From LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu Tue Dec 6 21:11:18 1994 Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by nfs2.digex.net with SMTP id AA14612 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5 for ); Tue, 6 Dec 1994 21:11:15 -0500 Message-Id: <199412070211.AA14612@nfs2.digex.net> Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 4918; Tue, 06 Dec 94 20:59:15 EST Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@UGA) by UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 1665; Tue, 6 Dec 1994 18:56:33 -0500 Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 23:43:18 GMT Reply-To: ia@stryx.demon.co.uk Sender: Lojban list From: Iain Alexander Subject: Re: TECH: existential quantification To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu Status: RO la djan. kau,n. cusku di'e sa'ecu'i > I think this statement evinces a confusion beween "nu" and "mu'e", between > events and point-events. In Lojban, a state is a kind of event. You may > say that a state is made up of a welding-together of many point-events, > provided you quantize time (and we don't have to), but nothing can be done > with states that can't be done with (generalized, {nu}) events. I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make here. I may well be misinterpreting the word "state" in the description of {za'i}. However one of it's connotations in English is state-of-affairs, which is a generalised situation as distinct from any particular event(s), and bears a close family relationship with "properties". Some of us tend to think of {nu} as describing a discrete event, and we need some way of talking about the more abstract concept. In particular, there's a danger that in bridi like {mi djica lo nu broda}, we come up against the same old transparency/opacity problem w.r.t the event itself that we get with a more concrete object (e.g. {mi djica [tu'a] lo plise}), leading to a potentially infinite regress. It may well be that <{nu} vs. {za'i}> is not the answer to this one, but I'd like to know what is. co'o mi'e .i,n. -- Iain Alexander (ia@stryx.demon.co.uk)