Re: ni, jei, perfectionism

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

>Lojbab cu ciksi:
>>mi djuno tu'a/fi lejei broda
>>can be translated either
>>I know (about) the truth value of broda
>>or
>>I know whether broda is true
>
>>The latter could also be expressed other ways, but it is a colloquial
>>traslation equvalent to the former, and the Lojban is the way I would
>>prefer to translate the English.  thatit happens not to parallel the
>>English indirect question style is irrelevant.
>
>Agreed.  That isn't quite what I'm getting at. =20
>
>If {li pa jei broda}, then {jei} is a number.  {lo lidjragnostic. djuno =
>--More--
>tu'a le jei la cevni cu zasti} *using a consistent definition, contrary =
>to the refgram* would be generally true, because agnostics are familiar =
>with 1 and 0.  It claims they know a number, not that they know it's the =
>truth value of the claim.

OK.  I think I see the problem.  Not sure I know the solution.  The
truth value of a preoposition is a number, yes.  But it is a number with
conventional interpretation, and so cdannot be treated as a pure mathematical
object.  Specifically, it does not have the properties  of the common m
mathematical number sets (integers, reals, etc.).  It is not transitive,
and you cannot meaningfully perform the tradition operations on the
numbers without at least analysing them.  le jei broda su'i le jei brode
does not make sense even if both truth values are "1".

The same thing is more or less true of clock times.  I can say that I
know the time of day, and I can say that vopi'erepa cu tcika.  But this
does not merely mean that I know "4;21" as a number devoid of association
with a clock convention.                li vopi'erepa cu tcika BTW

I suspect that the answer is that the x1 of jei requires an x2 convention,
and the translation into English suffers from English not having inherent
predicate language nature.  Thus x1 is not "the truth value of broda" but
rather "a number which is a conventional representation of the turth value
according to common convention". ort somethig like that.

It mnakes more sense in Lojban %^)

Maybe I am so used to thinking in the Lojban terms that I cannot divest
myself of them to see the English fallacies.

Yet the same problem is true in English:
"The  truth value of P is 1".
"I know the truth value of P"
"I know 1"?

And substituting the tag "TRUE" really solves nothing.

?zo jetnu cu jei broda

would be subjhect to the same argument, I think as you give for the
numerical truth value.

lojbab
----
lojbab                                                lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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