Re: [lojban] Again: le se gerku zi'o

[John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org>]

On Sun, 16 Jul 2000, Alfred W. Tueting (Tüting) wrote:

> There indeed is no (at least 'potential') brabrarespa, but (see
> above) scientific volumes filled with descriptions, classifications, 
> genetics etc.: there indeed must be a Lojban word like /se
> brabrarespa (zi'o???)/ to mirror our present world!

Again, absence from the present time is not *nonexistence* in the relevant
strong sense; Lojban existence is timeless.

> I must admit that it is hard to think of dog
> breeds with dogs that never existed, do not exist now and never will 
> be in all future. Is it enough for the mentioned "potentiality" that
> something only exists in human imagination?

Well, as I said before, actual breeds are composed of actual dogs,
and hypothetical breeds of hypothetical dogs.  What seem unlikely to
me are:

1)	an actual dog breed composed of hypothetical dogs;

2)	an actual dog breed composed of no dogs whatever, hypothetical
	or actual.

-- 
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
C'est la` pourtant que se livre le sens du dire, de ce que, s'y conjuguant
le nyania qui bruit des sexes en compagnie, il supplee a ce qu'entre eux,
de rapport nyait pas.               -- Jacques Lacan, "L'Etourdit"