From xod@sixgirls.org Mon Feb 12 17:44:38 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: xod@erika.sixgirls.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_0_3); 13 Feb 2001 01:44:38 -0000 Received: (qmail 48229 invoked from network); 13 Feb 2001 01:44:37 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by m8.onelist.org with QMQP; 13 Feb 2001 01:44:37 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO erika.sixgirls.org) (209.208.150.50) by mta3 with SMTP; 13 Feb 2001 02:45:42 -0000 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by erika.sixgirls.org (8.11.2/8.11.1) with ESMTP id f1D1iaX13355 for ; Mon, 12 Feb 2001 20:44:36 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 20:44:35 -0500 (EST) To: Subject: Re: [lojban] RE: imaginary worlds etc. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: Invent Yourself X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 5447 On Mon, 12 Feb 2001, Jorge Llambias wrote: > > la xod cusku di'e > > >I fail to see how speculation on the properties and differences between > >worlds that DO NOT exist can help us understand anything in this one. They > >do not, and in a real sense could not exist! If we want to tie our logic > >to observed reality and derive useable results, we are obliged to ignore > >such fiction. > > The imaginary worlds talk is just a means to reason about > hypotheticals and such, it's not about the actual existence > of those worlds. > > For example, compare these two sentences: > > (1) If you had come five minutes earlier you would have met her. > > (2) If you had come five minutes earlier pigs would fly. > > We want (1) to be true and (2) to be false, but if we translate > into Lojban using {naja} we get both to be true. One way out of > this is to see what happens in the imaginary worlds where you do > come five minutes earlier. In those worlds, you meet her but pigs > don't fly. That's the easy part. The difficult part is how to > select those worlds, because it is not that difficult to imagine > worlds where you do come earlier but you still don't meet her, > somehow you have to restrict the possible variation of the imaginary > worlds from the real world, which to me seems to mean that all we > did is kick the problem a little further. (And also we have to make > sure of excluding from consideration worlds where pigs do fly.) pamoi le jufra joi remoi jy. cu smuni tolkakne .i zi'o mintu .i na mapti da poi fatci .i ku'i le glico (ju'ocu'i joi le drata rarbau) na'o pilno le ra tarmi le nu cusku lu ko na ba lerci klama li'u .a lu le fetsi puzi cliva li'u .i ka smuni kakne va'o le nu fanva ta'i ra .i ji'a no da poi cipra le dei le re jufra .ini'ibo mi ze'ipunai zvati fi'o mentu li 5 .i le lojbo cu jarco le de'u jetnu sepi'o zo ganai zo'o ----- We do not like And if a cat those Rs and Ds, needed a hat? Who can't resist Free enterprise more subsidies. is there for that!