Re: LUNATIC again

In message <199811041827.NAA09688@...>, Logical Language
Group <lojbab@...> writes

>>        [Sally:]
>>        Why do they continue
>>        in their pursuits?  For the intellectual achievement?  For
>>        the cameraderie?  The esprit de corps?  The working on something
>>        together?
>
>Probably these are all factors for various individuals.  But I think it also
>significant that people continue merely because they have invested so much of
>their time and intellect in the language that to abandon it is to abandon
>part of themselves.  (Which suggests also that an attack by a competitor
>Auxlang on one's own auxlang is easily taken as a personal attack.)
>
>This is not true merely of conlangs.  & years ago I started to learn Russian
>because I was adopting kids from Russia.  My kids have been here 6 years and
>have long ago forgotten their native language, and have not shown much sign
>of interest in regaining it.  I might visit Russia once or twice again in my
>lifetime, but surely not enough to warrant much more effort at the language
>than I have put in.  But I am still (somewhat vainly) trying to study and
>learn Russian, because the gola of learning Russian has become a part of me
>fully as much as the goal of promoting Lojban and of being a good parent for
>my kids.
I'm reminded of a psychologist I knew who was exploring placebos and the
way they worked.  He found that although a little yellow pill worked
fine, a massively strict and complex diet plus a course of agonising
intra-muscular injections of normal saline was a far better combination.
If it also cost a vast amount of money, that was even better.  The
investment (monetary and otherwise) which you put into it guarantees
that you identify with it.  In the end people would react with enormous
anger to the idea that there was, in fact, *nothing* in it.  He likened
this to a conversion experience.  Your belief *cannot* be wrong, because
it has cost you so much...

--
John Fisher   john@drummond.demon.co.uk   johnf@epcc.ed.ac.uk