Re: Summary so far on DJUNO

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

>or
>
>      x2 obtains

This choice does imply an epistemology.  You can use this version arguing
from a set of postulates which you recognize are not true about the real
world.

>God help you if you ever tried to translate/write a logic textbook in
>Lojban! How on earth would you render the notions that in English are
>called _True_/_False_?

I think that I have been trying to say that there is no single English
notion called "true".  We have "fuzzy true" a la Belknap, we have
"true as derived from set of postulates X" in mathematics, and we have
a supposed "real world" true which requires that one accept that there is
a single real world that is independent of our perceptions of it.  We
have universes of discourse in which unicorns and Sherlock Holmes's
can wander without particular marking.  Is it true that Sherlock Holmes
lives on Baker Street?  Is it false?

The status quo in Lojban seems to be that we incorporate something in the
universe of discourse merely by mentioning it.  Thus, if we use
"lo pavyseljirna" in a sentence we are admitting its existence.  But then
is it true that "lo pavyseljirna cu zasti"?

It is not true in the "Real world" but it is true under the metaphysics of
the universe of discourse.  I can know that Sherlock Holmes lives on
Baker Street using the epistemology of A.C> Doyle's works, even while
knowing that Sherlock Holmes doesn't live anywhere by some other
epistemologies.  So what is "true"?  What do I "know"?  I think that any
definition of "know" which does not allow me to say that "I can know that
Sherlock Holmes lives on Baker Street using the epistemologyof A.C>
Doyle's works" is not standard English.  Lojban djuno should at least be
as powerful, being designed specifically to account for multiple
epistemologies.

lojbab