From pycyn@aol.com Sun Sep 15 10:49:13 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: Pycyn@aol.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_1_1_3); 15 Sep 2002 17:49:12 -0000 Received: (qmail 70837 invoked from network); 15 Sep 2002 17:49:12 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.218) by m1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 15 Sep 2002 17:49:12 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO imo-r02.mx.aol.com) (152.163.225.98) by mta3.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 15 Sep 2002 17:49:12 -0000 Received: from Pycyn@aol.com by imo-r02.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v34.10.) id r.95.22b3df4f (4230) for ; Sun, 15 Sep 2002 13:49:09 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <95.22b3df4f.2ab62214@aol.com> Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 13:49:08 EDT Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: I like chocolate To: lojban@yahoogroups.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="part1_95.22b3df4f.2ab62214_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: 15708 --part1_95.22b3df4f.2ab62214_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/14/2002 7:11:28 PM Central Daylight Time, jjllambias@hotmail.com writes: << > >Yes, lo sincrboa is picturable, but you want a picture of lo'e sincrboa, > >which we can't drag out an look at and compare with the picture. > > You don't have to drag it out. All you need is to know what > {sincrboa} means. >> In that case, what {sincrboa} means already involves visual properties, the way a boa looks. Serpentine, obviously; scaly, I suppose; I don't know what else is essential ro being whatever kind of boa you have in mind. But, if you mean the genus boa (or wherever boas fall in that scheme of things) some of these properties that are essential to the picture drop out, because they can't be essential (different species of boas do them differently) << >All we have >to go on in the generic case is the (weighted?) list of properties that >somehow (still haven't said how) characterize the members of lo'i sincrboa. Yes, an imaginary list which need not be made explicit. If I tell you from here, where you can't see me nor the boa, {mi viska lo sincrboa} you need to know the same list of properties in order to understand what I mean. If I tell you {mi viska lo'e sincrboa} you can conclude that either {mi viska lo sincrboa} or else I'm having visions, but you don't need to know anything else about boas than what you needed for the claim with {lo}. {lo'e sincrboa} provides a way to use the intension of lo'i sincrboa in a sumti slot directly. (Not to make a claim about the intension of lo'i sincrboa, that's what {le ka sincrboa} is for.) >> I have some idea what your boa is like, but I can't paint a reliable picture of it yet because too many things I need to know to do a picture I don't know from knowing only that it is a boa. Is it basically brown or basically green, for example? Having a delusion is coverd by the usually safe {mi viska li'i sincrboa} (this also covers the {lo} case but does not entail it). Why is {lo'e} a no-no? If I can paint it, I can see it surely. By "the intension of lo'i sincrboa," I suppse you mean "the intension (sense) of {sincrboa}" -- I don't think sets have intensions other than that of the predicates that define them (if any). Now, if you literally mean that you are using just exactly that intensional object, not any other properties that are accidentally associated with it through the things which have that property, I see a major problem with your examples. Either {lo'e cinfo cu xabju le frike} means "if anything were a lion, it would live in Africa," which is obviously false, or it means (I have to unpack some more) "In some world there is something which is a lion and lives in Africa," which is -- in the case of lions, but not of unicorns -- of little practical value over {lo cinfo cu xabju le frike}. (The more unpacked version of the first is "in every world in which there are lions, they all live in Africa" -- i.e., living in Africa is an essential property of lions, a part of being a lion, le du'u ce'u xabju le frike is a part of -- is pervaded by --le du'u ce'u cinfo). The problem with {pixra} is that boahood pervades too few viusal properties to allow a picture to be made, if it is at all representational (and if it is not, anything goes and I have to take your word for what it represents and by what coding, so almost any visual image will do and the whole becomes really uninteresting). << >I think that, in fact, barring the miraculous appearance of a better >explanation, {nelci le nu lo sfofa co'e} is exactly what {nelci lo'e sfofa} >means. In what does it differ. DON'T "in that it deals with generic sofas >not particular ones" since {le nu lo sfofa co'e} doesn't deal with any >particular sofa either -- that is what intensional contexts do best. I never said {le nu lo sfofa cu co'e} deals with particular sofas. I did say it deals with particular events. >> OK -- and how can there be a particular event involving sofas that does not invlve a particular sofa? << >I >suspect that {co'e} is something about lying on 'em or looking at 'em, just >as {nelci lo'e cakla} = {nelci le nu lo cakla co'e} is about eating 'em. That other claim may very well be true. But if it is possible to like a particular sofa without saying that it is doing something about it that I like, it should also possible to like sofas in general without saying that it is doing something about them that I like. >> I actually think that {nelci} tends to be moe about {li'i} than {nu}, but I don't suppose that affects your case. You must have some reason/cause/motive for liking something (I think -- even if you can't articulate it better than "I just do") and that presumably is something that sofas do or are or, perhaps, something that you do or are in the presence of sofas (would do or be were you in the presence of sofas, strictly -- but there are sofas and you like them so the hypothetical fuzzies things a bit here). Maybe it is just the fact that they are sofas. And, if {lo'e sfofa} is about generic sofas, that is about all it could be, since incidentally allied proerties are excluded. << >Nor >-- your other line -- that it can't be quantified over, since neither can >{tu'a lo ...} What is different? For me, liking sofas is different to liking an event. I never disputed that {tu'a} works as a way to get the quantifier out of the way, but it also changes the level of abstraction, from liking sofas to liking things that happen in/with/about/to sofas. >> Well, as I said, it is more like liking an experience, which seems less problematic -- not that I see that much problem with liking an event, in the appropriate sense. Perhaps some of our discomfort with {nelci le nu lo sfofa co'e} is that we read it as "I like the event of there being something about a sofa" rather than "I like something about sofas" which is a better bit of English. You complained about the corresponding translation of {nelci lo'e sfofa} as "like the generic sofa" -- we are (in your terms) using the event, not talking about it. Using {tu'a} does not literally change the level of abstraction, since everything is on the same level in Lojban. And your case is ultimately talking about the properties of a sofa, not about sofas (since you can do it even if there are no sofas to talk about), which does not seem to me to be a different level, only a different kind, of abstraction. (I expect you to deny this fervently, but lacking a different explanation, I have to go with what works to preserve as much of your claim as I can and this seems to do it, since hypotheticals live off properties, there being no other gudes for them once we cut free from the actual incidental properties of things in the set.( --part1_95.22b3df4f.2ab62214_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/14/2002 7:11:28 PM Central Daylight Time, jjllambias@hotmail.com writes:

<<
>Yes, lo sincrboa is picturable, but you want a picture of lo'e sincrboa,
>which we can't drag out an look at and compare with the picture.

You don't have to drag it out. All you need is to know what
{sincrboa} means.

>>
In that case, what {sincrboa} means already involves visual properties, the way a boa looks.  Serpentine, obviously; scaly, I suppose; I don't know what else is essential ro being whatever kind of boa you have in mind.  But, if you mean the genus boa (or wherever boas fall in that scheme of things) some of these properties that are essential to the picture drop out, because they can't be essential (different species of boas do them differently)

<<
>All we have
>to go on in the generic case is the (weighted?) list of properties that
>somehow (still haven't said how) characterize the members of lo'i sincrboa.

Yes, an imaginary list which need not be made explicit. If I tell
you from here, where you can't see me nor the boa, {mi viska lo
sincrboa} you need to know the same list of properties in order
to understand what I mean. If I tell you {mi viska lo'e sincrboa}
you can conclude that either {mi viska lo sincrboa} or else I'm
having visions, but you don't need to know anything else about
boas than what you needed for the claim with {lo}.

{lo'e sincrboa} provides a way to use the intension of
lo'i sincrboa in a sumti slot directly. (Not to make a claim about
the intension of lo'i sincrboa, that's what {le ka sincrboa}
is for.)
>>

I have some idea what your boa is like, but I can't paint a reliable picture of it yet because too many things I need to know to do a picture I don't know from knowing only that it is a boa.  Is it basically brown or basically green, for example?
Having a delusion is coverd by the usually safe {mi viska li'i sincrboa} (this also covers the {lo} case but does not entail it).  Why is {lo'e} a no-no?  If I can paint it, I can see it surely.
By "the intension of lo'i sincrboa," I suppse you mean "the intension (sense) of {sincrboa}" -- I don't think sets have intensions other than that of the predicates that define them (if any). Now, if you literally mean that you are using just exactly that intensional object, not any other properties that are accidentally associated with it through the things which have that property, I see a major problem with your examples.  Either {lo'e cinfo cu xabju le frike} means "if anything were a lion, it would live in Africa," which is obviously false, or it means (I have to unpack some more) "In some world there is something which is a lion and lives in Africa," which is -- in the case of lions, but not of unicorns -- of little practical value over {lo cinfo cu xabju le frike}.  (The more unpacked version of the first is "in every world in which there are lions, they all live in Africa" -- i.e., living in Africa is an essential property of lions, a part of being a lion, le du'u ce'u xabju le frike is a part of  -- is pervaded by --le du'u ce'u cinfo).  The problem with {pixra} is that boahood pervades too few viusal properties to allow a picture to be made, if it is at all representational (and if it is not, anything goes and I have to take your word for what it represents and by what coding, so almost any visual image will do and the whole becomes really uninteresting).

<<
>I think that, in fact, barring the miraculous appearance of a better
>explanation, {nelci le nu lo sfofa co'e} is exactly what {nelci lo'e sfofa}
>means.  In what does it differ.  DON'T "in that it deals with generic sofas
>not particular ones" since {le nu lo sfofa co'e} doesn't deal with any
>particular sofa either -- that is what intensional contexts do best.

I never said {le nu lo sfofa cu co'e} deals with particular sofas.
I did say it deals with particular events.
>>
OK -- and how can there be a particular event involving sofas that does not invlve a particular sofa?

<<
>I
>suspect that {co'e} is something about lying on 'em or looking at 'em, just
>as {nelci lo'e cakla} = {nelci le nu lo cakla co'e} is about eating 'em.

That other claim may very well be true. But if it is possible to
like a particular sofa without saying that it is doing something
about it that I like, it should also possible to like sofas in
general without saying that it is doing something about them that
I like.
>>
I actually think that {nelci} tends to be moe about {li'i} than {nu}, but I don't suppose that affects your case.
You must have some reason/cause/motive for liking something (I think -- even if you can't articulate it better than "I just do") and that presumably is something that sofas do or are or, perhaps, something that you do or are in the presence of sofas (would do or be were you in the presence of sofas, strictly  -- but there are sofas and you like them so the hypothetical fuzzies things a bit here).  Maybe it is just the fact that they are sofas.  And, if {lo'e sfofa} is about generic sofas, that is about all it could be, since incidentally allied proerties are excluded.

<<
>Nor
>-- your other line -- that it can't be quantified over, since neither can
>{tu'a lo ...}  What is different?

For me, liking sofas is different to liking an event. I never
disputed that {tu'a} works as a way to get the quantifier out
of the way, but it also changes the level of abstraction, from
liking sofas to liking things that happen in/with/about/to sofas.
>>
Well, as I said, it is more like liking an experience, which seems less problematic -- not that I see that much problem with liking an event, in the appropriate sense. Perhaps some of our discomfort with {nelci le nu lo sfofa co'e} is that we read it as "I like the event of there being something about a sofa" rather than "I like something about sofas" which is a better bit of English.  You complained about the corresponding translation of {nelci lo'e sfofa} as "like the generic sofa" -- we are (in your terms) using the event, not talking about it.
Using {tu'a} does not literally change the level of abstraction, since everything is on the same level in Lojban.  And your case is ultimately talking about the properties of a sofa, not about sofas (since you can do it even if there are no sofas to talk about), which does not seem to me to be a different level, only a different kind, of abstraction.
(I expect you to deny this fervently, but lacking a different explanation, I have to go with what works to preserve as much of your claim as I can and this seems to do it, since hypotheticals live off properties, there being no other gudes for them once we cut free from the actual incidental properties of things in the set.( --part1_95.22b3df4f.2ab62214_boundary--