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Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2011 09:20:01 -0800 (PST)
From: John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [lojban] No title, since the subject will have changed by the
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----- Original Message ----
From: Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Mon, November 28, 2011 7:34:42 PM
Subject: Re: [lojban] No title, since the subject will have changed by the time 
it gets there

* Sunday, 2011-11-27 at 22:59 -0600 - John E. Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com>:

> On Nov 27, 2011, at 10:36 AM, Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org> wrote:
> 
> > * Friday, 2011-11-25 at 12:38 -0600 - John E. Clifford 
><kali9putra@yahoo.com>:
> > 
> >> On Nov 24, 2011, at 9:44 PM, Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org> wrote:
> >> 
> >>> * Wednesday, 2011-11-23 at 13:34 -0800 - John E Clifford 
><kali9putra@yahoo.com>:
> > OK. So we need a meaning for {zo'e} which has each of these two as
> > special cases. This could be "particular quantifier over a domain
> > I (could) have in mind" - a special case being that it's quantification
> > over a singleton domain, so equivalent to it just being a constant
> > I (could) have in mind.
> > 
> But making it a quantifier makes it subject to quantifier rules.  To
> be sure, if it is restricted to some single object, the difference
> between some and all disappears.  The problem is ensuring that the
> thing at the end of{poi} is in fact a predicate with a single (and the
> right)referent.  Actually, the single requirement doesn't generally
> need to hold, since we have plural reference, presumably -- unless you
> want a single bunch, which you are pretty much sure to get.  But, of
> course, the particular and universal quantifiers don't collapse under
> negation.  In short, I don't think this works.

Well, what I really meant was the dreaded close-scope existentially
quantified plural variable - "close-scope" dealing with the interaction
with other quantifiers, and "plural" dealing with the bunch issue (i.e.
I did mean a domain of quantification consisting of a single bunch
when I said "singleton domain").

Not sure why dreaded, they just don't fit sometimes.  As near as I can figure 
out, you intend that all blanks be filled by {zo'e} which you would define as 
{su'o da poi ...} where '...' is filled by either {du jo du} (though, I am 
unclear why this complex form with {du}, leaving four places to explain, rather 
than something with a one-place predicate} or with {du lo ....} where '....' is 
to be filled with some predicate I (would have) had in mind.  In the one case, 
this gives a particular quantifier over the whole universe of discourse.  In the 
other, it is over a unit set, so gives the individual, lo .... .  The latter is 
to allow for the indifference of this term to passage of negations and perhaps 
other things.  But, of course, either of these hidden values may be a bunch and 
thus the question of how it relates to the basic predicate returns.  And it 
appears -- though I haven't worked out the details -- that modes of predication 
are also subject to the influence of negation.  So. ultimately, you will not 
achieve the results you want, which would have been somewhat closer, I think, 
with using just {su'o da} and {lo ....} directly.  Your further disideratum, 
that this {su'o da} is in the scope of all preceding quantifiers but does not 
have any succeeding ones in its scope is even harder to do when moving back to 
traditional form.  You could ease the first problem a bit by saying that the 
mode was always collaborative, at least one interpretation of which covers all 
the others.  For the second, I don't see much hope, except, as you say, 
introducing a Skolem function -- and even that may not workm depending on the 
rules.

> > There's the related thorny issue of observer places - although {sance}
> > is just "x1 is a sound emitted/produced by x2", so trees are no issue,
> > {carmi} is "x1 is intense/bright/saturated/brilliant in property (ka) x2
> > as received/measured by observer x3". Is a candle's light carmi (be fi
> > zo'e) when there's no-one around to see it? Or is it only carmi be fi
> > zi'o
> 
> This just shows how hopelessly bolloxed the treatment of blanks is.
> We have to have them to have a usable language, but, if we do, the
> clarity and perhaps the logic slips away.  Of course, part of the
> problem is the number of places on many predicates, inviting most of
> them to be blank most of the time.  If more things were add ons rather
> than left offs, there would be fewer problems of this sort, though
> probably more of some other kind.

Quite.

But I think all it shows is that we have to be careful to use predicates
as they're defined. In the case of {carmi} being used when there's no
observer, I think we have to just say that it's wrong. That's {carmi be
fi zi'o}, which we can define {zilcai} to be.

(Alternatives would be to allow theoretical/potential observers in x3,
or declare that this is a special kind of place which is filled with
zi'o if left blank... but these are both horrible.

I, of course, thing that this shows that {carmi} is misdefined or that other 
similar words are.  The consequences of these moves needs some further 
consideration and I am not at all sure how to begin

> >>>> {zo'e} should be stated when a fixed, though perhaps unspecified,
> >>>> referent is intended.
> >>> 
> >>> I think having a word which literally acts as if the place were unfilled
> >>> is a useful enough feature that we shouldn't do away with it unless
> >>> necessary.
> >>> 
> >>> Perhaps we can use {lo du} for the meaning you suggest?
> >> 
> >> I think I am missing your point here. {zi'o} says the place is
> >> unfilled.  {zo'e} says the place is filled but I'm but telling you by
> >> what.  And what does {lo du} do?  It is either the self-identical
> >> things, which provides no information,
> > 
> > Yes, that was the intention. So it would have the meaning you're
> > suggesting for {zo'e}, whether or not {zo'e} itself does.
> > 
> > (Except that it only works if the unfilled second place of {du} is
> > interpreted correctly... it would be nice to have a clearer way of
> > getting at the always-true unary predicate. Do we have one?)
> 
> I don't see the advantage of this.  If we have to glork (where is this
> word from, by the way,?  It seems to mean something like "grok", but
> I don't recognize the source.

To quote the jargon file quoting Hofstadter quoting David Moser's phrase
which it seems was the original defining phrase:

"This gubblick contains many nonsklarkish English flutzpahs, but the
overall pluggandisp can be glorked from context" .

Thanks.

> ) the identity of the second member of the identity, we have to
> identify the first one as well and then we are back to just {zo'e}
> again.

Yes, it should really be {lo du jo du}.

> On the other hand, if this is just the self identity, then it
> refers to any bunch in the universe of discourse and again we have to
> glory the right one.  So it keeps coming back to "what I have in
> mind", which doesn't deal with all the particular quantifier cases.

That's the intention, yes. It's an unambiguous way to get the "what
I have in mind" meaning, ruling out any quantificatory meaning.

> >>>> 3. Bunches relate to predicates in a variety of ways,
> >>> Right, this is the part of your approach I'm unhappy with. I'm loath to
> >>> give up the simple version of plural semantics, whereby a selbri is
> >>> interpreted in a given world just as a relation on the set of bunches.
> >> But as far as I can see, you are the one who has given that up.
> >> I certainly have not.
> > Ah, so it looks like I have been misunderstanding you. I understood you
> > as having the truth value of a predication (in a world) depend on three
> > things - the predicate, the bunches which are its arguments, and the
> > mode(s) of predication. Now I'm understanding you as saying that it
> > depends only on the first two, with the mode(s) merely being a way of
> > describing how it is that the truth value is related to the truth values
> > of the various predications where the bunches are replaced by their
> > subbunches. Is that right?
> > 
> I'm not sure what this means, but it should mean something like "the
> truth value of a predication depends, inter alia, on the way the
> subbunches of the bunch which is the argument relate to the
> predicate."  Does the bunch have the property because all of it's
> subbunches do or because of them do or because none of them other than
> the whole do, or is predicate applied to the bunch in some
> "statistical" way, and so on.  Clearly, the students wear green ties
> in a way quite different from the way they surround a building or come
> from several countries or live at home or have above average
> intelligence or are civil.
> [...]
> >> ) will help with the modes of predication issue.  A few
> >> nice adverbs seem to be the most natural way to proceed.
> > 
> > So this would be explicitly marking which mode of predication is meant
> > to be in use, hence giving joint information about the precise predicate
> > intended (when there's vagueness in that) and the bunches intended.
> 
> So far as I  can see, the predicates nor the bunches change, just the mode.

Now I'm quite confused. You seem in the first quoted paragraph to be
saying that the truth value is determined wholly by the bunches and the
predicate, and that the mode is merely a way of describing the reasoning
which gives the truth value. But in the second quote, you seem to be
suggesting we add adverbs which specify the mode but which give no
information about the predicate or the bunches. If the mode doesn't
affect the truth value once the predicate and bunches are fixed, what
information can this adverb be giving?

I intend that all three are involved, since the same bunch and predicate can be 
related in a number of ways, with differing results.  That the boys move the 
piano collectively is very different from that they move it conjunctively or 
disjunctively, for example  (and we won't look inside to see just how the 
collaboration was carried out in the first case).  So, the mode does affect the 
truth value and the adverbs are there (as in English) to specify the mode, which 
Lojban does not now do.  Leaving them out is the usual Lojban trick of not 
stating the obvious or "don't care" position -- necessary for languages, 
frustratingly not for logics.

> > In {ro lo verba cu prami lo mamta}, if {lo mamta} is interpreted as
> > a few specific mothers, presumably prami acts distributively in x2
> > giving the meaning that each of the children love each of those mothers.
> > 
> > But if we enlarge the bunch to the maximal bunch of mothers, it switches
> > to be (something like) disjunctive - now we're just saying that each
> > child loves some mother (or maybe just Mother, if that's somehow
> > different?), perhaps their own, and not that each loves every mother.
> 
> Well, I didn't think that was what the original said in the first
> place, nor would I (without a lot of contextual build up) have taken
> {lo manta} to refer too some maximal set of mothers.  I might have if
> the beginning were {ro verba}, but even then, my first response would
> be to read in an implicit "his own".  I would never read it to be
> about Mother in xorxes' sense, since I don't believe in what little
> I can make of that notion.

Aha, OK. I had misunderstood you on this too.

So if we *were* to have {lo mamta} refer to the maximal bunch of
mothers, what would it mean? {ro lo verba cu prami ro mamta}, or
something else? Perhaps with a small bunch of mothers, the children love
them all, but as the bunch grows the love gets more spread-out and
fuzzy, until by the time we get to the maximal bunch it's hard to
distinguish from a general love for motherliness?

As noted, this sentence does not say what the mode is at either end, though it 
tends toward conjunctive in both cases.  If the set of mothers gets big enough, 
the sentence in that reading will turn out to be false, though it might be true 
in some other mode.  In neither case, though, does it have anything to do with 
love of motherliness rather than mothers (ain't no {ka} there, for one).

And similarly with "cats eat bats"? With small bunches, probably all the
cats and bats are involved, but this distributivity feathers off as the
bunches get larger - with the limit, maximal bunch, case being something
like the species-claim that bats are some of the species on which felis
catus predates? (Of course the aspect is important for the latter
- 'eat' as opposed to 'are eating', with perhaps {ta'e} marking the
distinction.)

These could work - and I don't see any need to involve any entities
which don't zasti in the worlds concerned.

I'm still not sure, though, that it makes sense to have "Shockley
invented transistors" with a maximal bunch of transistors.

Again, no mode is indicated and so we have to glork one.  Here I would take this 
as some form of "statistical" mode: "generally", "as a rule", etc.  And, without 
context, it is hard to see what "cats" refers to, even though a generic notion 
(one of those maximal sets, say) is assumed.  But it might be just about my cats 
or even some idealized cats that are only remotely related to existing cats 
(stereotypes, say).  Statistics, even "statistics" assumes a population and 
generalizations are usually over the whole relevant class, hence the need for 
various maximal sets, depending on the intention of the generalization.  That 
lions are large cats presumably holds for all past, present and future lions as 
well as all possible one; that they mainly livein Africa works for the present, 
not the past, certainly not the possible, and only tentatively for the future.  
But one of the things that a set of this sort for past and present whatevers has 
is a history, so that one can go back to its beginning and talk about whether 
lions come from Africa (even though all the one I know come from Omaha) or 
Shockley invented the transistor.
Martin

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