From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@mercury.colossus.net)
Date: Fri Feb 12 1999 - 15:27:47 MST
>> [LC]
>> The English word "why" has at least four different meanings:
>> physical causation, logical implication, ...
> [EY]
> Likewise, "physical causation" has at least the following meanings:
> Thermodynamic causality,...relativistic causality,...
> Let's see Lojban distinguish between _that_.
Well, since you asked. :) In addition to having the necessary root
vocabulary, Lojban also has well-defined ways to combine existing
concepts into new words. These are strict enough that even someone
hearing such a coinage for the first time can generally decipher
the intended meaning. Your "thermodynamic causality", for example,
I would render as "nenmalnicri'a", which can be reduced by rules to
roughly "(energy-disorder)-cause", and would by default be a predicate
with the same arguments and general meaning as the root word for
physical cause, and perhaps other arguments if needed (probably none
in this case).
[For the gory details, go to www.lojban.org]
> I don't believe in any form of logical or mathematical justification.
> Anything real is an experimentally detectable physical process...
Math results are neither real nor unreal; they are merely tautologies.
That some map the symbols used in those tautologies onto physical
phenomena and then interpret those tautologies as predictions or
explanations of those phenomena is not the fault of mathematics, but
of those doing the interpreting (not that this isn't a useful exercise).
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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