On Thu, Jan 3, 2013 at 4:10 PM, selpa'i <selad= wa@gmx.de> wrote:

la .aionys. cu cusku di'e

On Thu, Jan 3, 2013 at 12:19 PM, Ian Johnson <blindbravado@gmail.com
=
<mailto:blin= dbravado@gmail.com>> wrote:

=A0 =A0 The problem with this is that we don't have mechanisms for
=A0 =A0 explicitly handling the universe of discourse. Anything you talk =A0 =A0 about is automatically bound within the hidden variable "the =A0 =A0 universe of discourse", and you can only indirectly influence = what
=A0 =A0 is in this domain. "Everything that has ever been at any locat= ion in
=A0 =A0 the universe at any point in time" is implicitly "Everyth= ing that
=A0 =A0 ... and is also in the universe of discourse" by default.

=A0 =A0 Another example of this is the approach to what outer quantifiers =A0 =A0 should mean. Assuming we've come to some agreement on what the<= br> =A0 =A0 universe of discourse is for the moment, should {ci da} mean
=A0 =A0 "exactly three things" as the CLL proclaims? The way I un= derstand
=A0 =A0 what you're saying, you would think that it shouldn't, and = instead
=A0 =A0 there should be another PA for "exactly", and without tha= t addition
=A0 =A0 {ci da} should be something like "at least three, and probably= not
=A0 =A0 tremendously larger than three". At least as an outer quantifi= er; in
=A0 =A0 {lo cacra be li ci} it would be more like "close to three, pos= sibly
=A0 =A0 with some error on either side". Am I right here?

No. I think it should mean exactly three. The difference is that I think "exactly three" should only be considered within context. If we&#= 39;re
talking about the house next door, and I say {ci prenu} =3D {ci da poi
prenu}, it should mean that there are exactly three people in the
context of the house next door, not that there are exactly three people, in the whole of time and space, real and imagined, etc..., whatever the
scope of "universe of discourse" is.

I'm not sure you're saying this, but "ci prenu cu broda" = does not mean that "there are exactly three people in the universe per= iod", it means "there are exactly three people in the universe th= at broda", which is a big difference. Even without much context (thoug= h a certain tense and place is almost always automatically assumed), such d= a-based statements are not as extreme as some some seem to have claimed in = the past and also in this thread, since there is always an the additional r= estriction that is the bridi they are contained in.

Your pretty much jives with what I mean about context= ual determinism.

BUT, there's apparently disagreement as to the = scope, since, to give a recent example, {ci prenu cu nanmu}, according to a= t least one person, means "there are exactly three people that are mal= e in the entirety of the universe of discourse". The problem here is o= bviously what the universe of discourse is, which is where the disagreement= seems to stem from.

I firmly assert that this "universe" should be determined by = context, which has the effect of making {PA GISMU} roughly equivalent to {P= A lo GISMU} in all cases.

Others seem to be of the view that the &qu= ot;universe" should be "the whole of everything, real and imagine= d, in any possible world, .....", which renders DA practically useless= IMO.

And there are still other who think the universe should be somewhere be= tween the two.

Tangentially relevant to this discussion, how would o= ne say "in all possible worlds" anyway? I seem to remember there&= #39;s a cmavo for this, but I can't recall what it is.
=A0

mu'o mi'e la selpa'i

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups &= quot;lojban" group.
To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@goo= glegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/grou= p/lojban?hl=3Den.