
Loglan – The Language of Logic - dpflan
http://www.loglan.org/#beginners
======
dpflan
Does anyone have experience with the idea of using Loglan or Lojban as the
language for humans to 'talk' with AI, rather than using a natural human
language? I recently watched an interview with AI expert Ben Goertzel
discussing this concept, and it was intriguing.

~~~
maaku
I read your first sentence and was about to respond with a link to Goertzel's
paper ;) As far as I know, no one else has worked on this (and at this point
it's mostly a brain-fart idea from Goertzel).

This is a personal area of interest for me, but in a slightly different way.
Modern AI and AGI research has shown that first-order predicate logic (which
underlies Loglan/Lojban) is unlikely to be a complete formal framework for
rational thought. I am very much interested to see what a language would look
like that was instead based on, e.g., probabilistic graphical models. And then
see that applied to human-machine communication.

~~~
dpflan
Interesting. Can you share any more resources or thoughts on the ideas you
mention? (Incompleteness of first-order predicate logic and a language based
on PGMs)

~~~
kylebrown
The other day, I ran across this in a Yudkowsky article[1]:

> Suppose that earthquakes and burglars can both set off burglar alarms. If
> the burglar alarm in your house goes off, it might be because of an actual
> burglar, but it might also be because a minor earthquake rocked your house
> and triggered a few sensors. Early investigators in Artificial Intelligence,
> who were trying to represent all high-level events using primitive tokens in
> a first-order logic (for reasons of historical stupidity we won't go into)
> were stymied by the following apparent paradox: [.. snip ..] Which
> represents a logical contradiction, and for a while there were attempts to
> develop "non-monotonic logics" so that you could retract conclusions given
> additional data.

1\.
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/ev3/causal_diagrams_and_causal_model...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/ev3/causal_diagrams_and_causal_models/)

~~~
dpflan
Thanks for this, though I may not be fully comprehending. If earthquakes can
set off burglar alarms, and if burglars can set off burglar alarms , why would
there be no -|ALARM->EARTHQUAKE theorem? Understandably the ALARM is for
detecting burglars not earthquakes, but it does function as a detector for
both.

~~~
orodley
It doesn't function as a detector for both, it functions as a detector for
_either_. I'm not being pedantic, there is a subtle difference. ALARM ->
EARTHQUAKE is false: the correct theorem is ALARM -> (EARTHQUAKE | BURGLAR).
If the alarm goes off then you have no certain knowledge about which one
caused it, only probabilities.

~~~
scrupulusalbion
It would seem that an additional source of information (e.g. a nearby
seismograph bolted to bedrock) would be the solution to this problem. This is
analogous to a blind person trying to identify whether a sound is a recording
or the Real McCoy. The solution is to either somehow make him able to see or
to allow him to use some other sense (e.g. touch) by which to measure the
origin of the sound. If he hears a dog barking, then if he sees/feels a dog,
he is almost completely assured [0] that it is a real dog that was barking and
not a recording playing from a machine.

Thus, adding another sense (a seismograph and sightedness/touch, respectively)
would seem to eliminate the problem. If this is correct, then such problems
are more ones of a lack of relevant, heterogeneous information and less of a
lack of logical expressiveness of probabilities.

[0] = I say "almost", because knowledge is a fundamental philosophical
problem. The usual means to "almost" assurance is, as I am arguing, to employ
more heterogeneous sources of information until the only logical alternatives
to what you believe are absurdities (e.g. impossible).

------
fernly
For an English speaker, studying Lo[gj][lb]an is like taking a dive from C++
into APL or Haskell. There are whole new ways of representing expression. This
is why they are not to be compared to Esperanto, whose syntax is deliberately
familiar to speakers of European languages, while Lojban's is aggressively
different.

Consider "conversion" which produces the effects of "passive voice" in
English, and more[1]. Inserting a particle converts

    
    
       mi tavla do la javas (I speak to you about Java)
    
       do se tavla mi la javas (you are-bespoken by me about Java)
    
       la javas te tavla mi do (Java is spoken-about by me to you)
    

Or the possibly overcomplex but rather amazing tense system[2], which allows
things such as:

    
    
        mi pu zu ba'o tavla do la javas (I long ago finished talking to you about Java)
    
       mi ba reroi do tavla la javas (I will two times talk to you about Java)
    
    
    

[1]
[https://mw.lojban.org/extensions/cll/2/7/](https://mw.lojban.org/extensions/cll/2/7/)

[2]
[https://mw.lojban.org/extensions/cll/10/1/](https://mw.lojban.org/extensions/cll/10/1/)

------
Nadya
Can anyone versed in Loglan with some familiarity with Esperanto give me the
benefits Loglan has over Esperanto?

It seems more complex in grammar with more difficult consonant clusters, at a
glance.

~~~
gecko
They have nothing in common except being a language.

Esperanto is an indo-European conlang designed to be as easy to learn as
possible. As such, it borrows vocabulary from as many languages as possible--
which, due to when it was made, really means "as many languages in western
Europe as possible, plus Polish and Greek"\--and has a deliberately simple,
minimalist (by spoken language standards) grammar.

Loglan, like the more famous Lojban that's inspired by it, attempts to make it
possible to speak in a completely unambiguous way. It makes no attempt to be
easy to learn and is not designed for casual conversation, although people
certainly try. I have no idea why you would learn Loglan over Lojban, since
the former has had a couple of copyright feuds with people trying to follow
the language and has a much smaller community.

~~~
housel
The copyright feuds belong to an earlier era, when the original Lojban
founders forked the language. Things are a lot more open now, and there is a
degree of cooperation between the two conlang projects.

Loglan does make an attempt to be easy to learn in that its basic vocabulary
words are inspired by words from eight of the world's most-spoken languages.
For example "blanu" comes from English "blue", German "blau", and Chinese
"藍lan".

~~~
schoen
I think Lojban also subsequently ran some software to produce some kind of
similarity score for creating vocabulary similar to the most-spoken languages.
For example

[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bangu#Etymology](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bangu#Etymology)

I don't know whether the original Loglan project to do this relied only on
human creativity or also on software (and whether Lojban used a human
editorial step after the software step).

[https://mw.lojban.org/papri/gismu_etymology](https://mw.lojban.org/papri/gismu_etymology)

[http://www.lojban.org/old-
style/publications/etymology.html](http://www.lojban.org/old-
style/publications/etymology.html)

~~~
DougMerritt
> I don't know whether the original Loglan project to do this relied only on
> human creativity or also on software (and whether Lojban used a human
> editorial step after the software step).

I no longer recall whether Loglan used software for its derivations, but it
hardly matters -- both Loglan and Lojban had very similar goals and methods
here (although naturally Lojban always tried to improve on the forerunner,
Loglan).

I encouraged Lojban to normalize to something that could be handled by
yacc(1). That turned out to be complicated, although I recall that that goal
was at least nominally met.

------
nanofortnight
Lojban was inspired by an earlier version of Loglan, and has much the same
goals. It also has the advantage of having a far more active community.

~~~
stephengillie
Obligatory XKCD: [https://xkcd.com/191/](https://xkcd.com/191/)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Exactly. And what about sarcasm, or ambiguity? Social communications needs
lots of elbow room.

~~~
tlholaday
Ambiguity and sarcasm can be accomplished using literary devices. You can find
a list at literarydevices.net.

~~~
tzs
> You can find a list at literarydevices.net

Under ad hominem, this example is given:

    
    
       2. A classic example of ad hominem fallacy is
          given below:
    
       A: "All murderers are criminals, but a thief
           isn’t a murderer, and so can’t be a criminal."
    
       B: "Well, you’re a thief and a criminal, so there
           goes your argument."
    

OK, first of all, A's argument is terrible. He's asserting that all murderers
are criminals, but to support the second half of his argument he really needs
"all criminals are murderers". But the issue here is B's counterargument, so
I'll let A get away with that.

How is this an ad hominem fallacy? B is not trying to discredit A's argument
by appealing to a logically irrelevant characteristic of A. Rather, B is using
A as a counterexample for A's argument. If instead B's argument was:

    
    
        B: "Well, C over there is a thief and criminal,
            so there goes your argument."
    

that would clearly not be an ad hominem. C provides an example of a person who
is both a thief and criminal, which is a class of people that A claimed could
not exist.

I see no logical reason that a person cannot serve as a refuting
counterexample to a claim that they themselves made. If B had said:

    
    
        B: "Well, the jerk store called and they are
            running out of you, so there goes your
            argument."
    

that would be an ad hominem, because B is trying to get us to not believe A's
argument because of the irrelevancy that the jerk store does a brisk business
in A.

Another example to illustrate my point. Suppose A is a woman.

    
    
        A: "Women do not fart."
    
        (A then at once lets fly a fart as great as
         if it were a thunder-clap, and B is nearly
         blinded with the blast)
    
        B: "That's not true. You just farted!"
    

Would literarydevices.net claim that this is an ad hominem fallacy?

~~~
DougMerritt
My take on this is that you are adding common sense, rather than sticking to
what is given:

> How is this an ad hominem fallacy? B is not trying to discredit A's argument
> by appealing to a logically irrelevant characteristic of A. Rather, B is
> using A as a counterexample for A's argument.

But it's not a counterexample. It would be if someone had said thieves are
criminals, but no one did. We only know that from common sense outside of the
syllogism.

Therefore the statement "YOU are a thief and a criminal" is a simple assertion
without evidence within the givens, and making such a statement about the
debating opponent and then concluding they are therefore wrong ("there goes
your argument") is in fact a solid example of ad hominem.

I strongly agree that this is a poor example of one, because it allows the
sort of confusion that you point out -- it's just not literally wrong.

As a footnote (and certainly not aimed at you), a very large number of people
who forgot their high school lectures about "ad hominem" use the term to mean
_any_ personal attack or criticism, which I find exasperating at best.

Such mis-usage isn't just language evolution in action, it is misunderstanding
rhetorical concepts over 2000 years old, first stated in Greek and then Latin,
and quite language independent.

It's a shame.

But I digress.

~~~
escape_goat
To interject, to me it seems that it _is_ actually a counter-example, and I do
not follow your reasoning. (A)'s argument is that murderers are criminals, but
thieves are not murderers, and therefore cannot be criminals. The lack of
logical validity of that argument aside, (B) refutes it instead by providing
(quite literally) a counter-example: (A) is both a thief and a criminal.
Therefore, if (B)'s assertion is true, (A)'s argument cannot be correct, for
if it were correct, then (A) could be a thief or a criminal, but never both.

Since this is a logical argument, it prejudges the matter to conclude that the
standard of evidence required for (B)'s assertion should be any different than
that for (A)'s assertion. We know (A)'s assertion to be false without any
extra information. If there were external details of evidence that could be
introduced, then (A)'s assertion would still be false. (B)'s assertion,
however, might then still be either true or false, depending on the extra
lemmas. As the example does not make additional information _necessary_ and
does not mention additional information, it is an error to arrive at an
interpretation in which additional information is required to make sense of
the matter. (One can always arbitrarily arrive at such an interpretation.)

------
wirrbel
Take a look at loglan, lojban out of curiosity if you want to.

If you want to spend effort and learn them, reconsider learning "normal"
foreign language that comes from another language family. Even if potentially
using Loglan/Lojban you might be able to phrase relationships in ways that
your native language does not allow, chances are, that you are merely
transpiling your native language into loglan.

If you learn a foreign language, you will be confronted with material and
native speakers of that language, eventually this means that you are faced to
learn their concepts and perception of the world. Think about learning a
language that is not from the same language family as yours, or at least try
to find a language that conceptionally has differences.

For all speakers of european languages (English, Romance languages,
Welsh/gaelic, Slavic languages), I highly recommend learning Turkish for that
matter. It is kind of a logical language in the sense that it has a strong
emphasis on grammar and regularity. It is spoken by a whole bunch of Turkish
expats all over the world.

------
ilaksh
If you are interested in Conlangs check out ithkuil.

~~~
DougMerritt
It's been many many years since I ran in conlang circles, so I had to refresh
my memory:

> designed to express deeper levels of human cognition briefly yet overtly and
> clearly, particularly with regard to human categorization. Ithkuil is
> notable for its grammatical complexity and extensive phoneme inventory.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithkuil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithkuil)

[http://www.ithkuil.net/](http://www.ithkuil.net/)

------
hellbanner
Just yesterday I was wondering how to send an array to someone (another
human).. then realized that we used pointers all the time! Ala "Hey, look up
the book called X on page Y" or "Go to street ABC and house 123"

------
capkutay
Yes Loglan can be the official language of our libertarian Seastead Utopia
where your status is determined by the aggregate of your HN and reddit karma.

~~~
dpflan
For fun: just add a 'd' to get "Logland". Or become a citizen of Liberland and
propose an official language.

1\. [https://liberland.org/en/about/](https://liberland.org/en/about/)

2\. HN submission:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9400443](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9400443)

3\. [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/magazine/the-making-of-
a-p...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/magazine/the-making-of-a-
president.html)

