From a.rosta@dtn.ntl.com Fri Oct 26 17:45:38 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: a.rosta@dtn.ntl.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_0_1); 27 Oct 2001 00:45:38 -0000 Received: (qmail 72498 invoked from network); 27 Oct 2001 00:45:38 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by l8.egroups.com with QMQP; 27 Oct 2001 00:45:38 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mta01-svc.ntlworld.com) (62.253.162.41) by mta3 with SMTP; 27 Oct 2001 00:45:33 -0000 Received: from andrew ([62.255.40.169]) by mta01-svc.ntlworld.com (InterMail vM.4.01.03.00 201-229-121) with SMTP id <20011027004531.GJSM1543.mta01-svc.ntlworld.com@andrew> for ; Sat, 27 Oct 2001 01:45:31 +0100 Reply-To: To: Subject: RE: [lojban] translation challenge: "If today is Monday..." Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2001 01:44:46 +0100 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 From: "And Rosta" X-Yahoo-Profile: andjamin John: > And Rosta scripsit: > > > We can ditch the deictics, though. If they're a redherring: > > Statements about singular terms always turn out to be universal, though: > > > A. "If Jorge had been born in Warsaw, he'd be a British citizen" > > = false > > > > B. "Jorge is british or not born in Warsaw" > > = true > > > > C. we could change A to: > > "Everyone is british or not born in Warsaw" > > = false > > > > but A and C are not equivalent, and we may be wishing to make > > a claim only about Jorge, not about everyone. > > But "Socrates is mortal" = "Everything that is a Socratizer is mortal". > So with properly chosen predicates like "is a Socratizer", we can > dispose of all singular terms in favor of universal quantifications. I hadn't been trying to argue that one couldn't reformulate conditionals so as to avoid quantifying across possible worlds; I was just trying to show that English 'if' definitely does involve quantifying across possible worlds. But anyway, how does changing "Jorge" to "is Jorge" help? "Everyone either is not Jorge or is either British or not born in Warsaw" [true, so no good] Maybe this: "Everyone either is Jorge and British or is not born in Warsaw." [false, but hardly synonymous with A] --And.