And actually, in {da poi me pensi ke= 'a} (if I am thinking about unicorns), wouldn't da be assigned to &= quot;unicorns" since I'm saying "that thing about which I am = thinking". =A0i.e. my thinking about it is just a road-map to get us t= o the object (unicorns).

On Sat, Jan 19, 2013 at 5:41 PM, John E Clif= ford <kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:

The "there exists a" reading for the particular quantifi= er (often called, admittedly, "existential quantifier") is just a= mistake, though a fairly natural one. In most contexts, what we are going = to talk about are things that (we firmly believe and that's what counts= ) exist.=A0 But we do occasionally enter into conversations where we talk a= bout things that do not (we believe, again) exist: unicorns, Sherlock Holme= s, and so on.=A0 But, since we talk about them, they are in our universe of= discourse, even when we actually say "Unicorns don't exist",= while discussing whether they can be piebald.=A0 In Lojban, {zasti} is a p= redicate like any other, which has a corresponding extension which can be a= nything from the entire universe of discourse to the empty set (not a lot o= f conversation in this case).=A0 So, {da poi na zasti} is not an automatically failed call-up (it is never the empty set, = of course, since that always exist so long as we are talking set theory at = all).=A0 Incidentally, your thoughts about unicorns are not unicorns, so th= e existence of those thought doesn't say anything about the existence o= f their objects -- though usually, talking about those thoughts will guaran= tee that the objects are in the UD.

From: Luke Bergen <lukeabergen@gmail.co= m>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com<= /a>
Sent: Saturday, January 19,= 2013 4:25 PM
Subject: [= lojban] da and existence

In another thread there were comments that led = me to believe that {da} must refer to a thing that actually exists. =A0The = definition also sounds like that is the case:
logically quantified existential pro-sumti: there exists something 1 (usual= ly restricted).

That seems kind of strange = to me. =A0So, does {da poi na zasti} basically mean, by definition, the emp= ty set?

And does that mean that I have to be very careful when = using {da} to make sure that we're talking about existent things?
=

i.e. if I'm thinking about unicorns what does it me= an for me to say {da poi mi pensi ke'a cu cinri}. =A0I guess in that ex= ample it might be ok since my (thoughts about unicorns) do exist but... sti= ll, seems weird for {da} to require existence (if in fact I'm understan= ding the definition correctly).

mi'e la .cribe.
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