From jjllambias@hotmail.com Thu Sep 12 21:10:35 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: jjllambias@hotmail.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_1_1_3); 13 Sep 2002 04:10:34 -0000 Received: (qmail 87180 invoked from network); 13 Sep 2002 04:10:34 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.217) by m8.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 13 Sep 2002 04:10:34 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO hotmail.com) (216.33.241.143) by mta2.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 13 Sep 2002 04:10:34 -0000 Received: from mail pickup service by hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC; Thu, 12 Sep 2002 21:10:34 -0700 Received: from 200.69.6.35 by lw8fd.law8.hotmail.msn.com with HTTP; Fri, 13 Sep 2002 04:10:34 GMT To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Bcc: Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: I like chocolate Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2002 04:10:34 +0000 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: X-OriginalArrivalTime: 13 Sep 2002 04:10:34.0583 (UTC) FILETIME=[820A0E70:01C25ADB] From: "Jorge Llambias" X-Originating-IP: [200.69.6.35] X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=6071566 X-Yahoo-Profile: jjllambias2000 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 _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com