Re: Lojban ML: Syllogism and sophism

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

>Lojbab:
>>>> 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.
>
>Yes, and every expression which disambiguates in Lojban is
>itself ambiguous as well. Could you give a Lojban expression
>that cannot be translated to English to the same degree of
>unambiguity?

English words have a surfeit of polysemy, in addition to the large
quantity of grammatical ambiguity.  I am not sure that it is possible
to resolve either of these kinds of ambiguity without introducing new
kinds if only through the polysemy of other English words.  Advantage
therefore to Lojban, which so far has minimal polysemy.

>>"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.
>
>Ok, so you're using the "xokau" definition of {ni}. We'd have:
>
>        le ni [ce'u] marji = le ka ce'u marji sela'u li xokau
>        The extent to which something has a material composition.

If I understand what you mean by this, yes.

>The problem with {ni}, as we already discussed, is that it is also
>defined to be something else, a number. {le ni marji} is variously
>defined to be like {le ka grake} and like {le se grake}.

le se grake could be a measurement of leni ko'a marji.  The degree to which
something is composed of matter is its mass, which is measured on a scale of
grams.

>> 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.
>
>I think this was already discussed as well, but slabu is not old in the
>sense of many-yeared, so ni slabu can hardly be age. It would be
>the extent to which something is known. For example, my sister has
>more {ni slabu} to me than you do, even though you have more age.

As I have repeatedly said, my concept of slabu as age i slabu be loi
jmive prenu.  But if you don't like this there is always
to'ercitno

lojbab