Re: Summary so far on DJUNO

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

>What is the relevance of all this? It's the sort of thing
>undergraduates doing joint Linguistics & Philosophy want to write
>vapid dissertations on.

It is in the realm of vapid philosophy that I think the practical effects of
our differences will show up.

>You definitely need a policy on this, because discovering that
>baseline elements are grossly misleading would be equally
>undermining, I think. As would discovering that there is a policy to
>refrain from rectifying these problems.

I understand my current charge as being to err on the side of refraining,
especially if there is dispute about how to rectify.  In addition, I think
that there is some extent that people want baseline to mean simply not
changeable by "Central" fopr any reason, ioncluding even rectification.

>Since the keywords aren't defining, I don't see why they can't be
>changed to better ones:

because the keyowrds were the first thing about the gismu list that WAS
 baselined.  They could thereafter only be changed by convoluted debate and
 consideration.  They were frozen before we had even settled on what the words
 meant as
conveyed in the place stuructures, much less before we started debatingw hat
the words in the places stuructures meant.

>I don't see why they can't be
>changed to better ones: the language isn't changed; only the
>documentation is.
It is the documentation that is frozen, not the language.

>Anyway, more useful than changing the keyword is expanding the proper
>definition with the place structure. E.g. if {djuno} still had
>keyword "know" but was glossed as "x4 convinces x1 that x2 is true of
>x3" [=your definition] then the misunderstanding probably wouldn't
>have arisen.

True, but I did not forsee this particular debate, and hence did not choose that
wording.  And would not have because the standard for the gismu definitions is
to choose wording that keep the elements in their Lojban order.  This sometimes
leads to confusing English, but that's life.

>Also useful is an indication of the nature of the difference between
>words with similar meanings. The "cf" sections are useful, but
>sometimes not sufficient.

Agreed, but they are better than nothing.  At one time, I expected that the
dictionary, which was to be more than the gismu list, would have added
material as  clarifications of meaning.  But the decision of the membership is
that we will go with the gismu list for the dictionary baseline.  I feel this
is inadequate at leats for the level of semantic argument that we have been
 having, but I understand their sympathes, and I was outvoted.  Linguistic
rectitude has taken second place to pragmatics of promoting a language once
again.

>> Using definitions of words that are obviously different from my definitions
>> of the same words.  BY my defintiions of the words, the gi'uste says what >I
>> intended it to mean.
>
>This is a problem since it is you who is writing the dictionary, but
>the situation is that everyone else here except for you seems to agree on
>definitions to a sufficient degree. It is not as if Jorge has
>--More--
>conjured up his definition out of thin air; he has the same
>understanding as the rest of us.

I am not sure.  I think you all have variations on the same theme, as shown
by Robin Turner's comments on fatci/fact.  They may all lead to similar
conclusions (that I am wrong) but for different reasons.

>> I did not put the speaker in a privileged position
>> with regard to x2's truth; I did not say that x2 had to even be true - only
>> that it had to be known by the epistemology x4.
>
>The problem with this is that it can't be "known" by any epistemology
>at all unless it is true.

Epistemology is defined as a means ofknowing.  Thus if there is an
epistemology for something it MUST be known to those who subscribe to that
epistemology (barring subjective epistemologies).

Since what you feel is true and what I feel is true differ, you would have
the truth of "john knows X" differ based on which of us said it, and that
seems silly.  the truth of a proposition shgould be independent of the
speaker and listener.

>Not so. You must additionally assume that that metaphysics is valid.

I make no assumptions as to metaphsycial validity in defining the
language.  fatci is defined as being true in the absolute, regardless of
what metaphysics is considered.

>I don't find your definition of {fatci} very convincing. Acording to
>you, {ro da zo`u go da fatci gi da na jitfa de}. I, feel, though,
>that {fatci} should be the same as what {jetnu fe zi`o} would
>mean.


But it is not, since we specifically added fatci to mean somethig else.

lojbab