Re; Lojban and SWH

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

>Mr B.Philip.Jonsson wrote:
>
>> >In other words, the SWH is genuinely an open question, although
>> >the null hypothesis is that it is false, so our tests --- when we
>> >have any --- will test for its truth.
>>
>> Sigh! :-) I thought you people's null hypothesis was that SWH was true...
>
>No, no.  The null hypothesis says that no measurable effects exist.
>That is equivalent to the falsity of SWH (which for our purposes is
>formulated as a constraint, viz. "The way you talk constrains the way
>you think."
>
>I'm not sure what the smiley is attached to.

>It means that I'm relieved you don't think the SWH is true... That makes
>you sensible people. (Maybe you still think that logic reflects natural
>human thought processes, but not everyone can be perfect ;-)

"We" have no official opinions on either the truth or falsity of SWH, or on
whether logic reflects natural human thought processes.  Individual Lojbanists
often have strong opinions on these matters.  I for one tend to think that a
MILD form of the SWH will be found to be true, but that the stronger forms
often bandied about are not.  Last I heard, there was even some evidence of
this, though I haven't been keeping up the last year of two with Linguist List.

But other key Lojbanists think that SWH is completely false.  Who really knows?
Time will hopefullt tell.

As for logic reflecting natural human thought processes, I think this is seldom
considered to be an assumption.  The question is whether logical structure can
represent the OUTPUTS of the human thought processes in a consistent and
fairly complete way - more complete than any other system consciously
designed.

Remember that the logical structure of Lojban is meant  to be the strongly
DIFFERENT factor that forces SWH effects to become evident.  Therefore it
doesn't hurt if logic turns out to be quite unnatural for human thought - it
would then be a very artificial constraint on the language that would show
significant SWH effects by forcing people to think in unnatural ways.  If it
does not force people to think differently, then SWH is less likely to be
valid.  But there could remain questions of whether the mind is adaptable
enough to make the thought processes work like Lojban even by training.

Because of this, we are happy that we have several Lojban features unconnected
with logic that could be used as the basis for SWH testing.

lojbab
----
lojbab                                                lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA                        703-385-0273
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