Re: [lojban] Re: zi'o & otpi

[Jim Carter <jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU>]

What's being discussed is not so far from reality.  It is believed that
smallpox is extinct in the wild, and it has been proposed authoritatively
to destroy all authorized stocks of the virus, and this may actually be
done soon, and it is *assumed* that there are no unauthorized stocks.  Thus
there will (one hopes) be no existing-in-reality instances of smallpox
viruses.

On the other hand, the genotype of smallpox is known, i.e. the exact
nucleotide sequence of its RNA is known.  (I think poxviruses are RNA
viruses; if not, it's unimportant to the argument.)  In this sense a
species of virus is specified in the maximum possible detail, when no
instances exist.  It is also possible to hypothetically change key
packaging genes of the sequence, so the virus could not be assembled, and
hence no instances could possibly exist.  (This maneuver is sometimes done
for research purposes in other viruses, and cells are co-infected with a
helper virus that provides packaging services.)

I can scarcely imagine that "virus" would not be applicable to a defective
smallpox ?virus that has, and can have, no instances.  But if you take the
strict position that the predicate vidru/virus is defined as a large but
(in this case) finite set of pairs of (virus particle, its species or
defining property), then if you make up a lujvo for "smallpox virus" its
definition set would be empty, because there would be zero virus particles.  
Thus we sort of have to break this way of defining predicates.  Perhaps one
way is to contemplate adjoining to the set of actually or potentially
existing instances in each argument place, a placeholder or anonymous
variable whose very potentiality isn't going to be examined too closely.

I think of it in terms of "suspension of disbelief".  If you're
straight-arrow up the kazoo, you're going to end up unable to use your
language.

James F. Carter        Voice 310 825 2897	FAX 310 206 6673
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On Mon, 10 Jul 2000, Elrond wrote:

> 
> > 
> > > le se gerku be zi'o, for a dog breed
> > > that exists independently of actual dogs.
> > 
> > 1) "gerku" relates not only actual dogs with actual dog breeds, but
> > allows the relation of potential dogs and/or potential dog breeds as well.
> > Does it even make sense to talk about a dog breed which neither is,
> > nor could possibly be, instantiated in any conceivable dogs?  What on earth
> > would make it a *dog* breed, then?
> 
> Well, let's imagine a fiction story in the future, where a crazy inventor
> is wanting to create a completely new, yet unexisting, dog breed, and this
> not by instanciating a sample dog from it, but by specifying on paper all
> the characteristics of the dog breed, more particularly by specifying the
> characteristics of the breed not as the characteristics of any dog of that
> breed, but of the breed as a "breed" (= species, somewhat). 
> ...