From @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Mon Jun 21 11:01:16 1993 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Mon, 21 Jun 1993 16:18:01 -0400 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 0574; Mon, 21 Jun 93 16:16:48 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 6785; Mon, 21 Jun 93 16:18:19 EST Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1993 15:01:16 -0400 Reply-To: John Cowan Sender: Lojban list From: John Cowan Subject: "What goes in the x1 place of {munje}"? X-To: Lojban List To: Erik Rauch X-Status: Status: OR Message-ID: A good question, and one that often comes up. Originally "munje" had the simple place structure: x1 is a universe/cosmos which seems to ask the question "What kinds of things can go in x1, since there is only one universe?" The word "universe" is also used in English in other ways, as illustrated by "universal set" and "universe of discourse", so the place structure was revised to: x1 is a universe/cosmos (complete and ordered entirety) of domain/sphere x2 governed by rules x3 For >the< universe, x3 is something like "the laws of nature", and the domain/sphere is hard to specify, but semantically would be equivalent to "everything", perhaps {loi ro da}. (Yes, that's grammatical because the "ro" is present.) People still persist in asking, however, what language construct might fit into the x1 place. I believe that this represents a hidden confusion between concrete objects (for my purposes, the universe counts as concrete) and their linguistic representations. Consider the naive question: What goes in the x1 place of "gerku"? The naive answer is "A dog, any dog". But when we look how to specify such a thing, we bring in the word "gerku" again, leading to such pointless- looking sentences as "lo gerku cu gerku". This problem is inevitable in dealing with concrete objects of any sort. Since an actual dog, call him Fido, cannot be part of a sentence -- a sentence is a linguistic phenomenon, whereas a dog is not -- it is necessary to insert a name, a deictic, or some other such thing: la faidos. gerku Fido is-a-dog. ti gerku This is-a-dog. These solutions seem to fail for the universe. Since there is only one, we do not name it ("Universe #522334"?), nor does it seem easy to point to it, so both "la zzzz. munje" and "ti munje" seem semantically anomalous. In fact, the problem of either naming or pointing is no easier with any concrete object. When we name something for the first time, we are constrained to point to it (ostentive definition) as a way of fixing the reference of the name. "See, that there? That is Saturn." However, how can we tell what another person is pointing at specifically? When I point at a man's face and say "That is Nixon", am I naming the man -- or just his nose? In Lojban, we can resolve the paradox with: ti poi nazbi cu se cmene zo niksn. This which is-a-nose is-named "Nixon". So the question "What goes in the x1 place of...." is really what is semantically anomalous. The answer is often "Something which cannot be specified better except in a circular way." Reference: >Naming and Necessity<, by Saul Kripke -- a wonderful book, if a bit difficult to chew on. Sidenote: Northrop Frye, in his >Anatomy of Criticism<, refers to the ghost of Shakespeare, who when asked what he >meant< by such-and-such an expression ...could only reply, with maddening iteration, "I >meant< it to form part of the play." -- John Cowan cowan@snark.thyrsus.com ...!uunet!lock60!snark!cowan e'osai ko sarji la lojban.