Message-Id: <m0rfwNO-00001GC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Sat, 18 Feb 1995 13:04:51 -0800
Reply-To:     "John E. Clifford" <pcliffje@CRL.COM>
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@FINHUTC.hut.fi>
From:         "John E. Clifford" <pcliffje@CRL.COM>
Subject:      Re: Existence and occurrence of events (was: ago24 & replies)
To:           Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
In-Reply-To:  <199502180235.AA23860@mail.crl.com>
Content-Length: 3159
Lines: 53

On Sat, 18 Feb 1995, ucleaar wrote:
> > > >        And _nu_broda_ doesn't mean "is an event in some universe", since
> > > > it is perfectly possible to _nu_ an impossible event and have it apply
> > > > correctly -- to another impossible event, of course.
> > > For all events, there is (he says omnisciently) a universe in which
> > > the event is possible.
> >       What about the event (state indeed) of being both blue and
> > non-blue all over at the same time?  Or do you allow impossible universes
> > (in which case, I withdraw my comments).
>
> I allow universes in which what is impossible in other universes is
> possible. So yes, I mean to allow impossible universes.

        Not quite an answer to my question, since that does not say
whether you allow universes which contain LOGICALLY impossible events.
And, if you do (as I gather you intend), does every such universe contain
ALL events or are these universes distinguishable by containing different
events -- and perhaps defined by different impossible events?  Are your
impossible universes, in short, classically impossible or something like
(but perhaps different from) relevantly impossible? I'm not sure that
this latter matters, but I would like to get your cosmontology sorted out.

> > > If existence in space/time is not a necessary condition of existence,
> > > I cannot conceive of what other sorts of existence there might be.
> >       Well, it is adequate for formal logic that there be a wellformed
> > naming expression (name, description) for it.  Anything with such a
> > lingistic item exists in the _da_ sense. (Quine would -- does, indeed --
> > disagree but the paper where he disproves this claim was widely accepted
> > as the best support the claim ever got; real nominalism.) It is not clear
> > what "metaphysicsless" Lojban requiresand how that is related to _zasti_
> > and that to English "exists."
>
> "Adequate for formal logic" is not adequate, I opine, for Lojban.
> For example, it is important for Lojban, though not (I presume)
> for formal logic, that the membership criteria for x1 of gerku
> and of mlatu are different. It is important that we roughly
> agree on what {gerku} and {nu} (and other selbri) mean. Fortunately
> we have no difficulty with {gerku}.

Do we disagree about what _nu_ (which is surely not a selbri?) means? I
thought the issue was about whether certain things existed.  To be sure,
if we come at these things by words, we have to know what thewords mean
to answer the question of whether there are any, but that is not enough.
We also have to look and see in the appropriate place.  I suspect we do
not agree about where to look.  Following logic (in the way suggested and
since this is a logical language in a very genetic way), I look to what
the language says, which seems to be that any event we can name exists is
some washed out sense of "exists" -- which nonetheless embraces _da_.
You want (apparently) to look in the (or some) greater extralinguistic
world.  Happily, you have now expanded that world to the point where it
can (should? must?) include all the guys I want in, so we ought to be
back in synch.
pc>|83