinded it is, so even though any language can express anything (I conjecture), they don't do it with equal facility. Furthermore, we regularly come up against stuff that is easy to say in English but that nobody can find a way to say in Lojban. > >Ideally all lojbanists would do that. OTOH, learning lojban as a > >means of learning logic seems like quite a good thing > > And indeed one proposed SWH test involved comparing the "logical thinking" > of Lojbanists not formally taught or studying logic with controls of lay > people, lay people taught formal logic in English, and Lojbanists taught > formal logic (before, during, or after learning the language) [...] > This isn't a particularly easy test to conduct, but no one ever claimed > that Lojban would make it easy to do so, merely plausible I don't really see why Lojban commends itself as a language of experiment. Indeed, as you say in the snipped bit, the test would work better with native speakers, so a natural language would be a better choice than Lojban. IOW, even if Lojban could be used for a SW experiment, I don't see why it should be preferred to any other language. Hence its suitability for SW experiments is not distinctive to the language. --And.