Received: from VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM (vms.dc.lsoft.com [205.186.43.2]) by locke.ccil.org (8.6.9/8.6.10) with ESMTP id IAA11623 for ; Wed, 27 Sep 1995 08:26:42 -0400 Message-Id: <199509271226.IAA11623@locke.ccil.org> Received: from PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM (205.186.43.4) by VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM (LSMTP for OpenVMS v0.1a) with SMTP id AE082B8A ; Wed, 27 Sep 1995 8:06:57 -0400 Date: Wed, 27 Sep 1995 13:06:41 BST Reply-To: Don Wiggins Sender: Lojban list From: Don Wiggins Subject: Re: Mu To: John Cowan Status: OR X-From-Space-Date: Wed Sep 27 08:26:44 1995 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU > But it is still presuppositionless (well, free of the > presupposition about the existence of unicorns anyhow). My knee-jerk reaction to an statement, in English, about unicorns is to say that there is no such thing as unicorns. I do not even consider it further and say that it is false. It seems counter-intuitive in a natural language to talk about things which do not exist. However, in maths, it is a totally story. I am perfectly satisfied that Ax: xe{} & false (x) "For all x, such that x is a member of the empty set and the predicate of false of x is true." (The predicate false () is false for any argument). is true and provable. Does lojban adopt the maths convention and allow such assertions to be true? I think my head will start to hurt if this happens ;-) co'o mi'e dn.