Re: [lojban] lo broda cu broda (was Baliningau)

Thanks; the last few comments were just the ass-kick I needed.

You'd think that, after 40 years or so, I'd have my heuristics separated from my metaphysics, separated from my semantics, but apparently not. I think I've got it for now, though. But now I'm having problem with the notion of an individual (which was needed why?) , since even the relativized definition "broda no part of which is a broda" will always work. I appears to be a primitive term, if needed at all.

On Saturday, May 24, 2014 5:11 PM, 'John E Clifford' via lojban <lojban@googlegroups.com> wrote:

As i said, the problems do not depend upon how the extensions of predicates are set up, although your way of putting it makes matters even slightly more paradoxical sounding. Clearly, within a given universe all and only brodas are brodas; whatever the relationship between different brodas may be varies from one set to another: parts of djacu are djacu, parts of cifno may not be (usually are not, in fact) and so on. Oc ourse, the notion of a vroda that is not a full broda just does not make sense in any uiniverse (though what one universe would consider not a full broda may be one in another (English lions might include things that are not cifno, say). The point of the case was simply that, in solving the gruesome mess (you may have to have been there) about masses and the like, the cheapest solution was to allow that lo broda might contain no-broda broda bits (and, indeed, not just masses, as it turned out: when I see a rabbit, I actually SEE only rabbit bits, for example. Gavagai!). So all the criteria just don't enter the question at all (assuming we want to be able to count brodas).

Sapir-Whorf lives and cultural neutrality is dead! The whole point (well, not the whole, but the only interesting part) of cultural neutrality and all was that Lojban was not to specify how reality was cut up but to work equally well however you wanted to slice it. This took the form of allowing any view to work and not to be required and the metaphysical (if you will) side of xorlo (whatever all that was that was not about quantifiers with 'lo') was the way to achieving that. Without -- as your statement suggests -- claiming that there is a unique world which can be sliced in different ways (with the hidden assumptions that there really is a right one -- that's in Whorf, too, but with a different answer). The goal in Lojban (well, iot was at one time for some Lojbanists) is just that all these various worlds are one one world and we can refer to any one them any time within our one language, or we can say things that do not in any way specify which one -- and without having to stop and set up a new UD to continue. To be sure, the more or less official way Lojban does it is one choice, but it works and attempts to it from other bases pretty much failed within the framework of FOPL, which is inherently chunky (or Aristotelian, which sounds better).

None of which has anything to do with the original issue, of course.

On Saturday, May 24, 2014 4:18 PM, selpa'i <seladwa@gmx.de> wrote:

la .pycyn. cu cusku di'e
> As noted, the problem remains whatever the universe assigns to 'broda'.
> If every part of each broda is a broda, then there are no (even
> relative) individuals to enumerate. If there are ultimate brodas then
> the full generality which 'lo' was to represent is unrealized and we are
> thrown back into muddled world of Mr. Broda and Brodatude and myopic
> singulars, with even less support than we had before.

But not every part of each broda is a broda in every universe, and
neither do all universes consider only full broda as a broda. It always
depends on which differentiation criteria are applied to the world in
each situation.

Mr. Broda is just one way of slicing up the world into referents. There,
all broda are considered one and the same (or you could say there is
only one broda and then you get to myopic singulars).

In another universe, all parts of a missing body could be considered
referents of the missing John Smith which police are trying to find.

In yet another universe, what you would think of as being one thing can
be split into several separated only by their position in time. E.g.
each night's moon is a new one. "tonight's moon is prettier than last
night's moon".

Each situation warrants a new set of differentiation criteria and based
on those we get different possible referents which not only {lo} can
refer to, but also {le} and {la} and {da}.

mi'e la selpa'i mu'o

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.