From pycyn@aol.com Wed Aug 21 10:12:33 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: Pycyn@aol.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_1_0_1); 21 Aug 2002 17:12:33 -0000 Received: (qmail 1097 invoked from network); 21 Aug 2002 17:12:33 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.216) by m12.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 21 Aug 2002 17:12:33 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO imo-r08.mx.aol.com) (152.163.225.104) by mta1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 21 Aug 2002 17:12:32 -0000 Received: from Pycyn@aol.com by imo-r08.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v33.5.) id r.120.14d54c93 (4539) for ; Wed, 21 Aug 2002 13:12:26 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <120.14d54c93.2a9523f9@aol.com> Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2002 13:12:25 EDT Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: I like chocolate To: lojban@yahoogroups.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="part1_120.14d54c93.2a9523f9_boundary" X-Mailer: AOL 7.0 for Windows US sub 10509 From: pycyn@aol.com X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=2455001 X-Yahoo-Profile: kaliputra --part1_120.14d54c93.2a9523f9_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 8/20/2002 11:31:12 PM Central Daylight Time, jjllambias@hotmail.com writes: << > The point I'm trying to make does not depend on the chocolate. > I could use {mi nelci le nu citka} and {mi nelci lo nu citka}. > "I like the particular event of eating that I have in mind" > and "there is/are some event(s) of eating that I like". None > of them corresponds to the most common sense of "I like to eat" > or "I enjoy eating". >> Well, this does seem to be off the point, which has been pretty consistently about chocolate, but, rather surpringly, it does help explain what I think you may be driving at. You want to distinguish between "There are events of eating that I like" and "I like it that there are events of eating" or something like that. Let's see if that works out for explaining your position. << > mi ta'e nelci lo nu mi citka lo cakla > Habitually it is the case that there is some eating of > chocolate that I like. >>> >What is habituaol, etc. is not there >being events but my liking some of the events (there are always events of >any >sort you care to come up with). So you would take the quantifier outside of the scope of ta'e: da poi nu mi citka lo cakla zo'u mi ta'e nelci da For some event x of me eating chocolate: habitually I like x. No, that's not what you're saying. Where would you put the ta'e relative to {da poi nu}/{lo nu}? >> When prefixing is implicit, tenses have to be the outermost item except for negation, thus the quantifier must be inside them. But since it clearly modifies {nelci}, not the quantified claim, the quantifier cannot come between these two. So the quantifier must be restricted to the scope after {nelci}, so that fits. But I am not sure that that is what "I like to eat" means either -- it may be that the abstraction here is {li'i} rather than {nu} or {du'u} << [On the quantifier of du'u:] >I am at a loss to see the advantage of {tu'o}, "a non-specific, elliptical >number" over {lo}, which amounts to an unspecified number. I take {tu'o} as a null, a non-number. The cmavo list has both definitions for it. We went over this already in the past. >> On the ground that every Lojban word has exactly one meaning, however hard that may be to describe in English, I take it that these "two definitions" are in fact various stabs at a single one. Nulls are usually things stuck into places that have to be filled but whose filling does not on this occasion affect the results. So you stick just any old thing in there, but a thing of the right sort. Thus, {tu'o} is "any old number, it doesn't matter which, so long as it fills the place." We have been over it before and I see no reason to change my view. (unless, of course, this is a change already -- I didn't check back to see what I said before). << >The members of lo'i du'u la djil sipna are all the propositions that in >fact >amount to claims that Jill sleeps. Since they are intensional, the >identities that in fact apply -- such as that Jill is Jack's sister and >that >sleeping is non-traumatic temporary loss of consciousness -- do not reduce >them to a single item. So would you say, for example: le du'u le mensi be la djak cu sipna cu du'u la djil sipna I don't have a strong position on this, I'm just trying to figure it out. Doesn't this sort of kill the ability of du'u to provide intensional contexts? >> Yes, I would say that in the imagined circumstances. Propositions are intensional but sets (and so predications) are not. If Jill isn't Jack's sister the, of course, I would say "No" to your question. If Jack doesn't know that Jill is his sister, then your proposition would not be one of ones that Jack knows. But notice Jill can be Jack's imaginary sister without affecting the example at all (well, aside from some possible problems about knowing). This all sounds like the intensional/extensional problem is largely a red herring (which I probably introduced myself in trying to figure out what xorxes was trying to do). It seems that what is really involved is a scope question on quantifiers, quite aside from intensionality -- since the same question keeps being raised at each level of intensionality and having an intensional place that also requires an intensional context sumti in it seems overkill. But all that is needed from intensionality is the lack of fronting or quantifying over, not the whole nine yards (I'm not sure how the identity condition would work here anyhow, nor where the worlds are to come in). How to satisfy xorxes within present Lojban, if possible. I'll skip the intensional place gambit, since I know that won't satisfy him (and I don't like it much myself, except as a last hope). I could look and see whether there is a device already for restricting scope, as {ku} does for {na} and tenses. But {ku} won't work with quantifiers apparently and nothing else suggests itself. I also don't think that multiplying items in the place will help, for example, {mi nelci le nu da du'u mi citka lo cakla} will simply lead to a repeat of the argument: there is now an event of something being a proposition that I eat chocolate such that I like it (the event). But, of course, I don't like an event or a proposition and, further, there is no way to identify WHICH proposition -- or event -- I like: xorxes; central and repeated argument, I think. But is that argument right at all? I''ve been accepting with some misgivings, but none I could formulate in the context of the intensional/extensional line (not that they objections weren't there then, just that they were harder for me to see in that context). It is certainly OK in the case of quantifiers within the intensional context, but what about quantifiers over intensional contexts. Is it wrong that {mi nelci lo nu mi citka lo cakla} is equivalent to {da poi nu mi citka lo cakla zo'u mi nelci da}? The appearance that it is comes from asking questions like "Which one is it then?" and expecting answers like "The one last Thursday or the one in my dream last night," which clearly won't work, whereas the appropriate answers are "The most general one, simply that I am eating chocolate" or "A very specific one like that I am eating a Hershey bar (with almonds) on a sunny afternoon in Seville with a little bird flutterng around to get scraps ......" An event in the {nu} sense is an abstraction, the class of them contains many abstractions, all of them more or less of they same basic type (given facts as they are -- the class is in this world, after all). The manifestations of these abstractions play only a very derivative role here: presumably if you like eating chocolate (are in the like-relation to some member of the class of me-eating-chocolate events) then you will generally enjoy occasions of chocolate eating (have the feelings that might prompt you to say {oinai} or even {ui} while doing it). So, of course there is an event that I like: that I am eating chocolate (and perhaps some more specific members of the set). When I am telling you what I like, it is probably appropriate to use {le nu} then; when I am reporting on someone else {lo nu} seems safer, since his particulars may not be obvious (if we get it by observing, we may miss details that are significant to him; if we get it from him directly he may, for a variety of reasons, not give the full details). So, in fact, the equivalence hold no problems at all once we figure out what events we are talking about. And the need for {lo'e} again comes down to a case of intensional contexts rightly understood. --part1_120.14d54c93.2a9523f9_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 8/20/2002 11:31:12 PM Central Daylight Time, jjllambias@hotmail.com writes:

<<
The point I'm trying to make does not depend on the chocolate.
I could use {mi nelci le nu citka} and {mi nelci lo nu citka}.
"I like the particular event of eating that I have in mind"
and "there is/are some event(s) of eating that I like". None
of them corresponds to the most common sense of "I like to eat"
or "I enjoy eating".

>>
Well, this does seem to be off the point, which has been pretty consistently about chocolate, but, rather surpringly, it does help explain what I think you may be driving at.  You want to distinguish between "There are events of eating that I like" and "I like it that there are events of eating" or something like that.  Let's see if that works out for explaining your position.

<<
>      mi ta'e nelci lo nu mi citka lo cakla
>      Habitually it is the case that there is some eating of
>      chocolate that I like.
>>>
>What is habituaol, etc. is not there
>being events but my liking some of the events (there are always events of
>any
>sort you care to come up with).

So you would take the quantifier outside of the scope of ta'e:

  da poi nu mi citka lo cakla zo'u mi ta'e nelci da
  For some event x of me eating chocolate: habitually I like x.

No, that's not what you're saying. Where would you put the ta'e
relative to {da poi nu}/{lo nu}?
>>
When prefixing is implicit, tenses have to be the outermost item except for negation, thus the quantifier must be inside them.  But since it clearly modifies {nelci}, not the
quantified claim, the quantifier cannot come between these two.  So the quantifier must be restricted to the scope after {nelci}, so that fits.  But I am not sure that that is what "I like to eat" means either -- it may be that the abstraction here is {li'i} rather than {nu} or {du'u}

<<
[On the quantifier of du'u:]
>I am at a loss to see the advantage of {tu'o}, "a non-specific, elliptical
>number" over {lo}, which amounts to an unspecified number.

I take {tu'o} as a null, a non-number. The cmavo list has
both definitions for it. We went over this already in the past.
>>
On the ground that every Lojban word has exactly one meaning, however hard that may be to describe in English, I take it that these "two definitions" are in fact various stabs at a single one.  Nulls are usually things stuck into places that have to be filled but whose filling does not on this occasion affect the results.  So you stick just any old thing in there, but a thing of the right sort.  Thus, {tu'o} is "any old number, it doesn't matter which, so long as it fills the place."  We have been over it before and I see no reason to change my view.  (unless, of course, this is a change already -- I didn't check back to see what I said before).

<<
>The members of lo'i du'u la djil sipna are all the propositions that in
>fact
>amount to claims that Jill sleeps.  Since they are intensional, the
>identities that in fact apply -- such as that Jill is Jack's sister and
>that
>sleeping is non-traumatic temporary loss of consciousness -- do not reduce
>them to a single item.

So would you say, for example:

   le du'u le mensi be la djak cu sipna cu du'u la djil sipna

I don't have a strong position on this, I'm just trying to
figure it out. Doesn't this sort of kill the ability of du'u
to provide intensional contexts?
>>
Yes, I would say that in the imagined circumstances.  Propositions are intensional but sets (and so predications) are not.  If Jill isn't Jack's sister the, of course, I would say "No" to your question.  If Jack doesn't know that Jill is his sister, then your proposition would not be one of ones that Jack knows.  But notice Jill can be Jack's imaginary sister without affecting the example at all (well, aside from some possible problems about knowing). 

This all sounds like the intensional/extensional problem is largely a red herring (which I probably introduced myself in trying to figure out what xorxes was trying to do).  It seems that what is really involved is a scope question on quantifiers, quite aside from intensionality -- since the same question keeps being raised at each level of intensionality and having an intensional place that also requires an intensional context sumti in it seems overkill.  But all that is needed from intensionality is the lack of fronting or quantifying over, not the whole nine yards (I'm not sure how the identity condition would work here anyhow, nor where the worlds are to come in). 

How to satisfy xorxes within present Lojban, if possible.  I'll skip the intensional place gambit, since I know that won't satisfy him (and I don't like it much myself, except as a last hope).  I could look and see whether there is a device already for restricting scope, as {ku} does for {na} and tenses.  But {ku} won't work with quantifiers apparently and nothing else suggests itself.  I also don't think that multiplying items in the place will help, for example, {mi nelci le nu da du'u mi citka lo cakla} will simply lead to a repeat of the argument: there is now an event of something being a proposition that I eat chocolate such that I like it (the event).  But, of course, I don't like an event or a proposition and, further, there is no way to identify WHICH proposition -- or event -- I like: xorxes; central and repeated argument, I think.

But is that argument right at all? I''ve been accepting with some misgivings, but none I could formulate in the context of the intensional/extensional line (not that they objections weren't there then, just that they were harder for me to see in that context). It is certainly OK in the case of quantifiers within the intensional context, but what about quantifiers over intensional contexts.  Is it wrong that {mi nelci lo nu mi citka lo cakla} is equivalent to {da poi nu mi citka lo cakla zo'u mi nelci da}?  The appearance that it is comes from asking questions like "Which one is it then?" and expecting answers like "The one last Thursday or the one in my dream last night," which clearly won't work, whereas the appropriate answers are "The most general one, simply  that I am eating chocolate" or "A very specific one like that I am eating a Hershey bar (with almonds) on a sunny afternoon in Seville with a little bird flutterng around to get scraps ......"  An event in the {nu} sense is an abstraction, the class of them contains many abstractions, all of them more or less of they same basic type (given facts as  they are -- the class is in this world, after all).  The manifestations of these abstractions play only a very derivative role here: presumably if you like eating chocolate (are in the like-relation to some member of the class of me-eating-chocolate events) then you will generally enjoy occasions of chocolate eating (have the feelings that might prompt you to say {oinai} or even {ui} while doing it).  So, of course there is an event that I like: that I am eating chocolate (and perhaps some more specific members of the set).  When I am telling you what I like, it is probably appropriate to use {le nu} then; when I am reporting on someone else {lo nu} seems safer, since his particulars may not be obvious (if we get it by observing, we may miss details that are significant to him; if we get it from him directly he may, for a variety of reasons, not give the full details).  So, in fact,  the equivalence hold no problems at all once we figure out what events we are talking about.  And the need for {lo'e} again comes down to a case of intensional contexts rightly understood.
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