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From: John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net>
Subject: [lojban] Re: Something Wittgenstein wrote ...
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--- "Ryan Gray," <ryanpatgray@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> In Culture and Value Wittgenstein made an
> interesting point. He wrote:
> 
> "Philosophers who say: 'after death a timeless
> state will begin', or:
> 'at death a timeless state begins', and do not
> notice that they have
> used the words 'after' and 'at' and 'begins' in
> a temporal sense, and
> that temporality is embedded in their grammar."
> 
> or if having the origingal German helps:
> "Die Philosophen, welche sagen: >>nach dem Tod
> wird ein zeitloser
> Zustand eintreten<<, oder: >>mit dem Tod tritt
> ein zeitloser Zustand
> ein<<, und nicht merken, dass sie im zeitlichen
> Sinne >>nach<< und
> >>mit<< und tritt ein<< gesagt haben, und, dass
> die Zeitlichkeit in
> ihrer Grammatik liegt."
> 
> Whether or not you agree or disagree with
> Wittgenstein or the people
> he is mentioning, how would one say: "after
> death a timeless state
> will begin", or: "at death a timeless state
> begins" in Lojban and
> would you be able to do so without making the
> mistake Wittgenstein is
> talking about?
> 
Mad Ludwig is being , as usual, a tad opaque
here.  I suppose that he means that we can't talk
about the beginning of a timeless event, since
that beginning is both a part of the event and
presupposes more time in the event (the middle,
even the end, and so on).  I suspect this is just
another verbal muddle of the sort ML is said to
be good at untangling, though he does not seem to
be doing so here.  Part of the problem is just
figuring out what a timeless state might be,
since a state is already an event assuming a
passage of time (during which the relevant
factors do not change).  But, that aside, that
the state begins need not be a part of the state
-- or rather our report of that state need not be
in the "time-frame" of that state.  Clearly we
who report it continue in a temporal situation. 
What we are presumably reporting is that -- for
the dead person (?) -- there are no more changes
and hence no more time (since change is as much
the measure of time as time of change).  So we
might bettewr say that change ceases, which does
not raise the problem: it neither postulates a
state nor puts an aspect of *that state* in play.
 Of course, this is all theologically iffy and we
should, I suppose, be able to say something from
other theological points of view -- but on these
matters, theologians have notoriously failed over
the centuries (and, more amazingly, have often
admitted they failed).  So, we speak with the
vulgar and hop[e that we will not be
misunderstood (speaking about what can not be
spoken about and yet writing a fairly long essay
on the topic).