[lojban] Re: Something Wittgenstein wrote ...

[John E Clifford <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

--- robin <robin@bilkent.edu.tr> wrote:
> John E Clifford wrote:
> > --- "Ryan Gray," <ryanpatgray@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> > 
> >>In Culture and Value Wittgenstein made an
> >>interesting point. He wrote:
> >>
> >>"Philosophers who say: 'after death a
> timeless
> >>state will begin', or:
> >>'at death a timeless state begins', and do
> not
> >>notice that they have
> >>used the words 'after' and 'at' and 'begins'
> in
> >>a temporal sense, and
> >>that temporality is embedded in their
> grammar."
> >>
> >>or if having the origingal German helps:
> >>"Die Philosophen, welche sagen: >>nach dem
> Tod
> >>wird ein zeitloser
> >>Zustand eintreten<<, oder: >>mit dem Tod
> tritt
> >>ein zeitloser Zustand
> >>ein<<, und nicht merken, dass sie im
> zeitlichen
> >>Sinne >>nach<< und
> >>
> >>>>mit<< und tritt ein<< gesagt haben, und,
> dass
> >>
> >>die Zeitlichkeit in
> >>ihrer Grammatik liegt."
> >>
> >>Whether or not you agree or disagree with
> >>Wittgenstein or the people
> >>he is mentioning, how would one say: "after
> >>death a timeless state
> >>will begin", or: "at death a timeless state
> >>begins" in Lojban and
> >>would you be able to do so without making the
> >>mistake Wittgenstein is
> >>talking about?
> >>
> > 
> > Mad Ludwig is being , as usual, a tad opaque
> > here.  I suppose that he means that we can't
> talk
> > about the beginning of a timeless event,
> since
> > that beginning is both a part of the event
> and
> > presupposes more time in the event (the
> middle,
> > even the end, and so on).  I suspect this is
> just
> > another verbal muddle of the sort ML is said
> to
> > be good at untangling, though he does not
> seem to
> > be doing so here.  Part of the problem is
> just
> > figuring out what a timeless state might be,
> > since a state is already an event assuming a
> > passage of time (during which the relevant
> > factors do not change).  But, that aside,
> that
> > the state begins need not be a part of the
> state
> > -- or rather our report of that state need
> not be
> > in the "time-frame" of that state.  Clearly
> we
> > who report it continue in a temporal
> situation. 
> > What we are presumably reporting is that --
> for
> > the dead person (?) -- there are no more
> changes
> > and hence no more time (since change is as
> much
> > the measure of time as time of change).  So
> we
> > might bettewr say that change ceases, which
> does
> > not raise the problem: it neither postulates
> a
> > state nor puts an aspect of *that state* in
> play.
> >  Of course, this is all theologically iffy
> and we
> > should, I suppose, be able to say something
> from
> > other theological points of view -- but on
> these
> > matters, theologians have notoriously failed
> over
> > the centuries (and, more amazingly, have
> often
> > admitted they failed).  So, we speak with the
> > vulgar and hop[e that we will not be
> > misunderstood (speaking about what can not be
> > spoken about and yet writing a fairly long
> essay
> > on the topic).
> > 
> If I remember rightly, the main point
> Wittgenstein was making that death 
> isn't a timeless state; it is not a state (or
> even an event) at all. We 
> only have a concept of death because of the way
> language works, not 
> because there is any state we can point to and
> call "death".


 A tad opaque, as I said.  But that is what I was
saying in my opaque way, more or less.  In
Lojban,  that someone is dead, lo nu ko'a morsi,
counts as an event and lasts as long at least as
this {ko'a} has a referent available for
conversation (the domain of conversation being at
least somewhat cumulative temporally).  Further,
that event is a state since it does not change in
any relevant way throughout its duration.  But it
is a state of the world, not a state of ko'a, who
participates in no states.  I suspect that the
difference here is marked in Lojban by the
difference between {nu} and {li'i}: no da li'i
ko'a morsi kei ko'a.  And, of course, by the
difference between a particpant and an observer
(glossed over for {li'i}).