Re: Lojban ML: Syllogism and sophism

["Jorge J. Llambías" <jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR>]

Lojbab:
>Well first of all, since I am still thinking in English it is hard for me
>to "think of something in Lojban" that does not already have an in-mind
>English translation.  But I dare say that we have some good examples of
>English ambiguity right here in this discussion.  The Lojban would likely
>be less ambiguous (if done correctly).

I'm sure there's lots of good examples of  English ambiguity, but who
denies that? You are arguing that in some cases it is impossible
to disambiguate in English, not that it is impossible to be ambiguous.
Of course I have no way of proving that it is always possible to
disambiguate, that's just my impression based on my experience.

>> Now, is {le ni} the measurement, or is it the property being
>>measured? Is it {le se merli} or {le te merli}?  According to example
>>5.3 of chapter 11 it is {le te merli}. According to example 5.5 it is
>>{le se merli}.
>
>na'i
>The x1 of ni is a quantified property measured on scale x2 (of ni broda)

Yes, I understand that's the definition you are using now.

>The quantified property is not a pure number - but the combination of a
> pure nusorry - the combiantion of a quantified property and a scale on
> which it is
>measured implies a pure number as the measurement.

Ok.

>Thus I see no problem with
>convertion a ni abstraction to a grammatical quantifier using mo'e you are
>converting a combination of two places.

All right, but the refgram doesn't explain it like that. In fact, it says
"semantically, a sumti with {le ni} is a number".

>Now te merli is a pure number - one would normally put in that place a
>quantifier like "li pa" which in itself is rather meaningless.  It gains
>some meaning when combined with ve merli - the scale - to be a scaled
number
>(dimensioned number).

Right.

> Thus, omne could say that 5.3 in chap 11 (p 261 for
>those trying to find out what we are talking about) is grammatically
>acceptable but semantically would earn a flunk in a science class.

Well, there was never any doubt about it being grammatically
acceptable in the sense of being parsable. But the point of the example
is to explain the semantics, not the syntax.

> The
>amount of blueness in the picture must be expressed as a scaled number if
it
>is to be represented as a quantifier at all.  You cannot subtract a scalled
>number from a dimensionless number any more than you can subtract 1 gram
>from 3 kilometers (different dimensions).

Right. But the example suggests that {le ni} is a dimensionless number,
a se klani, a te merli.

>So other than as an example of the grammar, I can assign no meaning to 5.3
>that is acceptable to science.

I don't understand, what meaning do you assign to it as an example
of the refgrammar?

>But the reason it is unacceptable is of the realm of mathematics, and not
of
>language.  5.3 does indeed express "1-B" as Cowan says it does; we just do
>not know what that means mathematically.

It does make sense if {le ni} is a number, as Cowan also says.

>Now let me note that the difference between merli and klani is the presence
of
>an agent in merli.

Certainly.

>Because an agent/observer can sometime affect the
>value (te merli) being measured, your question is also na'i for that reason
>- te merli is specific to the measurer for a given quantifiable proerty
being
>measure on a particular scale.

So what? My question still makes the same sense. For a given measurer,
is {le ni broda} that which is to be measured, le se merli, or the result of
the
measurement, le te merli?

> It is also a pure dimensionless
>number - you need le ve merli or le te klani to get the
>dimension into the picture.

Certainly.

>So your question more appropriatley might have been whether the x1 of ni
broda
>is le klani or le se klani (the x2 of ni broda is clearly le te klani).

Yes, that would be an equally acceptable question. I didn't put it
like that because we disagreed at some point about the places of klani.
I'm glad to see that now we seem to agree.

>I believe that, basing the definition of ni on klani, we want the x1 of
>ni broda to be le klani, RECOGNIZING that given a measureable property and
the
>scale (and fixing all other variables), the pure quantifier that is the
>measurement of that quantifiable property on that scale is deterministic.

It may be deterministic, but it is not directly accessible.

>I have no problem with accessing that quantifier, so long as it comes with
>the dimension, using mo'e.

I don't really understand mo'e yet, so I don't know. If I remember
correctly {mo'e ci plise} was supposed to be the dimensioned
number "three apples" and {mo'e da} was supposed to be "some
number", which would mean that {mo'e} behaved pretty much
arbitrarily according to the mood of the user.

> So mo'e leni broda du mo'e leni brode can work

It's ungrammatical, you must mean {li mo'e le ni broda cu du li mo'e
le ni brode}.

>even though broda and brode are different things,if the ellipsized scale of
>measurement on them is compatible (it need not be identical - 100o meters
>can equal 1 kilometer).

Yes, with those meanings of {ni} and of {mo'e} it works. But both those
cmavo have been assigned different meanings in different places.

>Now turning to 5.5, the example is cvlearly set up to parallel with 5.4
>for contratoive purposes. But measurement is not always applied to a single
>place within a bridi - you sometimes choose to measure the relationship
>itself - so I am not sure that ce'u is always needed or meaningful. In
>this example, where blanu has but a single place, I see no difference
between
>5.5  le pixra cu cenba leni ce'u blanu
>and the phrasing I would use, which is
>le ni le pixra cu blanu cu cenba

It's hard to see the difference because {ni} is so ill-defined.
{le ni le pixra cu blanu} can only be a number, not a property.
le ni le pixra cu blanu cu cenba ma?

>There are no examples in the book (that I know of) that deal with more
>complex selbri than blanu, but I similarly would say
>le ni ko'a sutra lenu broda cu cenba
>again not needing a ce'u.

Again, because you're taking it as a number.

>I choose to summarize the abstractors in terms of their associated gismu.
>The Book says that these associations are more memory hook that
inferential,
>but I think that is largely because no one has thought out the inferences
>that might be drawn and so we do not want to commit to the possible
>inferneces in advance of said thinking.
>
>ni  le klani
>ka  le se ckaji
>nu  le fasnu
>li'i le se lifri
>si'o le sidbo
>
>Now the possibility that one could infer from the Book examples that
>le ni broda was le se klani is itself due to English ambiguity.

I very much doubt that English is the culprit here. After all, the
clarifications
that you are now giving are also in English.

>  I know of
>no English way to express the meaning which categorically eliminates le se
>klani while keeping le klani.

How about something like: the property of being broda to some extent,
not the number that represents the extent on some scale.

The problem seems to be that the way {ni} is defined, with a place
for the scale, strongly suggests that {le ni} is the number on the scale.
Otherwise it doesn't make much sense to have a place for the scale.

>>So someone who has lived for very long but is not known to anyone
>>living is not old?
>
>Every person become known to"the living" at the time of birth or almost
immediat
>immediately thereafter, or they do not live very long.  In theory I guess a
>mother who died in childbirth with no others around might cause the newbor
>n
>chiuld to not be known to the living in a technical sense immediately on
>birth, but if someone doesn;t come along to take care of the child, the
>child will never grow old.  It is part of the nature of being familiar to t
>"the living" that we are constantly in this state from birth until death
(at lea
>st).

I still think that someone's age is independent of whether or not
they're known by someone else or not. Whether it is practical or even
possible for someone to live in isolation from others is fairly
irrelevant to the definition of what is their age.

>> And how come
 >>{ni} would take the meaning of  "how long" here rather than "how much"?
>>Is {le ni marji} how long something has been material
>
>The key property of slabu is supposed to be length of
association/familiarity.

Is there any way to figure that out other than asking you? Why is the
length of assocaition/familiarity more key than the degree of
association/familiarity?

>Remember that the e-translation ARE English, and there is usu
>ally some tie
>to English usage that led to the wording.  In the case of slabu, we might
>use the phrases "old news" or "old hat" for something that is
slabu-familiar.

Yes.

>We would not use slabu for something that I learned just today, no matter
how
>well I learned it - it isn't THAT sense of English "familiar/well-known",
> that
>would permit a short term knowledge to be so described.

I'm not sure why not. Sometimes something I learned this morning
is old news by now, it depends a lot on what is the context. How much
time does it have to pass before something can be considered slabu?
I think we can't put a number there, it is very subjective and context
dependent.

>So the essence of slabu is a length of time.

If you say so...

>But to make this clear, one could insist that one say
>leni slabu kei le si'o nanca
>as distinct from
>leni slabu kei le si'o grake
>in case someone wishes to try to measure a quantity of slabu-ness as a
>kind of mass.

Well, I don't understand how an idea can be a scale either.

co'o mi'e xorxes