LL-L "Language varieties" 2010.02.07 (02) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 07 February 2010 - Volume 02
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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at fleimin.demon.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2010.02.06 (06) [EN]

> From: Hellinckx Luc <luc.hellinckx at gmail.com>
> Subject: LL-L "Projects"
>

> Please tell me which kind of logics Lojban is based on. Classical
> two-valued logics or fuzzy logic? Considering the inherent vagueness
> of words (what does "cold" mean?), I would expect the fuzzy variant.
> Given the age of (its ancestor) Loglan however, I guess the
> theoretical framework predates the birth of fuzzy logic.

The short answer is, you're right, classical logic.

The long answer would be me explaining why I don't consider fuzzy logic
to be logic, maybe not appropriate for the list. To state why, briefly:
fuzzy logic is logic extended with the principles of fuzzy set theory,
and doesn't replace classical logic any more than adding a flash plugin
to your browser replaces your browser.

But yes, I'd say classical logic, since when we say something in Lojban,
for example:

mi klama le zdani  ("I go to-the-place-I-describe-as home.")

we really mean to say that the statement we are making is member of the
set of true statements.

It seems easy enough to add fuzziness to this if you want to, without
stepping outside the language.


> Do you think that, quantum entanglement for instance, could be better
> explained in Lojban terms than in English?

Quantum entanglement is easy enough to explain in English (to someone
who is used to the jargon!), so perhaps it's a moot point:

"An electron and a positron collide, creating two photons which are now
travelling apart in an indeterminate state. When we measure, say, the
spin of one of the photons, spin is changed to either spin up or spin
down. The other photon's spin is at the moment of measurement changed to
the opposite state: spin down or spin up. Einstein was wrong!"

This all seems clear enough, although you do have to be conversant with
elementary quantum physics jargon. But suppose we consider the opening
event:

"An electron and a positron collide..."

It's typical physics-writers' English but let's translate it word for
word into Lojban (this results in something called 'malglico' -
anglicised rubbish!):

"lo lektoni .e lo to'e lektoni cu janli"

In the first place this is rather better as it's clear that we're
talking about a particle-antiparticle pair (lo to'e lektoni: "a
polar-opposite-of electron").

Now let's look up 'collide' in a Lojban dictionary:

"janli 'collide': x1 collides with/crashes/bumps/runs into x2"

Suddenly we see that the translation is all wrong! It's actually saying:

"An electron and a positron collide with whatever."

It should be:

"lo lektoni janli lo to'e lektoni"

in other words:

"An electron collides with a positron."

Whether you would want to write this in English or just fall back on
assumptions about the readers' assumptions, it has to be said that the
Lojban is automatically much less ambiguous.

Now you might want to consider whether the translation is too asymmetric
(is it different from saying 'a positron collides with an electron'?)
and so on. It makes you think about what you're really saying. In
reading the English text, someone conversant with popular physics
writing will naturally make some assumptions ("The electron and positron
are destroyed, or converted into photons"), but what about readers who
aren't conversant with popular physics writing? Expressing it, even if
only to yourself, in Lojban may help you to make your writing clearer to
more readers.

What might strike you as strange is that even emotion can be better
translated into Lojban:

la einstein. na drani ko'a

"Einstein was wrong about quantum entanglement"

(You can't just say 'Einstein was wrong', that's more malglico and far
too sweeping! To keep the example simple, I'm assuming I've previously
defined the whole concept of quantum entanglement as "ko'a");

or:

.uunai la einstein. .iocai na drani ko'a

"Sadly, Einstein, whom I respect greatly, was wrong about quantum
entanglement."

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

•

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