Re: Lojban ML: Syllogism and sophism

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

>Nobody else offered any full translation either way. Do you have
>a short and snappy translation that avoids the paradox?

I don't do "short and snappy", unless something elegant comes to me by
instinct.  Hence I have not tried to better your effort.

>> If we want the ambiguitry of English, why bother using Lojban?
>
>English is as capable of disambiguation as is Lojban, isn't it?

I don't think so.  Every expression which disambiguates in English is itself
ambiguous.  It is only by using our very sophisticated and human "understanding"
that we are able to resolve which meaning applies.

>The best translation for the property "mass" in my opinion is
>{le ka grake}, having mass is having "gramness".

That is indeed A concept of mass -  but I would clarify "gramness" as the
property of being measureable in grams.  Yet I would presume that energy
could also be measured in grams using c squared as a conversion, so this is
not the essence of "mass" which classically is seen as a measurement of
matter.  "marji" is "matter" which among other thinsg seems to have composition
to ever finer levels of analysis.  And "mass" is the degree/amount to which a
substance has/is composed of matter, on an open-ended scale.  As I said,
this is one of the paradigm-formers that I use to conceive of "ni".  No
doubt this means you can/will try to tear holes in it %^).  But to me
everything measureable is a "ni" of something.  Usually, though, we find it
easier toget "ni" from what are in English , adjectives.  e.g. clani -> long
ni clani -> length; slabu ->old, ni slabu -> age.  If marji is considered as
an adjective, it seems to me that ni marji must be "mass".

lojbab