Re: TECH: fuzzy logic

[ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>]

Lojbab to djer:
> BUT na'e is not solely used for scales on brivla, so we have to be
> careful about adding to the set of scalar variables.

Could you explain more?

> Otherwise we will get something or another that will use And's
> proposal and have to be interepreted isiomatically just as you fear
> as the case for NAhE xi quantifier.

& explain this too...?

I too wish to declare that, like everyone else, I am not making
grammar change proposals either. I think an immediate baseline should
be declared, so your tension levels drop a bit. Instead, I am
engaged in discussions about how the grammar should change if it
ever were to change.

> >And has made the point that je'a has to mean "is to some degree .." if
> >we are to use it as suggested. And that is a new idiomatic definition
> >of je'a.
> More than that, it is a change in the definition, from strogly positive
> (to'eto'e) to anywhere along the positive axis (na'ena'e). Actually I
> think it strong to label je'a as "to'eto'e", it is strongly positive
> on the scale but I am not sure I would insist that it be extreme.

I can only make sense of {jea} & co. in the following terms: if
membership in a class is >0 then {jea} = >0, {noe} = 0, {nae} =
<0, and so does {toe}. I do not understand {jea} to be strongly
positive (="very"). Note that while {toe toe} very probably means
{jea} in most contexts, {nae nae} need by no means mean {jea}.

Under John's xi proposals, {jea} seems to get redefined as any value,
<0, 0, >0. I suppose the scale is more like: sue pi no, pi no, pi suo,
pi ro, suo pi ro. Same goes for {jaa}. According to the current system,
noe = pi no = pi ro, jea & jaa = za,u pi no = zau pi ro, and nae & na =
me,i pi no = me,i pi ro.

> Hmm but then I am not sure that I insist that to'e be at the extreme
> either.  In other words "je'a xamgu" is not intended to bethe best
> thing in the universe,

No, merely good things in the universe.

> nor "to'e xamgu" the worst,

No - merely bad things.

> but neither would they cover "mildly good" and "mildly bad" either.

Why not?

> What does it mean to have a truth value greater than 1, or a negative
> truth value, or an immaginary one, or a matrix in the subscript?  But
> that same question can be raised with And's solution - what would
> xVV-minus-five mean, or xVV-three-pi-i.  The MeX grammar makes it easy
> to generate nonsense.

I don't conceive of xoi/xio as function from any number to a degree of
truth/membership. I conceive of xoi/xio as tools for defining scales,
and rather than create a ton of new cmavo to allow for lots of degrees,
we use numbers, in tandem, of course, with a convention stating what
each number used in this context signifies.

> I think that je'a melbi is a totally new selbri, distinct in meaning
> from melbi, though the meaning is derived from that of melbi.

This I dispute.

> So the logical implication "da je'a melbi" -> "da melbi" is not one I
> want to insist upon,

I want to insist on that.

> because je'a deals with natural semantics and not some kind of
> mathematical semantics.

Does that statement mean anything?

> no'e is "xino" according to the convention, I think.

No, noe is any/every value between pi no and pi ro (inclusive or
exclusive, depending on whether jea and nae are za,u pi ro and
me,i pi no, rather than (sue) pi no and (suo) pi ro.

> I also think it is xVV-no according to And's proposal.

My proposal was noncommittal as to the acual numbers that we would
use - that was for future debate.

> But I think I see what you are trying to say, and this is why your
> argument is fairly strong against je'axi in particular, because it
> becomes the case that je'axi-value, where value is anything other
> than "1" is a claim that differs from "je'a" by itself and contradicts
> it.  It thus seems like a violation of metaphysical parsimony in Lojban
> in that the omission of a construct does not allow the assumption of
> any value in the possible range.  Instead, je'a ends up being a special
> case abrreviation of je'axi-value, and that is not something we do
> very often in Lojban (though we do so in the case of sexipa, I think,
> under current convention).

We do it for {suo} and others. It's not unlojbanic. It would, though,
be unlojbanic because genuinely idiomatic if john's jea/jaa xi proposal
were adopted but the definition of jea/jaa weren't changed.

coo, mie and