From LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Sat Mar 6 22:46:27 2010 Reply-To: ucleaar Sender: Lojban list Date: Tue Dec 19 17:27:43 1995 From: ucleaar Subject: Re: TECH: lambda and "ka" revisited X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan Status: OR X-From-Space-Date: Tue Dec 19 17:27:43 1995 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU Message-ID: cusku die fa la djan: > > > 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. > I do not think event abstract objects can be pointed to, No. They have to be actual events to be point-at-able. > 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. > > > > Events and forks can be either real or imaginable, whereas for sets > > > > reality and imaginability amount to the same thing. > > > I again disagree, but from the other side now. I can imagine the set > > > of all sets ("lo'i girzu"), but Cantor's paradox guarantees its > > > nonexistence. > > Should that be {lohi se girzu}? I had an idea that x1 of girzu is the > > group and x2 is the set of its members. But my gismu list has "x1 is > > group/set defined by property (ka)/membership (set) x3", which is > > stange both in the absence of x2 and in the "group/set" gloss. > The current definition makes both of us wrong: "x1 is a > group/cluster/team showing common property (ka) x2 due to set x3 > linked by relations x4." A weird definition. Why that x2? > I had thought that "selcmima" was a set defined extensionally > (relationship between set x1 and each member x2) and "girzu" was > a set defined intensionally, I thought that was {klesi}. > > As for Cantor's paradox, it is metaphysically curious. lohi girzu > > exists in the world of the imaginable, and no sets (or all sets) > > exist in the world of the real. I'll go off and revise my metaphysics. > > Maybe you can't imagine the set of all sets - rather, you can imagine > > a method of generating it (which wouldn't work). > Maybe so. But your "no sets/all sets" dichotomy is just what I reject. > Depending on your set theory, you can accept the existence of some sets > but deny others, or more precisely, you accept that some membership > conditions (e.g. "x | x is on my desk") determine sets, and some > (e.g. "x | x is a set") do not. I think we're concluding the same thing. --- And