On Thu, Apr 17, 2003 at 12:17:41PM -0700, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 17, 2003 at 03:14:24PM -0400, John Cowan wrote:
> > Robin Lee Powell scripsit:
> > > This would, for the record, *NOT* be the level of explanation I
> > > was looking for. 8)
> >
> > He asked how many states of the world there can be. I replied "at
> > least as many as the number of integers raised to its own power,
> > which is a lot."
>
> I didn't say I didn't understand what you said (I didn't, but I
> could have looked it up on Wolfram if I cared). I just meant that
> the level you guys are discussing at isn't the kind of help most of
> us need with mu'ei. The explanation you just gave helps very
> little.
There's two explanations at
http://www.lojban.org/wiki/index.php/possible%20worlds%20and%20mu%27ei
of different levels of technicality (nitcion didn't think mine was
simple enough, but I think that it has to be (though perhaps my
writing of it could be clearer)---this *is* Lojban, after all). I
was introduced to modal concepts from a few chapters in McCawley's
book, which would be a good thing to read, and didn't understand
And's explanation of it beforehand ("possible worlds" sounds like
wanking, to be frank, if you don't know what is meant by it (the
high-level explanations of it do also, imho)).
I dunno what's going on (if anything) with bpfk stuff, but there
was some talk on jboske of revamping mu'ei to be able to specify
different types of modality instead of lumping it into one single
thing which conflates all types (you would still be able to leave
it up to context though). I think it involved something like a
ma'ai (think ma'i) with a lesi'o broda or somesuch at a higher level
of scope than the mu'ei.
Dunno. All you *really* need to know is that
mu'ei gi mi klama le zarci gi mi citka lo nanba
means
If I were to go to the store, I would eat some bread.
If you want to know more than that, I think a book on modal logic
is the best way to go (or a book with a section that discusses it
from a high-level perspective, like McCawley's book), if the various
attempted explanations don't suffice (none of them sufficed for me,
as I mentioned above, and my explanation at the above url may or
may not be that much better).
--
Jordan DeLong - fracture@allusion.net
lu zo'o loi censa bakni cu terzba le zaltapla poi xagrai li'u
sei la mark. tuen. cusku
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