Re: brain fart metaphor

la lojbab. pu cusku di'e

> > - I think the rule about touching your piece requiring it be moved,
> > absent a French expression, is part of the rules of chess. Is that rule
> > "grammar" or convention. I was always taught it as a rule.

la .and. cusku di'e

> It's a rule of usage. It's not part of the grammar. A chess computer
> needn't be taught it.

If "chess computer" is taken to mean "computer that plays the game of chess", 
then "chess" is an ambiguous word: there are two games of chess.  Most chess
programs play what I will call "Virtual Reality chess", wherein a certain
uninterpreted formal state is manipulated in accordance with uninterpreted
formal rules until a victory (or stalemate) state is reached.

But in "Real Life chess", there must be a physical board and physical pieces.
This is the kind defined by the FIDE regulations and played in (FIDE) chess
tournaments.  A computer program that plays RL chess must have a robot arm
or a person simulating such an arm, and the total system (not just the program
per se) must understand the piece touchee rule, or it will play suboptimally.

(I make this point about chess because I think there is a direct analogy
between chess and language: what plays in VR language, which is formal,
may be insufficient in RL language, which is not merely formal.)

> > but I cannot envision anything other than a figurative meaning to,
> > say "mamta be zi'o".
> 
> It's figurative only in relation to {mamta be da}, but since the literal
> meaning of {mamta be zio} needn't be {mamta be da}, {mamta be zio}
> needn't be figurative.

Yes and no.  There is a constraint that whatever satisfies "mamta be da"
must satisfy "mamta be zi'o", but not necessarily vice versa.

-- 
John Cowan					cowan@ccil.org
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban.