Re: THEORY: Are commands to believe infelicitous?

Hello, the list.  Hello, Ray; thanks for writing.
While I was in the clinic in Oklahoma I couldn't use e-mail. One consequence was
that I didn't know about rejected postings.
The following is one such.  I apologize for any parts that are now out-of-date.
--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Ray Brown <ray.brown@F...> wrote:
> [snip]
> Yes - I am not sure I would stress need so much as "trust"
> and "faith". I
> do have a need to make sense, as far as any human can reasonably
> hope to
> make sense, of the vast universe in which we find ourselves. I too
> have a
> belief in life after death because it is part of a coherent set of
> beliefs
> which seem to me to make sense of things.
But many people do not.
I am considering an alternate-history United States in which after
September 11 2001 a regulation goes into effect prohibiting any
alien from re-entering the country if it can be shown that he or she
has, since first entering the country or since September 11 2001,
whichever is later, taught a doctrine of "life after death" to
anyone of military age or younger.
Many people consider this world to be the only world, and all effort
and resources spent on any other "world" a sinful waste.

> Absolutely! trust and faith. The words for belief & trust are
> related in
> some languages.
Interesting point.  Which languages?  Related how?  Which words?

> Quite so. Belief is surely an act of will. I can conclude -
> possibly
> mistakenly - that this person is trustworthy & is not lying to me,
> therefore I will to believe her/him.
Many people (me often among them) disagree that belief is an act of
will.
Just as your vision is not subject to your will unless your vision
is disordered, so some people would say your belief cannot be
subject to your will unless your belief is disordered.
Look at this screen:  What color do you see it?  Now will it
otherwise; Does it change color?
If it does, your color vision and your will are both disordered.
Some people would say your belief and your will are related as your
color vision and your will are.

> I doubt it also.
>
> To explain Tom, it is simply that a word like 'believe', which
> does not
> have one simple meaning in English but a range of related
> meanings, some
> in which the verb is transitive, and some in which it is
> intransitive &
I don't understand.  When is "believe" ever intransitive?
> requires a prepositional phrase to complete its meaning, is
> unlikely to
> map one-to-one in other languages. What David is saying is that it
> would
> be interesting to look at the range of related meanings attaching
> to the
> 'belief' words in (some) other natlangs and conlangs.
I agree, and that's what I was saying too.  I was asking if anyone
had already seen them.
It may be that some conlangs, and even some natlangs, already
accomodate two different notions of belief, one of which is an act
of will, and one of which is not; so that one and the same language
has room for both sides of the strong difference of opinion in the
paragraph above.

>
> But that surely depends upon the type of conlang that is being
> constructed
> & _why_ it is being constructed. There cannot be *the* best way for
> conlangs generally. It must surely be, as Joseph says, however the
> creator
> of the conlang chooses.
> Yes, but not all conlangs are constructed for fiction or role-
> play, any
> more than all conlangs are constructed as international auxiliary
> languages.
> I imagine these srt of questions must have occurred to loglangers.
> It
> might be instructive to see how 'belief' ideas are handled in
> Lojban.
Yes, it might.  Does anyone know?  How do we find out?

Thanks,

-----

Tom H.C. in OK (then, but back home in MI now.)
Thank you for writing, Ray.


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