* Monday, 2011-09-26 at 23:54 -0300 - Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>: > On Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 10:27 PM, Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org> wrote: > > > > But forgetting about the formalism for a second, surely you'd agree that > > "lions are in my garden" is logically equivalent to "one or more lions > > are in my garden" in every reasonable sense? In particular, that you can > > deduce each from the other? > > > > It's part of the basic underlying theory of english semantics, if you > > like. > > I think in English a plain "lions are in my garden" may require two or > more lion manifestations, no? True! But I think you see what I was getting at anyway. > But on the other hand something like "I stay away from home whenever > lions are in my garden" probably includes single-lion occasions too. > In Lojban that issue would not arise anyway. > > > If we have models where this equivalence fails, like the one you mention > > which has Lion but no lion instances, then our models are failing to > > model this basic underlying theory. > > > > It's in that sense that I'd consider them deficient. > > Of course, whenever you need to consider lion manifestations, you need > a domain of discourse with lion manifestations, there's no way around > that. So if your starting point is that lion manifestations are > needed, any model without them won't cover it. I'll take that as being as close to agreement as we're going to get, and as close enough for present purposes. > > So in response to your original remark > > > >> >> (But at the same time you have no objection to domains that include > >> >> an individual but not its stages, although there are analogous > >> >> types of predications about individuals that can be resolved as > >> >> existential quantification over stages. > > > > : yes, were we to have a setup like the one you sketch above, then > > just as with kinds, a model in which "John sat there" is true had better > > have an actual John-stage which actually sits there. > > > > The only reason that I wasn't raising this objection was because > > I wasn't assuming a setup with stages. > > Exactly. You don't need to assume a setup with stages (and I fully > agree), but apparently you do feel that a setup with manifestations is > always necessary (while I don't). Here I'm not sure I see the analogy. Instead of stages, we can have individuals and predications about them at certain times. Is the analogy then meant to be: stages <-~-> manifestations individuals <-~-> kinds time <-~-> space-time ? If so, I don't think that really works - it's actual lions which satisfy predicates at specific points of space-time, not Lion. > > Unless you really think it's necessary, I'd prefer to avoid getting into > > the details of handling space and time for now. But briefly: I'm > > currently thinking we should handle neither with the stage approach, and > > rather both with the worlds approach (so a "world" would actually be > > a co-ordinate (possible world, time, space)). An argument for another > > day, perhaps! > > In lots of cases we don't need to get anywhere near space and time. If > we want to say something like "travel is good for the soul", any > connection with space-time is remote and of little relevance. We can > just say "lo nu litru cu xamgu lo pruxi" and not concern ourselves > with travel manifestations or soul manifestations. We can, in much the same way that we can say "birds typically have wings" without having to think about any actual birds; but I'd say both statements are actually about manifestations. But I'm not sure that this is at all important.
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