From LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu Wed Nov 16 22:28:40 1994
Message-Id: <199411170328.AA00169@nfs1.digex.net>
Date: Wed Nov 16 22:28:40 1994
From: bob@GNU.AI.MIT.EDU
Subject:      Re: small universe consequences
In-Reply-To:  <199411162353.SAA06058@albert.gnu.ai.mit.edu> (message from
              ucleaar on Wed, 16 Nov 1994 18:45:29 +0000)
Status: RO

ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk cusku di'e
   ... If the meaning of "lo mlatu cu xekri"
   is defined as the universes in which there is a black cat, and you
   choose a "context" where there is a black cat, then the proposition
   expressed by the utterance is true, while if you choose a "context"
   where there is nothing that is a black cat then the  proposition
   expressed by the utterance  is false. But the set of universes in which
   the proposition is true and the set in which it is false doesn't
   change, so the meaning doesn't change.

   So I can't make any sense of the rest of your arguments.

At the level of abstraction at which I was talking, the meaning is
different whether the utterance is true or whether it is false.  The
meaning of the utterance depends on the context.

To gain the same information from a statement regardless of whether it
is true or false, you must be using `meaning' at a different level of
abstraction than I.

Consider the following while presuming it makes a difference whether
the Lojban utterance is true or false:

    Suppose the context concerns just three specific cats, no others:

        .i pa lo ci mlatu cu grusi
        One of the three cats is gray.

As I intended the utterance, it means something different if it is
true or if it is false.  (Also, of course, in this context, the
appropriate English gloss for {lo} is `the'; it is false and
misleading to translate the sentence with `a'.)