Re: [lojban] state of {binxo}

[Felipe Gonçalves Assis <felipeg.assis@gmail.com>]

On 11 December 2011 12:29, tijlan <jbotijlan@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2011/12/10 Felipe Gonçalves Assis <felipeg.assis@gmail.com>:
>> On 10 December 2011 08:56, tijlan <jbotijlan@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 2011/12/9 Felipe Gonçalves Assis <felipeg.assis@gmail.com>:
>>>> Let us consider, for example, the definition of {mrobi'o}
>>>>  "b1 dies under conditions b3."
>>>>  {x1 binxo lo morsi x2}
>>>>
>>>> Where in the lojban definition does it say that {x1 na'e morsi pu lonu binxo}?
>>>
>>> {mrobi'o} may be called a dynamic predicate, which denotes a change of
>>> state. This brivla definitely means a shift to je'a morsi, and that
>>> shift can be stated meaningfully only if the origin is je'anai morsi.
>>> je'anai morsi includes no'e / na'e / to'e morsi. At least one of these
>>> states is implied to be true pu lo nu binxo by {mrobi'o}, whether or
>>> not the brivla's definition explicitly says so.
>>>
>>
>> Denotes change of state? To which state? {lo ka ce'u je'a morsi}?
>> This state is not mentioned in the main bridi.
>
> (But we are talking about implications, right?)
>
> Anything which is morsi is in the state of being positive-dead, je'a
> morsi. To say that X becomes morsi is to say that X at some point
> begins to be lo je'a morsi, a statement that's meaningful only if X
> has previously been lo je'anai morsi.
>

This is the point: The statement is not "X becomes morsi", but "X
becomes lo morsi". It is meaningful if X has previously been
{na me lo morsi}. {lo morsi} is just a specific object. You cannot
dive in the properties used to express binxo2 in order to define
{binxo}. That is fine on a pragmatic level, though.


> {mrobi'o} is a rather tricky example of a change of state, because a
> death can mean (in addition to the cessation of biological
> functioning) existential termination for some people and it would be
> difficult to attribute a state (or any property) to nothing if binxo2
> could have such a non-referring sumti at all. Other "state brivla"
> include:
>
>  sipna -- to be asleep (static state: asleep)
>  sipybi'o -- to fall asleep (dynamic state: awake --> asleep)
>
>  djuno -- to know (static state: knowing)
>  cilre -- to learn (dynamic state: unknowing --> knowing)
>
>  spoja -- to explode (dynamic state: unexploded --> exploded)
>
> Every dynamic brivla implies {zo'e binxo zo'e}. {cilre ko'a} means {lo
> na'e djuno be ko'a cu binxo lo je'a djuno be ko'a}. And one obvious
> difference between the two sumti is in the state of djuno be ko'a.
>
> To the extent that {morsi} too is about a state, it would seem
> reasonable to think that its dynamic counterpart, {mrobi'o}, is about
> a change of state.
>
> {spoja} is interesting, because its x2 is somewhat binxo2. If {lo
> jbama cu spoja}, does the bomb cease to exist as its pieces come into
> existence, or are they just phases of the same underlying entity?
> That's a philosophical question, and the brivla's definition doesn't
> require an answer to that.
>

I understand your concept of dynamic selbri.
I also understand that the dynamic counterpart of {broda} can be
either {rodbi'o} or {co'a broda}, depending on the views of the cusku.

I just don't think that the usual gloss for {rodbi'o},
  {x1 binxo lo broda be x2 ...},
implies that originally {x1 na broda}.

It is up to you to decide if that is a problem with the gloss or if the gloss
is ok and it is pragmatics that make the implication _usually_ true.

>
>>>> I understand that the lojban definition is applicable to a small statue that
>>>> almost made it to be turned in a live bird by one of McGonagall's pupils.
>>>> The English one, not so much.
>>>
>>> If the resulting object was je'anai / ja'anai cipni, {binxo lo cipni}
>>> would be false. And "almost broda" is still na broda.
>>>
>>
>> I am sorry if I was not clear here. I was talking about {e'enai binxo lo morsi}
>> as describing a statue being transformed in a dead bird. You can also consider
>> that it is the turning of a dead frog to a dead bird.
>>
>>>
>>>> You might still use {mrobi'o} instead of {co'a morsi va'o} because you understand that the x1 ceased to exist.
>>>
>>> If by {lo gerku} I meant the biological body of a dog, I could say {lo
>>> gerku cu mrobi'o} and mean not that the x1 (the body) has ceased to
>>> exist. (If existence required a biological functioning, all non-life
>>> would have been non-existent.)
>>>
>>
>> I don't deny that, I am just pointing that the unrealised possibility of using
>> {co'a morsi}, a very clear expression, creates a pragmatic pressure on the
>> interpretation of {binxo lo morsi} as either less (as in the dead bird example)
>> or more (as in the x1 ceasing to exist interpretation).
>
> {co'a morsi} wouldn't work for the dead bird example unless we assumed
> that the statue had been alive. Together with the case of "from a dead
> frog to a dead bird", the state of being non-alive is secondary to the
> state of being a statue / a bird / a frog that alternate through lo nu
> binxo, so {morsi} wouldn't be a relevant description to be used with
> {binxo} in the first place. We could talk about whether the statue
> existentially co'a morsi as it binxo lo cipni, but the definition of
> {binxo} doesn't require an answer to that kind of question.
>

I agree that {co'a morsi} would not work here. I was trying to come up with
an example of a difference between {binxo lo broda} and {co'a broda} that
transcends the metaphysical views of the cusku to something more concrete.

{lo morsi} would be a relevant description if the expectation was that
the statue
turned into a live bird. The sentence is then focusing on what contradicted
expectations.

If you agree that this sentence is valid under the given context, I am done.

ta'o

>
>>>> But this is certainly not the case with many other
>>>> lujvo like {jbibi'o}, "approach". If someone, instead of
>>>>  {ko'a co'a jibni ko'e},
>>>> says
>>>>  {ko'a binxo lo jibni be ko'e},
>>>> I would tend to consider ko'a ceasing to exist as a justification for
>>>> the introduction
>>>> of this new entity "lo jibni". Of course, the fact that binxo2 is
>>>> close to ko'e ought
>>>> to be important in some way, but a mere approach would not be my first guess.
>>>
>>> In my view: {ko'a poi na'e jibni ko'e} ceases to exist as {ko'a poi
>>> je'a jibni ko'e} comes into existence.
>>>
>>
>> It is fine to me that you talk about objects that cease to exist by movement
>> (and not by death), but I don't think you can refer to two different things as
>> {ko'a} without reassignment. I guess you mean {ko'a} ceases to exist and
>> {lo je'a jibni be ko'e} comes to existence, which is fine.
>
> I took into account how people abstract a virtual entity out of
> different physical objects. Scientifically speaking, the physical me
> at space A and the physical me at space B consist of different matter
> that pop up and off in the vacuum every Planck second; so, yes, the
> two ko'a above are physically different on the most fundamental level,
> I would say. But they are cognitively unified. Human languages are
> concerned more with cognition than with physical reality, and I don't
> think Lojban is an exception to that.
>
> I consider this difference:
>
>  do barda
>  .i do xendo
>  .i do se prami
>
> Do these {do} refer to the same thing? The first one is probably
> exclusively physical, while the others may not. The referents may be
> technically different. But they are unified under the elastic notion
> of "the listener" across the sentences (otherwise we would have had to
> reassign it with {doi} for each). We can use the same {do} in the same
> utterance to refer to things of completely different dimensions of
> properties.
>
> Then {ko'a} has its own unifying notion: it-1. Anything that is
> congnitively identifiable as it-1 can be represented by the same
> {ko'a} without reassignment. The referent may be different bodies of
> matter at different spacetime points or even different types of
> existence. The existential standard for {do} should and does currently
> apply to {ko'a} as well.
>
>  ko'a barda
>  .i ko'a xendo
>  .i ko'a se prami
>
> If these are allowed without reassignment, surely we don't need
> different indexes for the one which is jibni and the one which is not
> jibni.
>

Objects of discourse usually are complex and have many dimensions,
yes, and different dimensions come into play in different bridi. This
does not mean that the objects are different.

More specifically, remember that {barda} has a place for dimension, so
you could say
  {ko'a barda lo ka makau xadni ce'u}.

I strongly believe that
  {ko'a crino .ije ko'a na crino}
must be an instance of "P and not-P".

Anyway, this is a parallel discussion...

mu'o
mi'e .asiz.

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