Re: [lojban] RE:su'u

[Invent Yourself <xod@sixgirls.org>]

On Wed, 7 Feb 2001, And Rosta wrote:


> (I) The relation between a name and its referent (e.g. between "jimc" and
> you) is a mere labelling, like the relationship between you and what
> I believe Americans call the Social Security number. (And note that
> a Social Security number needn't be arbitrary.in your sense: for example,
> you might have been born 03/04/1960 and have an IQ of 155 and have
> a Soc Sec No. 03041960155.)
>
> (II) So-called names don't actually have referents. "Jimc" does not
> refer to you. Instead it denotes 'jimcness, jimchood', a predicate
> 'jimc(x)'. So when I say "jimc is at UCLA", what this means is that
> something that has jimcness/jimchood -- x such that jimc(x) -- is at
> UCLA. This, I think, is what pc meant by disguised descriptions.
> Note that if there were somebody else also called "jimc", this would
> denote a different essence from the one denoted by your name -- names
> are quite ordinarily infinitely-many ways homonymous.
>
> (I) is what we think is the Lojban view. (II) is the only view I find
> coherent. PC says Lojban needs both (II) and (I), but I haven't understood
> the rationale for (I) yet.



Thank you for this clarification!

I think the difference between I and II is an illusion. Names are
actually arbitrary labels, even if they go so far as to "describe" the
referrent.

But once the meaning of a name is known, the listener knows what the
qualities of the referrent are, and can attempt to abstract its
uniqueness. At that point "jimc-ness" can be asserted.

Then, if jimc changes enough his observers may claim he's not the jimc we
always knew -- that he now lacks jimc-ness. The validity of this statement
is questionable. Strictly, he takes the definition of the quality
"jimc-ness" along with him. But everybody remembers the well-established
previous definition of jimc-ness.




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