From pycyn@aol.com Sun Aug 11 07:20:12 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: Pycyn@aol.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_7_4); 11 Aug 2002 14:20:12 -0000 Received: (qmail 50399 invoked from network); 11 Aug 2002 14:20:12 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.217) by m4.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 11 Aug 2002 14:20:12 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO imo-m07.mx.aol.com) (64.12.136.162) by mta2.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 11 Aug 2002 14:20:12 -0000 Received: from Pycyn@aol.com by imo-m07.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v33.5.) id r.18a.c35c6b4 (18707) for ; Sun, 11 Aug 2002 10:20:08 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <18a.c35c6b4.2a87cc98@aol.com> Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2002 10:20:08 EDT Subject: Re: [lojban] x3 of dasni To: lojban@yahoogroups.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="part1_18a.c35c6b4.2a87cc98_boundary" X-Mailer: AOL 7.0 for Windows US sub 10509 From: pycyn@aol.com X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=2455001 X-Yahoo-Profile: kaliputra X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 14992 --part1_18a.c35c6b4.2a87cc98_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 8/11/2002 1:12:57 AM Central Daylight Time, jjllambias@hotmail.com writes: > >Apparently, you find even the intensional reading of > >L1 objectionable, though none of the objections I have heard (except your > >gut > >feeling -- which is often a rather good indicator, but usually backed up > >with > >a bit more rationale than this time) applies to it. > > (You must have meant "extensional reading" up there. ) No, I meant "intensional, as the full context makes clear(er?). The rest of your comments thus are a bit off the mark. They are off as regard the extensional meaning as well, since they continue your insistence that "there is a" has some how to be related to "this particular" (I am reminded of Johnny Carson's famous refutation of the claim that if there are twenty-seven people in a room, probably two of them share a birthday, by asking if anyone else were born on his (Johnny Carson's) birthday.) And, assuming that we can make sense of "he wears the blanket as his grey coat," that is easily enough even for that (majorly irrelevant) reading. << I mean the bridi in whose prenex their quantifiers are contained. For a simple bridi, any {lo broda} filling one of the selbri's standard places has an extensional reading in that bridi. >> But this is circular! Of course, if there is a bridi in which the quantifiers can be fronted, then the occurrences of {le} and {lo} are -- at least to that extent -- extensional in that bridi. If the third place of {dasni} is intentional, there would be no such bridi, however, since the only bridi {lo kosta} is in is that with {dasni} as selbri and its quantifier could not be fronted in that. << You mean something like {ko'a krici le du'u ge fo'a du fo'e gi fo'a na du fo'e}? Yes, a person can believe contradictory things, how is that a problem? >> I didn't mean anything that crude, although I suppose someone could actually believe that as well. The case I suggested was in effect a denial of Leibniz's law, failure of which is a mark of intesionality. A more apt case would be {ko'a krici le du'u lo broda cu brode ije noda ge da broda gi da brode} which shows that fronting does not work in intensional contexts even on the bridi level. << . There is no such thing in Lojban, as far as I know, as an intensional place that protects its arguments from exporting their quantifiers to the prenex. {lo broda cu brode} is always {su'o da poi broda zo'u da brode}, whatever brode is. >> Over the years we have weeded most of them out; the last I remember for sure was {nitcu2}. But that is no guarantee (witness the gap in the de-agentizing) that we have gotten them all. {dasni3} may be a hither-to unnoticed case, now permanently left as a trap. << Any quantified term has to deal with the set over which the quantifier runs. {lo broda cu brode} makes a statement about the set of {broda}. It says that at least one of its members is a brode. >> Gee, I thought you thought sets almost never had any use; now you say they turn up every time we have a sumti. Odd. I would have thought that {lo broda cu brode" made a claim about brodas, not the set of them, and, more precisely, about the predicate {broda}. Why bring sets in? Or, how are sets involved? << with {lo'e broda} we don't deal with the set of broda extensionally because we don't have a quantifier to run over that set. It is pure intension. But this is not provided by x3 of dasni, {lo'e} is intrinsically intensional, just as {lo} and {le} are intrinsically extensional because they have quantifiers to answer to. So in the same x3 of dasni, one will produce the standard extensional reading, and the other will produce a zi'o-type reading. >> I get from this that {lo'e broda} is an individual (since no quantifiers are involved) and that it is an intensional individual (not an easy concept, but OK, if fleshed out), like a proposition or a property or an event. I still don't get, though, what this latter has to do with quantifiers -- we can -- and do -- quantify over intensional objects and even refer to them in {le} and {lo} constructions: is le du'u lo broda cu brode less intensional for having a quantifier? Nor do I understand (on third reading) any better what you mean by "a zi'o-type reading." {zi'o} blots out one place of a predicate structure creating a new predicate that applies to all the things the original did and also to all things like them except for failing to meet the requirement of the blotted out place. It gives a generally broader predicate. Your reading gives a generally narrower predicate, since the place is not blotted out but rather restricted to a particular value. That is to say, it behaves just like any other case (than {zi'o}) and so is not a special type at all. So what have I missed here? << There is a word filling the x3 slot, but it's a word like {zi'o} (only with greater semantic content). >> Any word would have greater semantic content than {zi'o}, but still, how is {lo'e kosta} special (as a step toward saying what it means altogether)? << {lo'e} marks those transcendental types which are not extensional. >> OK, {lo'e} marks types. That fits in nicely with the text (the only case -- or one of a very few -- where Lojban material contains "type"). That now leaves us with the question of how do types work. << We got away from the problem because we no longer have quantification over coats at the main bridi level. >> Does the fact that the quantification is buried in the predicate, to be brought out, one assumes, if one were asked to explaimn what was meant, mean that the problem is gone. Well then, I'll just go back to tanru: {ko'a kosta dasni lo boxfo}. Of course, as you note elsewhere, I'll have to deal with it eventually. But not now. Just by the way, it does seem that either types themselves or the "as" in the definition forces us into one of those contrary to fact intensional situations. That is, the definition as it stands IS one of those possible (but presumed unused) definitions you listed. --part1_18a.c35c6b4.2a87cc98_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 8/11/2002 1:12:57 AM Central Daylight Time, jjllambias@hotmail.com writes:


>Apparently, you find even the intensional reading of
>L1 objectionable, though none of the objections I have heard (except your
>gut
>feeling -- which is often a rather good indicator, but usually backed up
>with
>a bit more rationale than this time) applies to it.

(You must have meant "extensional reading" up there.

)

No, I meant "intensional, as the full context makes clear(er?).  The rest of your comments thus are a bit off the mark.  They are off as regard the extensional meaning as well, since they continue your insistence that "there is a" has some how to be related to "this particular"  (I am reminded of Johnny Carson's famous refutation of the claim that if there are twenty-seven people in a room, probably two of them share a birthday, by asking if anyone else were born on his (Johnny Carson's) birthday.)  And, assuming that we can make sense of "he wears the blanket as his grey coat," that is easily enough even for that (majorly irrelevant) reading.

<<
I mean the bridi in whose prenex their quantifiers are contained.
For a simple bridi, any {lo broda} filling one of the selbri's
standard places has an extensional reading in that bridi.
>>

But this is circular!  Of course, if there is a bridi in which the quantifiers can be fronted, then the occurrences of {le} and {lo} are -- at least to that extent -- extensional in that bridi.  If the third place of {dasni} is intentional, there would be no such bridi, however, since the only bridi {lo kosta} is in is that with {dasni} as selbri and its quantifier could not be fronted in that.

<<
You mean something like {ko'a krici le du'u ge fo'a du fo'e gi
fo'a na du fo'e}? Yes, a person can believe contradictory things,
how is that a problem?
>>
I didn't mean anything that crude, although I suppose someone could actually believe that as well.  The case I suggested was in effect a denial of Leibniz's law, failure of which is a mark of intesionality.  A more apt case would be {ko'a krici le du'u lo broda cu brode ije noda ge da broda gi da brode} which shows that fronting does not work in intensional contexts even on the bridi level.

<<
. There is no
such thing in Lojban, as far as I know, as an intensional place
that protects its arguments from exporting their quantifiers to
the prenex. {lo broda cu brode} is always {su'o da poi broda zo'u
da brode}, whatever brode is.
>>
Over the years we have weeded most of them out; the last I remember for sure was {nitcu2}.  But that is no guarantee (witness the gap in the de-agentizing) that we have gotten them all.  {dasni3} may be a hither-to unnoticed case, now permanently left as a trap.

<<
Any quantified term has to deal with the set over which the
quantifier runs. {lo broda cu brode} makes a statement about
the set of {broda}. It says that at least one of its members
is a brode.
>>
Gee, I thought you thought sets almost never had any use; now you say they turn up every time we have a sumti.  Odd.  I would have thought that {lo broda cu brode" made a claim about brodas, not the set of them, and, more precisely, about the predicate {broda}.  Why bring sets in?  Or, how are sets involved?

<<
with {lo'e broda} we don't deal with the set of broda
extensionally because we don't have a quantifier to run over
that set. It is pure intension. But this is not provided by
x3 of dasni, {lo'e} is intrinsically intensional, just as
{lo} and {le} are intrinsically extensional because they
have quantifiers to answer to. So in the same x3 of dasni, one
will produce the standard extensional reading, and the other
will produce a zi'o-type reading.
>>
I get from this that {lo'e broda} is an individual (since no quantifiers are involved) and that it is an intensional individual (not an easy concept, but OK, if fleshed out), like a proposition or a property or an event.  I still don't get, though, what this latter has to do with quantifiers -- we can -- and do -- quantify over intensional objects and even refer to them in {le} and {lo} constructions: is le du'u lo broda cu brode less intensional for having a quantifier?
Nor do I understand (on third reading) any better what you mean by "a  zi'o-type reading."  {zi'o} blots out one place of a predicate structure creating a new predicate that applies to all the things the original did and also to all things like them except for failing to meet the requirement of the blotted out place.  It gives a generally broader predicate.  Your reading gives a generally narrower predicate, since the place is not blotted out but rather restricted to a particular value.  That is to say, it behaves just like any other case (than {zi'o}) and so is not a special type at all.  So what have I missed here?

<<
There is a word filling the x3 slot, but it's
a word like {zi'o} (only with greater semantic content).
>>
Any word would have greater semantic content than {zi'o}, but still, how is {lo'e kosta} special (as a step toward saying what it means altogether)?

<<
{lo'e} marks those transcendental types which are not extensional.
>>

OK, {lo'e} marks types. That fits in nicely with the text (the only case -- or one of a very few -- where Lojban material contains "type").  That now leaves us with the question of how do types work.

<<
We got away from the problem because we no longer have
quantification over coats at the main bridi level.
>>
Does the fact that the quantification is buried in the predicate, to be brought out, one assumes, if one were asked to explaimn what was meant, mean that  the problem is gone.  Well then, I'll just go back to tanru: {ko'a kosta dasni lo boxfo}.
Of course, as you note elsewhere, I'll have to deal with it eventually.  But not now.

Just by the way, it does seem that either types themselves or the "as" in the definition forces us into one of those contrary to fact intensional situations.  That is, the definition as it stands IS one of those possible (but presumed unused) definitions you listed.
 --part1_18a.c35c6b4.2a87cc98_boundary--