<djuno> and <viska>

[Steven Belknap <sbelknap@UIC.EDU>]

>la stivn cusku di'e
>> It seems to me that one must either fuzzify <djuno> with
>><jei>, specify the epistemology or method by which certain knowledge is
>>claimed, or use a bridi which reports "Just the facts, M'am," such as:
>>
>><la markl co'i viska nu le renro mo'u renro le bolci ku le kabvu kei>

.i la xorxes cusku di'e
>How can you be so sure that those are the facts?

Because Mark said so, and that is a good enough criteria for me regarding a
<visku> event. Of course, Mark might be lying, or might have misperceived
the event. One night I was walking home on a dark street, and I saw a
terrorist, complete with ski mask and Uzi. This was an experience of
seeing, even though it turned out to be an illusion due to a peculiar
convergence of shadows. Now that I've told you this, you could perfectly
well tell someone else that Steven saw a terrorist. And you would be
correct, although incomplete. To be complete, you would add that I then
changed my angle of view, and discovered that what I saw was an illusion.
Seeing is not believing!

>Can anybody other than markl say what markl saw? Can even markl?

Yes. The map is not the territory. We implicitly know that a description of
an event is not the event.

>You seem to take extreme caution with djuno, but not with viska, why?

Because knowing is *different* than perceiving. You explained this very
well in a recent post, which discusses the difference between prediction
and knowledge. I could apply the xorxes test to <viska>:

Lets suppose that Mark saw the catcher catch the ball. The next day, he
sees the instant replay on television, and on the slo mo the catcher is
clearly seen to drop the ball then pick it up.

Mark might then say, "I saw him catch the ball yesterday, but now I see
that I was wrong."

I have no problem with that statement.

But if he said, "I knew that he caught the ball yesterday, but now I see
that I was wrong."

I do have a problem with that. He couldn't have both known it and not known it.

Now lets suppose that the umpire says,

"I knew that he caught the ball yesterday, and now I see that the catcher
dropped the ball."

That is OK, because the umpire's opinion at the time of the pitch was
peremptory according to the rules of baseball. He *really did* know,
because his opinion determined that knowledge, at least according to the
rules of baseball. It doesn't matter that his opinion changed when he saw
the video recording. He knew the catcher caught the ball at the time of the
event, and that was definitive.

>How is that sentence any more factual than:
>
>  la markl djuno le du'u le renro cu renro le bolci le kabvu
>

Its not. <visku> makes a different claim about the universe than <djuno>
does. Mark perceived a catch. Even if his perception was flawed, that has
no bearing on whether or not his perception occurred. He and we are free to
report on this <visku> event, for we implicitly understand that visual
perception is fallible and that sometimes people lie. To be absolutely
precise, I would have to say:

<la markl ku cu cusku nu da cu viska nu le renro cu renro le bolci le kabvu
kei kei>

but I am comfortable with

< la markl visku le du'u le renro cu renro le bolci le kabvu>

because the fallibility of vision is commonly known, and that seems like a
reasonable may to achieve a bit of conciseness.

 If Mark wishes to report that he saw something and that he believes that
what he saw is fact, he is free to add that, as long as there is a
"controlling authority"-some method or epistemology by which the veracity
of a <djuno> statement can be determined. This could be implicit,
context-determined, or cultural. None of these "controlling authorities"
are extent in lojban at this time.

I suppose that with use lojban might adopt a convention that "seeing is
believing" and that would become the epistemology used for reporting ones
own perception. This would be unfortunate, in my view, and should be
discouraged.

co'omi'e la stivn


Steven Belknap, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and Medicine
University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria