[lojban] mu'ei

[Nick Nicholas <opoudjis@optushome.com.au>]

A discussion that should be going on jboske or bpfk? Yes. But anyway:

the problem with possible worlds is that, while they are there to give 
hypothetical scenarios a cardinality (and thereby a denotation), there 
are only three sensible numbers for them: no; ro; and me'i. me'i is 
always infinite, never a finite number, because given that you're 
counting entire worlds, you can have infinitely many, infinitesimally 
different worlds, all corresponding to your scenario.

*If I had a million bucks (and Sun Yat-Sen was running China), I'd give 
half to charity.
*If I had a million bucks (and Fred Flintstone was running China), I'd 
give half to charity.
*If I had a million bucks (and Sun Yat-Sen was running Fred 
Flintstone), I'd give half to charity.
*If I had a million bucks (and Sun Yat-Sen was eating Fred Flintstone), 
I'd give half to charity.

Sun and Fred have nothing to do with my counterfactual scenario. But 
they make for distinct possible worlds --- and as long as I get my 
million shmackers, such a world still fulfils my hypothetical.

This is why possible worlds, though conceptually useful, aren't 
terribly practical, and it's a good think normal linguistic logic keeps 
them "under the hood". If and when the topic comes up on bpfk, I'd much 
rather an alternative like expanding the definition of ka'e as sumti 
tcita to encompass me'imu'ei, and na'eka'e na for romu'ei. Or something.


###
Momenton senpretende paseman mi retenis kaj # Dr NICK NICHOLAS.
    kultis kvazaux                          # French & Italian,
      senhorlogxan elizeon                 # Univ. of Melbourne
        (Dume:                            # nickn@unimelb.edu.au
[Victor Sadler, _Memkritiko_ 90]        # http://www.opoudjis.net


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