Re: more perversity (was Re: more epistemic perversity (was Re: .i .

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

>Shift of topic here, away from meaning of "djuno", to Lojbab's
>apparent professions of an intent to unilaterally add new
>prescriptions to the lg documentation at some point in the future.

No such intention.  If anything I intend to make clear that one should not
read too much into the choice of English keywords used in the definitions.
That an English word makes a convenient memory hook is failrly irrelevant.
In most cases the keyword is also the English word closest to being a
synonym to the Lojban, but in no way are the English and the Lojab to be taken
as identical.

>> What proposal?  I only stated my original intent, which might with a dollar
>> get you a cup of coffee over here %^)
>
>I think your repeated restatements of your intent, in response to
>others variously indicating how it was undesirable and incompatible
>with usage and published documentation, have been interpreted as an
>attempt by you to persuade others to emulate your attempt in their
>usage.

My attempt to what?
I totally disdain usage so far as not being sufficient to establish the
meaning of anything. At best usage may thus far have limited or ruled out
some meanings (i.e. that mlatu doesn't mean "boat").
O have also stated that publsihed documentation was NOT intended to define
that words as constrainedly as some seem to be assuming - in that the choices
of particular English words were not carefully considered with regard to
freezing trhe semantics of the language based on some English equivalent.
Indeed the decision to baseline the place structures AT ALL, took place
over my objection.  My intent was that the semantics should be totally
fluid.  the reality is that the place structures as is constrain the
meanings of the words.  How much they constrain the meanings is indeterminate,
; we know the number of places, but the nature of each place is tied to the
use of English words which are at best inexact.

>> >Contrast this with Jorge, who not only endeavours, in his analysis,
>> >to discover or advocate consistencies and regularities
>>
>> Whereas I advocate no analysis, but only usage %^)
>
>I take it that "%^)" means "this is a lie, said for humorous
>purposes".

No. It is merely that I consider that analysing the "usage" of a language
whcih has seen negligible use isunherently humorous.  And indeed we have
only minimally been analyzing Lojban usage because everyone bases their
arguments ultimately back on parallel English translations of their Lojban.
I do not have any reason to believe that Jorge or Goran or Nick, however good
theie Lojban has become, are yetr truly "thinking in Lojban" when they write.
Their word choices therfore stillreflect the language in which they think and
use as a basis for selecting LOjban words.

We have decided that there is a limbo of at least 5 years from when we
baseline the prescription to when we have any confidence that usage will
be robust enough to supplant the prescription as a basis of defining the
language.  Until that time usage is a relatively weak argument, especially
usage that does not involve all of the place structure.  There are no
reported usages of djuno other than in examples that include all 4 places.
Does this mean that "usage" says that djuno dopesn't have 4 places?  No -
becausae usage thus far cannot indicate this - and to the extent that it does,
usage violates the prescription.  In 5 years +, if usage has never referred to
the x4 of djuno, then there will be a plausible argument from analysis that the
place structure of djuno should not include x4, and semantic arguments
(hopefull totally in Lojban) can then decide whether indeed usage has settled on
 some meaning of djuno that differs from the prescription.

>> The problem with this is that it is missing the intent, which is as yet
>> undocumented, and differs from that intent.  Elegant or not, from the
>> standpoint of the prescription it is wrong.
>
>This is quite an important point. Are you asserting that your
>undocumented intent is part of the prescription?

No.  I am stating that at some point I would like to document some of my
intent in one place (I have actually said a lot of this stuff before
but ity seems rather too scattered to have made an impression).  That intent
may then influence people's interpretation of the prescription, but that
intent does not change the prescription - it does not serve as the basis for
saying that someone's usage is "wrong", whereas violating the prescription
can be described as "incorrect".

>I and I suppose others had been assuming that if undocumented then
>qua intent it is irrelevant, and is relevant only in so far as it
>commends itself as inherently desirable.

I think that this is true, though I question whether desirability can be
considered an inherent trait of any feature being discussed.

>??? You want people to start using the language, but with the proviso
>that their usage will be superseded by future prescription when you
>get around to documenting your understanding of the gismu semantic
>intents? I don't think people realize that.


I hope not, since that is not what I said, nor what I meant.  I intend no
further prescription.  I intend that semantics NEVER be a matter of

prescription.  My intent is only that - my intent.  It can be ignored or
heeded and has no more formal weight than anyone else's opinion.  It has the
force of course of showing what I understand my English words used in the
prescripotion to mean/imply, but if someone wants to take my words using their
own understanding of the semantics of English to imply something other than
my intent, that is their provilege.

>> So the systematicity you see is largely the product of my own disordered
>> mind, and hence is probably illusory.
>
>I see it not so much in the place-structures as in the inventory of
>meanings covered by the gismu.


The place structures are largely as disordered as my own mind.  As a
prescription theyu are semantically far from rigorous.

>Discussion in English
>--More--
>> doesn't count.
>
>Of course it does. It would be likely to influence usage.

True, butmy discussing original intent has no more "inherent" weight than
Jorge discussing what he thinks his usage that does not include any stated
x4 values indicates.

>> >When you start trying to tell is
>> >what djuno should and shouldn't mean,
>>
>> No I am telling you what I intended it to mean, and what >I< meant by my
>> words in the gismu list.
>
>I think I pretty well understood what you intended it to mean the
>first time you explained, or at least once Jorge had paraphrased.
>
>I don't think the excessive debate about djuno revolved around any
>doubt as to what you intended.


It certainly seemed that way.

>> >and what you tell us in
>> >flagrant conflict with all other evidence bearing on the matter, why
>> >should one pay any attention to you?
>>
>> Perhaps you shouldn't.  But I find it necessary to stand up for what I
>> intended whenever people tell me that the thus far almost nonexistent usage
>> proves me wrong, and even more so when people use logical analyses based on
>> my idiosyncratic and non-definitional word choices for the gismu list.
>
>Why do you find it necessary? Why not just save your effort and leave
>it to usage?

Because other people are not leaving it to usage, but instead are arguing
about the semantics (in English nonetheless).  If it is going to be debated
then I feel a need to include my intent as a counterpoint to other opinions
- having no more ingherent weight, but still serving as a reminder that the
opinions being discussed DO have an alternative.

>Perhaps it is due to agencies other than yours, but in most respects
>Lojban is regular and systematic, and while I recognize that this
>doesn't matter to you, normal people will seek regularity, as the
>evidence of natural language change shows.

But regularity and systemnaticity in the gismu meanings is largely illusory.
If I can identify my intent according to some system, then that may shed some
light on what regularities are there.  Similarly if people point out
 regularities that they see, then that may shed some light even if those
 regularities are
not part of my conscious intent.  But in the latter case I reserve the right to
atr least state when I think some of my words have been taken in ways CONTRARY
to my intent.  To state that, though, may turn out not to carry much wreight in
the community.

I don't mind if Lojban evolves towards some kind of natural language sense of
regularity, but I want the search for regularity to take place according to
the natural language process - by people thinking and writing in the language,
and not by people pontificating on English semantics.

>
>Zi`o is part of the prescription. Do you want people to nominate
>which parts of the prescription they wish to reject?

I said specifically that I reject it in pronciple.  That it is part of the
prescription anyway, and that even I may someday use it, shows what weight my
principles hold.

>I can understand how this came about, but in learning and using the
>gismu, all people have to go on is what is documented. I think we all
>accept that the boundaries of the definitions are fuzzy, but we have
>- deludedly, it appears - been hoping that it is clear what the core of
>the concept is.

For concretes, I suspect that the core concepts are rather clearer than for
abstracts.  The discussion has shown that knowledge is a good deal fuzzier
than some people apparently thought it was, but then philosophers have known
that defining knolwedge has been a fuzzy proposition for ages - I happen to
have written a research paper as far back as high school which dealt with this
fuzziness, so I came into writing the Lojban place structures with a fuzzy
meaning of know which is rather broader than yours.  In general gismu
defintiions are to be taken more broadly rather than narrowly in case of
conflict.

>Now it appears to be unsafe to use any gismu at all, at the risk of
>--More--
>discovering that one's intended meanings overridden by some future
>publication of further instalments of the prescription.

Use of any language is unsafe, butI don't intend to override any usage.
I just want people to not assume narrow interpretations, and especially
interpretations that do not account for all the places.  This debate started
with the question of what the x4 of djuno was supposed to be.  That the place
is trhere DOES have import for the meaning, and it cannot be ignored when
deciding on usage.  If ones usage ignores that subkectivity implied by x4
then it is usage not following the already existing prescriotion, and not some
future pronouncement.

lojbab