Message-Id: <199512212215.AAA03399@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Thu, 21 Dec 1995 18:38:34 +0000
Reply-To: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Subject:      Re: TECH: lambda and "ka" revisited
To: Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 3836
Lines: 77

la djan joi mi cusku be di'e casnu
> > > > > > Whereas sets must be abstract, because they have no empirical
> > > > > > correlates, events and forks are concrete (in the sense of being
> > > > > > observable).
> > > > > Forks are concrete: I can point at them, pick them up, etc. Event
> > > > > abstract objects are not.
> > > > Events can be pointed to, albeit not picked up. Event abstract
> > > > objects and fork abstract objects can be pointed to if they're
> > > > real; the fork abstract object, if real, can also be picked up.
> > > I think it is only the concrete fork, not the "fork-type abstract
> > > object", which can be picked up.
> > Right.
> > > To tell the truth, I have no idea what a "fork-type abstract object"
> > > might be; I only say that Lojban has a way of referring to such
> > > objects if anyone finds it useful to postulate them.
> > Well, if an event-type-abstract-object is a conceivable
> > not-necessarily-actual event, then a fork-type-abstract-object is a
> > conceivable not-necessarily-actual fork.
> Ah, I understand the problem.  You think that there are events, and that
> I wish to postulate "event abstract objects" as being something else.
> But I deny that there are events, in your sense of the term. In my sense,
> "event" and "event abstract object" are synonymous: both are abstract,
> not pointable-at.

I am struggling to imagine what you can possibly be thinking of.
As I recall, you distinguish between ev-ab-obs and happeners (fasnu).
Is that right? Do you think you can't point at a fasnu? Is {ti fasnu}
falsifiable?

> I admit that there are forks, and suppose that there might be
> "fork-type abstract objects" (which are not forks), but I don't
> know what these might be.

This is how I am feeling about events and evabobs.

> > > I do not think event abstract objects can be pointed to,
> > No. They have to be actual events to be point-at-able.
> Again, I deny that you can point to an event, existent or otherwise.

Let's try another tack. I'm not concerned with pointing per se. I'm
concerned with "empirical manifestation". Can one inspect the world
and discover events? Will you not accept that "There was a battle",
"There was a tornado", etc. are testable claims?

> You can point to one of the sumti within the event bridi: I can't
> point to the event of And writing, but only to And.

What is an "event bridi"? I have a fairly clear idea of what an
event is, and a clearish albeit in crisis idea of what a bridi is,
but can see no connection between them.

> > > or only by a kind of metonymy of pointing, whereby you point at some
> > > concrete object involved in the event.  You can point at me, and you
> > > can point at me-who-is-breathing, but I don't see how you can point
> > > at my breathing.
> > I don't share your intuitions. It is normal to point at a tornado, or
> > at a football match. Events (dynamic) have times and places which makes
> > them point-at-able. And concrete objects can be viewed as events
> > abstracted from time; e.g. a melon is in fact a melon event.
> I believe that you point at the wind composing the tornado, or at the
> field on which football is being played, or at the players, or at the
> (porridged) mass of field-{joi}-players.

Is this because you have some (to me, strange) idea of what pointing
is? Do you think, say, that one can only point at a place (defined by
spatial coordinates)? - If that were so, I could understand why you
think what you do.

I am rather perturbed by my total failure to conceive of what it is
that you think events are. Would you say that "event" and "state of
affairs" are synonyms? [I suspect you would.] Would you say that
events have times and (in some cases) places? Would you say that
a battle is an event? How about if you try to tell me what an
event (=evabob) is...?

---
And