Re: [jboske] Why ro is importing & nobody should mind

[John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org>]

Jordan DeLong scripsit:

> But there are no unicorns... It's equally true that they're all
> green with purple dots, whatever you may believe.

The pc/John/And/maybe-xod viewpoint is that it's equally false to believe
these things -- or, if you prefer, meaningless to say them.

> With non importing universals, you can universally claim anything
> in the empty universe, and it's all true.

Who gives a mabla about the empty universe?

> However, regardless of whether universals import, you can universally
> claim anything about things which don't exist in any universe,
> provided that the universe is nonempty if you use a importing
> universal quantifier, and it is true:
> Ax((Fx & ~Fx) -> Gx)
> is true for any universe, and any predicates F and G. (A false
> proposition implies all propositions -- we know Unicorn(x) is going
> to be false in this universe, just like we know Fx & ~Fx is always
> false, so we can infer anything from it, such as white(x), purple(x)...)

Absolutely. And you say that in Lojban using "ro da ganai ..."

> So, now that I understand what you're saying (I think): I think it
> is entirely beside the point. Yes, in some universes we can say
> ro pavyseljirna with import, or su'o pavyseljirna and be making
> true statements. But I think you're trying to skirt around the
> issue again, instead of addressing the real point: in a world with
> *no* unicorns, what is the truth value of {ro pavyseljirna cu broda},
> and what is the truth value of {naku ro pavyseljirna cu broda}.
> Hopefully one is true and one is false ;)

Yes. The former is false and the latter is true, by convention.

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