Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: I like chocolate

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 12:14:02 EDT

In a message dated 8/20/2002 10:31:01 AM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

<<
> if you say {lo broda cu brode} then the claim is that
> when you examine brodas one by one, there will be at
> least one for which the claim "it is broda" is true.
> This is what quantifiers do, they "run over" the members
> of a set one by one.
>>
Obviously, "it is brode" is meant.

<<
An intensional reference, on the other hand, does not
care about each member of the set. It only draws on
what it takes to be a member of the set. When you
say "I like chocolate", there is no quantity of
chocolate such that you are making a claim about it.
The first part of this is correct, strictly, only for {le/o ka cakla} (not 
how I would say it, but it seems to be on float again -- {le/o du'u ce'u 
cakla}). Technically, what is involved in all intensional cases is reference 
to imaginary/logically possible worlds (or stories or situations or however 
you want to describe them) and the things in them. In the case of 
properties, the reference is oblique: the property of broda is the function 
over worlds that identifies the class of broda in each world (or something 
like that, details may vary from theory to theory). For events and 
propositions the line is more direct, since the things of the other world are 
mentioned explicitly. The crucial point is that what is referred to in that 
context -- objects and properties -- need not be the same as those in this 
world and so moving them into this world or moving them about because of 
facts in this world are not guaranteed to work. Indeed, if the notion is 
broad enough, are guaranteed not to work.