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Re: [lojban] Re: A (rather long) discussion of {all}
On 5/17/06, John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
MK's proposal in a nutshell. (For corrections,
additions, explanations, etc.)
A draft, yep.
1. 1. Lojban's method of introducing new
referents is inefficient, ineffective and
incomplete.
No. I believe that it's clearly efficient, and it's effective, but:
a) it does not cover situations where context is ambiguous
b) it is ineffective where it's critical (or where you want) to be
fully unambiguous
I'd like it to be very clear that I am not arguing /against/ the
current method, but that I'm essentially arguing for a method to cover
areas where the current method fails.
I see the method that I'm presenting as the proper way to say things,
where the method currently used is a /very/ useful shortcut. But we
shouldn't have to rely on this shortcut - a paved road should be
available if we need to haul something important.
I argue against anyone who says that the current method covers
everything. I argue that this method will cover (a), and will just
about completely cover (b), and so is better than the current method
(shortcut) on its own.
Lojban descriptions depend upon unmentioned
factor which conversants infer from the flow of
the discourse and from the physical environment
in which the discourse occurs. In particular,
the set of things having a mentioned property is
restricted to those things of that sort that are
relevant to the discourse at the moment. The
inferences involved in correctly identifying the
referent of a given description may be long and
complex and the factors on which they are based
No. They needn't be long and complex at all. They are usually quite
simple, it's just that there is a significant number of cases where
there are a lot of simple interpretations.
may not be obvious to all the conversants. Thus,
there is a strong possibility that the referent
will be missed, requiring further discussion to
correct the mistake. But especially, this
relativization of reference makes it impossible
to refer to the things which have the property in
question but are not relevant to the discourse so
far, forr example, to jump from the bears we have
been talking about to all bears absolutely (ever,
existent, imaginary, merely possible, etc.) or
even just all in the area, including those we
have not been talking about.
It's not strictly impossible to refer to things completely now. It's
just that the method proposed for doing so is very crude and attempts
to solve problems after the fact. And sure, you can clear up what you
meant after the fact, but sometimes that's not very useful, and it's
never as useful as clearing it up pre-emptively.
2. In every situation (a discourse carried
on in a given environment), for any object or
group of objects, there is a description that
applies (and will be seen to apply) to exactly
that object or group. Further, this description
does not rely on the flow of discourse and
relies on the environment only for ostention;
that is, it relies only on overtly mentioned
properties and deixis. It thus avoids the
difficulties that make Lojban descriptions so
fallible. And, being not relativized to the
discourse, it can introduce things that are not
already relevant to this discourse.
Yes, roughly, though I'll have nothing to do with the phrase "that
make Lojban descriptions so fallible" - they aren't "so" fallible:
they're very good for most circumstances. It's just that they don't
cover things as well something could be covered.
darves: I hope that John has addressed your objection, because I'm
uncertain of how it relates to this point #2. It seems to relate to
what I said previously regarding how we all have a limit of what we no
longer consider a bear. Most of the time, our differing limits will
not cause a problem. Even the nominalist, for all practical purposes,
will understand me when I talk of some three bears, and won't argue
that they aren't bears because they don't perfectly match the "ideal"
bear.
3. Lojban needs a way to use these
descriptions ("complete descriptions") clearly
I call them "complete restrictions" - that is, no other restrictions
implied by context are applicable.
marked as such. Since these descriptions tend to
You don't quite mark them. You simply say that you mean *all* (every
single...), and this incidetally always is a sign that the restriction
is complete.
be longer than the ones Lojban ordinarily uses,
and the ordinary ones work well enough for
ordinary cases (when we mean to stay within the
already given bounds of relevance), Lojban should
keep most of it present descriptions for the
ordinary cases, but some redundant or little used
form should be set aside for complete
descriptions.
Yes, roughly. But this implies that I want to include some marker or
whatever, which makes this sound somewhat weird. Let's just say that I
want {ro} to mean "damn well *all*. Every one. Not just the ones in
context - no. I mean every one, that will exist, exists, has existed,
[and so on]". I'm saying that the idea that {L_ ro cribe} should mean
"all such that are relevant and such that are bears" is *strange* -
{L_ ro cribe} should be "all such that are bears". If you want to say
"the most contextually sensible number", just leave the inner blank,
and the listener will assume exactly that.
4. The form {lo ro broda} is redundant for
relativized descriptions and so could be used for
how are you defining "relativized descriptions"?
complete ones (and only for them). In
relativized descriptions, {lo ro broda} refers to
all the brodas relevent to the discourse so far,
but this is just what {lo broda} refers to in
relativized descriptions. Further, since a
Yes, I find the blank inner and the inner {ro} redundant.
complete description exactly specifies its
referent, we are indeed interested in all such
things. The expression {lo ro broda} would thus
be accurate in terms of Lojban meaning, which the
present, relativized, {lo ro broda} is not: in
the latter {ro} does not mean "all" but "all
relevant ones" or some such.
I'm not sure I understand what is being said here, but yes, {lo ro
broda} by my proposal does /not/ mean "all: such that are brodas
and/'intersect' such that are relevant/in context".
5. So, Lojban should adopt the convention
that {lo ro broda} indicates that {broda} (which
may be complex, of course) is a complete
What is meant by "which may be complex"? That you can {poi} it? Yes,
you can, and most usually will {poi} it.
description of the intended referent. And,
wherever the using a relativized description
involves vagueness or ambiguity – or even just
complications that extend the needed inferences
unduly -- in the background on which description,
complete descriptions should be used instead.
Yes, this seems correct.
And, of course, always for cases where the domain
of relevance in aa discourse is being changed,
whether by restriction or expansion.
No, not always. If it serves your purpose to change context in the
usual way (which I've referred to as "saying something that makes no
sense in the given context, therefore you must be talking in a
different context"), you can go ahead and do that. But if you want to
be precise in this context shift, you now have that ability.
A. Tied in with this, though not essential to
it, is the claim that, for every property, P,
there is a set (or whatever) of all the things
that have (now, at some other time, in the realm
of possibility, …) and that this set (…) is the
referent of {lo ro P} (as corrected by the
Yes, though the bounds of this set may vary from individual to
individual. This is rarely a practical problem, especially if one
assumes that the speaker's bounds (assuming that the bounds are
somewhat sensible) at the time they said it are the bounds that should
be considered.
This is the 'vagueness' that isn't quite covered by my proposal, and
it surely isn't covered by the current usages. And the odds of it
being a problem are drastically slim.
proposal). Relativized descriptions may be made
complete by explicit restrictions carvving out
subsets of this set.
If I understand what you mean correctly, then not quite: they're made
complete when you say "listener, I mean *all* of them, and therefore
it is implied that you shouldn't use context to cut the set down
further".