Re: scalar polarity

["Peter L. Schuerman" <plschuerman@UCDAVIS.EDU>]

> > > > je'ucai
>                [= almost 100% true]
> > > > je'u(sai)
> > > > je'uru'e
> > > > je'ucu'i
> > > > je'unairu'e
> > > > je'unai(sai)
> > > > je'unaicai
>                [= almost 0% true]

It seems bizarre to divide a statement into 100 parts and then decide how
many of those parts are true and how many are not.  It seems equally
bizarre to divide it into seven parts, or nine parts, or any standard
number of parts.

A statement is (according to a given set of criteria) either true, false,
or made up of both true and false elements.  The number of elements in a
statement is dependent on interpretation and analysis, so counting them is
not going to give consistent results.  That is, true/false is not
actually a scalar dichotomy... it only looks that way if a statement
hasn't been properly analyzed.

Scalar interpretation of truth boils down to making statements like "On a
truth scale of 1 to 10, that's a 4."  How useful is that?

It seems to me that, even though you *can* say these things in Lojban,
that all anyone *actually* needs is true, false, and part-true/part-false.
The statement can be further analyzed as necessary to distinguish the
elements and the truth or falsehood thereof.  Statements like "partly
true"  and "partly almost true" make distinctions which are so subjective
as to not convey any real information.

Peter Schuerman                                    plschuerman@ucdavis.edu
                        Co-editor, SPECTRA Online
          for back issues: http://www.well.com/user/phandaal/