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Re: [lojban] Re: I like chocolate


la pycyn cusku di'e


These seem to me to be paradigm cases (well, not quite, since none of them
has {lo'e ...} as first argument) of talking about lo'e ..., which is an
intension (in some sense or other -- I am not at all such which), isn't it?
You say you like it or that that is like it or that is a picture of it (a
notion I have a lot of trouble with -- abstract expressionism?)


You know perfectly well that is not what I mean.
I mean "I like chocolate", "that is like a sofa" and "that is a
picture of a boa". They don't mean "there ia some chocolate such
that I like it", "there is some sofa such that that is like it"
or "there is some boa such that that is a picture of it". To get
those latter meanings I would have to use {lo} instead of {lo'e}.

I'm not sure why paradigm cases need to be in x1, but here are
some: {lo'e cinfo cu xabju le friko} "Lions live in Africa",
which is different from "some lions live in africa" (lo),
"all lions live in Africa" (ro), "most lions live in Africa" (so'e).
{lo'e mlatu cu kavbu lo'e smacu", "Cats catch mice", which is
different from saying that "some cats catch some mice", etc.


 Does {lo'e sfofa} refer to the proximate type of
sofas?  Apparently not.  What then does it refer to?


{lo'e sfofa} does not refer. It is like {zi'o} to that extent.
Even in the most restricted sense of "the typical" it has to
be like that to make any sense.


It is obviously not a
meaningless expression (or you would not fight so hard about it).


Obviously it has the meaning of {sfofa}. It certainly maintains
the intension.


 So, it has
a sense, that would pick out something in the world, if there is the
appropriate sort of thing in the world.


No, it doesn't pick anything in the world. It just puts to use
the sense of {sfofa}. It does not get anywhere near the extension.


Otherwise it fails to refer, perhaps
accidentally, because the world is shy this sort of object.


It intrinsically does not refer, like {zi'o}. But unlike {zi'o}
it adds some sense to the predicate from which it removes a place.
So {simsa lo'e sfofa} behaves just like the predicate "x1 is like
a sofa in property x2". (I suppose {simsa zi'o} would behave like
"x1 has property x2" maybe.)


 Since you seem
to think that {ta simsa lo'e sfofa} is true, the approriate sort of thing
must be in the world


No, there is nothing in the world that is a referent of {lo'e sfofa},
neither in my usage nor in the more restricted definition
as "the typical".


(we have disallowed some weeks ago the possibility that
some places are inherently opaque [what I used to call intensional before
there go to be too many things getting called by that name]


We agree there. The x2 of {simsa} is not inherently opaque.
It is perfectly possible to say {ta simsa lo sfofa}: "there is
at least one sofa such that that is like it". Which does not
make exactly the same claim as {ta simsa lo'e sfofa}.


-- though this
would be a good candidate, since something can clearly be like something that 
does not exist -- e.g. fat men with white beards are like Santa Claus [but
that is another whole story]).


Unfortunately we don't have the la-version of lo'e:
lo    le    la
lo'e  le'e  ??

But we can use {lo'e me la santas}.


What the fatal fandango is it?  How (in
addition) does taking {lo'e sfofa} to refer to the proximate type of lo'i
sfofa, take the type (which one?) as a token of types --


Tokens of the class "types" are the things we talk about in
this meta-discussion. Abstract entities like sets and numbers.
Not things we want to talk about in ordinary discourse.


and what does that
mean? The proximate type of all the sfofa is, of course, a token of the type 
type, since it is a type (this gets hairy in practice, but has a variety of
solutions).


I talk about sofas, (not about _some_ sofas, not about _each_ sofa,
not about all the sofas that exist or could exist taken en masse,
also not about the property of being a sofa, but just about sofas).


It is also a token of the furniture type and the physical object
type and so on.  So, there is no "taking" here, things just are that way.
But I suspect that none of this is what you mean. Though what that is seems 
to come back to using, not talking about, and that was what I hoped this
section was goiing to clarify rather than circle back to.


I'm afraid I won't be able to clarify it any more than that.
Should we leave it there?


So, as noted earlier, what would be an example of talking about a type?


This whole conversation has been mostly about types and such, not
about sofas.


Putting {lo'e broda} in first place?  Obviously not.  Using {li lo'e broda
li'u}?  Hopefully not.  What then?


We don't have a special article for talking about tokens of the
class "type", of course. It would make no sense to have one.
It is bad enough that we have a special article to talk about
tokens of the class "set", something we rarely want to do in
ordinary conversation.

To talk about types we need a word that means "x1 is a type of
property x2" or "x1 is a type of set x2" or some such. Maybe {cnano}
is one such predicate? (Probably it won't always be used in that
sense.) But then we can talk about le cnano be le ka sfofa, the
type of class "sofa". I certainly do not want to claim
{ta simsa le cnano be le ka sfofa} in that sense of {cnano}!

mu'o mi'e xorxes



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