[lojban] Re: A (rather long) discussion of {all}

["Jorge Llambías" <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

On 5/17/06, Maxim Katcharov <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/17/06, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 5/17/06, Maxim Katcharov <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > You also need it for "future bears" to work, and for "past bears" to
> > > work in a way that isn't "such that are in our memories now".
> >
> > No, those are {lo ba cribe} and {lo pu cribe}. In many contexts they
> > would not be candidate referents, so you would need the {ba} or the {pu}
> > to make them available. In some special contexts, they may be included
> > in {lo cribe}.
>
> (I said that you need this hypothetical set for those to work. I
> didn't actually give examples contrary to the two that you gave as
> corrections.)

Ah, sorry, I misread your "you". You were using generic "you" and I took
you to mean me. I thought you meant that I needed this universal set
for my way of doing it, and that's what I was objecting to.

> 1. How do you say "five bears will exist in the future"?

If you mean five and no more than five, then:

          mu cribe ba zasti

If you mean at least five, then:

          su'o mu cribe ba zasti

> {mu L_ ro cribe cu ba zasti}
> Five bears, out of all hypothetical future bears, will exist in the future.

Yes, that's "out of all bears, exactly five will exist (at some
unspecified time
in the future)".

> 2. How do you restrict to "all bears such that will exist"?
> {l_ ro cribe poi ba zasti}
> All bears such that exist in the future.

Yes.

> (Assuming 1 is true, 2 will pick out 5 bears.)

Right.

> Is this how you would answer the two questions? If not, how would you
> answer them?

Without having more context, that's about it.

> > This is what I mean: In many/most contexts particles of dust won't
> > be available as possible referents without some extra work from the
> > speaker. So if you say {le tanxe cu vasru no da}, "the box contains
> > nothing", dust particles won't count as a disproof of the assertion. Of
> > course, any participant may bring dust particles into the discourse
> > and then they will have to be dealt with somehow, but until and unless
> > that happens, they don't count. You seem to want them to always count,
> > so that {le tanxe cu vasru no da} is practically always false.
>
> Are you saying that you lose the ability to express yourself?

No, in what way am I saying that?

> Given your example, {L_ tanxe cu vasru no da}, exactly how /would/ I
> make the assertion that there is *nothing* in the box?

You mean how would you emphasize the "nothing"? With {ba'e}:

      le tanxe cu vasru ba'e no da
      The box contains *nothing*.

> Does {mi panpi
> no da} mean that I am at peace with nothing? Or is it just nothing
> that we've mentioned?

"I am at peace with no one" would be a better translation, since the
candidates for being at peace with will normally be people.

Relevant things are not necessarily or even usually things that have
been mentioned before. Things mentioned are almost automatically
relevant, but the converse does not hold. Most relevant things usually
would not have been mentioned.

> > > Why is it wrong to use this hypothetical set that includes every
> > > permutation of what could be a bear in every place at every time
> > > [...]?
> >
> > I wouldn't say it's wrong, I'd say it's humanly impossible.
>
> What's humanly impossible?

To make use of a set that doesn't exist.


> In the email directed at John on May 16, 2006 7:25 PM, starting "It
> /is/ dependant on the /setting/" I offered the sentences spoken by
> aleks's speakers, except in a form that I consider, and hope, is
> complete, or fool-proof. I don't know if John has addressed them, but
> I would like to know what someone who thinks that you can't make
> complete restrictions would find incomplete about them.

Not sure what this would prove, but for example you had to assume
that {cpana} admits stones on the game board, but not stones already
inside the bag. I don't have a problem with that, but it shows that
what counts as cpana depends on the context. In other contexts,
the stones already in the bag will count as being cpana the table, (for
example in "bring everything cpana the table into the house"), and
in yet another context, stones on the board won't count as being
cpana the table (for example, in "when a stone is captured, you remove
it from the board and put it cpana the table"). So your "put all white stones
that are on the table into the white bag" is perfectly clear, even excessive,
given the context, but it is not context independent.

> > Under normal circumstances none of
> > those less-than-absolute-certainties interfere with understanding.
>
> By normal circumstances, you mean not instructions, contracts, etc.?

No, I do mean to include those. For example the "all bears killed by people
must be accounted for under the quota" that I cited was from a contract.

> That is, under circumstances that this doesn't really matter anyway,
> it's easily understood? Well yes, but you do need it for those other
> situations.

I am not even persuaded that what you say is needed is even possible.
And even if it were possible, that it is needed. If it were possible, I guess
it wouldn't hurt to have it, though not by breaking other stuff.

> Ah, right. Yes, "both" is not the right word to use, I want "either".
> My point is that you end up with a sickly sentence for describing
> something simple.

{lo ro cribe poi nenri le selri'u} is simple enough. The "whether we talked
about them before or not" is not something that you would need to add in
the context you presented.

And suppose we were to take your {ro} here. What happens if one of the
bears in the cage has its head sticking out of it? Does it count?
What happens if there is a bear outside the cage sticking its head into
the cage? Are the two bears to be treated differently under the context-free
reading? Under my interpretation, given the context, the first bear counts
as "in the cage" and the second one doesn't. But how would you decide
without taking context into account?

mu'o mi'e xorxes


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