Re:e-government and operating systems

Cheery · Post by **Cheery** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 7:02 am

Unified goverment-citizen interaction. Would this mean it'll be somekind of special operating system to allow citizens to control the goverment?

I'm just guessing. What would really help with those would be the language change to lojban(or similar) as an universal language. Just that it's unambiguous and very concise. Would be much easier to explain what you actually mean if you had a language which wouldn't break you in that effort. If somebody understands... It's not anti-english -statement.

Kemp · Post by **Kemp** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 7:24 am

To be honest, English sucks at expressing anything that needs to be concise or complex. I love to see people learning logic in maths and being unable to remember that the way we use "and" and "or" in normal speech has very little to do with they mean in logic.

- A disgruntled native English speaker

Bob the Avenger · Post by **Bob the Avenger** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 7:30 am

Its true, english is really poor at that kind of thing, hence the evil grammar which noone uses (I too am a native english speeker). When people start learning logic and try relating it to language, they never seem to realise "or" means exclusive or

Kemp · Post by **Kemp** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 11:28 am

We also use "and" to mean "xor" a lot, which is even worse. eg:

"You can choose between item A and item B"

Solar · Post by **Solar** » Tue Aug 22, 2006 9:54 pm

That problem, however, is true for every human language I know. Not that many, granted, but I'd actually be surprised if any "natural" language were better suited to expressing maths.

Kemp · Post by **Kemp** » Wed Aug 23, 2006 6:36 am

Forget creating coding languages designed for OS Dev, we need to create a language for us to use ;D

Midas · Post by **Midas** » Wed Aug 23, 2006 9:45 am

Kemp wrote: We also use "and" to mean "xor" a lot, which is even worse. eg:

"You can choose between item A and item B"

Although, technically that parses perfectly correctly if you think logically.

A XOR B = 1 item of the set {A,B}.

That set can be described as the set of A AND B. By choosing between the members of that set, you effectively have an XOR.

Only time I can see and being used as XOR is if someone is being really, really lazy and not speaking properly... IE:

In your example, the and would be an XOR if you excluded the 'between' from the sentence so that it read:

'You can choose A and B'

Which, although it makes perfect sense in English (and conveys the correct meaning), is not correct in a purely mathematical, logical context.

Kemp · Post by **Kemp** » Wed Aug 23, 2006 10:16 am

Heh, got me there, I'll see what else I can come up with

Bob the Avenger · Post by **Bob the Avenger** » Wed Aug 23, 2006 11:45 am

"if it is raining i will wear my rain coat or take my umbrella"

Neo · Post by **Neo** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 8:55 am

Kemp wrote: To be honest, English sucks at expressing anything that needs to be concise or complex.

IMHO that is why it has survived and flourished. It adapts itself and grows by picking from other languages which makes it universal.
And that I think is what a language is supposed to do.

Cheery · Post by **Cheery** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 9:34 am

Neo, what you described is really what language is supposed to do, but doesn't every language does that? I don't say that english wouldn't be good as universal language. It is just that english is hard in distributing information unambiguously and concise, which makes it somewhat not the best choice for being an universal language.

Did anyone notice that there is messages missing from the beginning of this thread?

Kemp · Post by **Kemp** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 11:07 am

There's an entire thread missing from the beginnning of this thread ;D

Neo · Post by **Neo** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 3:05 am

Cheery wrote: Neo, what you described is really what language is supposed to do, but doesn't every language does that?

Nope. You would be using that language if it did?

I don't say that english wouldn't be good as universal language. It is just that english is hard in distributing information unambiguously and concise, which makes it somewhat not the best choice for being an universal language.

True.
But if it was unambigous and concise I don't think it would have become as well known as it is today.
What would be needed for that would be scientific language?

Cheery · Post by **Cheery** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 6:21 am

Neo wrote:But if it was unambigous and concise I don't think it would have become as well known as it is today.

What makes you think so?

I wonder, allowed to be unambigous and concise doesn't mean the speaker should be unambigous and concise. It only allows speaker to choose easier whether way he's saying it and listeners to understand the ambiguity. I see it as a feature rather than limitation.

Kemp · Post by **Kemp** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 9:34 am

Ah, the age-old chant, "It's a feature, not a bug!" ;D