Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: On what there isn't

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 28 Sep 2002 18:42:42 EDT

In a message dated 9/27/2002 5:22:29 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

<<
> Rule of 
> thumb - if the signs on the road (as opposed to road signs) are in 
> Welsh, you're in Wales.
>>
Well, some signs had nothing I would call a vowel, so I'll take that as 
evidence of Wales. (PWCH, I seem to recall).

<<
There were some interesting threads on zasti some time back (see, for 
example, http://balance.wiw.org/~jkominek/lojban/9412/msg00373.html). 
I don't remember the old discussion, but I think I would now understand it 
differently -- or, at least, take up a different position on it.

<<
I tend to go for the "zasti should not be a gismu" view (though I can see 
some merits in both sides); I just don't see existence as a predicate. 
I think some of this is what is involved in being extranuclear in Parsons' 
sense. I mean, the English word "exist" is a pefectly good -- and useful -- 
predicate, and the same seems true for {zasti}, although there are some 
current problems with that latter.

<<
the only way I can think of making sense of "x exists" is as a 
semantically incomplete way of saying "x is a member of y", where "y" is 
usually "the set of entities that can ultimately be said to refer, 
however vaguely, to some physical state/event," but may have other 
meanings. "The present king of France" can be said to exist in a more 
idiosyncratic sense; i.e., "the present king of France is a member of 
the set of examples used by Bertrand Russell."
This is a tad muddled -- use/mention as usual in these discussions. "the 
present king of France" -- the words, not the guy -- is an example in Russell 
and perhaps by virtue of that the guy has a kind of existence -- what 
Meinong/Parsons would called "watered down." The same goes on above, that x 
(the thing) exists is equated with x being a member of a set of things that 
refer -- and hence are referring expressions, i.e. words, so not (sually) 
things at all. I suppose that you mean that "x exists" means that x 
participates in some physical event, which seems to me about right gnerally 
(except I don't mind have properties exist, say) [BTW -- more taxicab -- the 
distinction between being and existing tidies up the odd status of events in 
Lojban: we've said they all exist whether or not they occur, we could now say 
that non-occurring events be (can be quantified over) but only occurring ones 
exist -- which again feels about right.]

<<
> Now what doesn't exist? 

Nothing. It's like asking "What isn't real?" Everything is a real 
_something_ ; e.g. Hercules is a real hero in Greek mythology, as 
opposed to Xena, who is a real TV role but not a real greek heroine, 
AFAIK. Consequently, Xena exists, but this is trivial.
Yes, this is how things go in Lojban now. We can always (well, almost) find 
a world (epistemology -- no, for {zasti} it's metaphysics) in which a given 
thing [context leaper] exists. But notice, that 1) that is different from 
being real -- though exactly how might take a little work. Many of these 
things that exist somewhere do not exist here-and-now (and aren't real 
either), so that current Lojban has to (covertly) shift worlds to talk about 
them, their names lacking reference in this world. Providing that reference 
is the point of introducing non-existents.

<<
Surely this is one of those interminable proper noun problems. "Queen 
Victoria" can refer to the flesh and blood ruler of the physical 
Britain, or to the character in the book. It's pretty clear in Lojban: 
"la viktorias." means "that which is named Victoria (after 
delojbanisation)", and can thus refer to either "that which was named 
Victoria by Conan Doyle" or "that which is named Victoria by 
historians." 
Or, indeed, by her parents. Yes, {la viktorias} probbably works somewhat 
differntly in Lojban from "Victoria" in English. But it cannot refer to that 
which was named "Victoria" by Conan Doyle because, as of now, there is no 
such thing. The word "Victoria" might occur in a novel (It doesn't in the 
Sherlock Holmes stories, I think) but one of the features of novels is that 
many of the names in them don't refer to anything (that exists). Parsons 
insists that usually words in novels that ordinarily refer to existing things 
do so in the novels as well -- usually. But that is not essential to this 
theory at this point (it just makes somethings easier, with an unexplored 
ossibbility of making other things harder). The point here is to give names 
in novels, etc. normal status as referring to things (albeit nonexistent 
ones).

<<
I'm still unsure of the status of proper nouns, though - 
despite having explained it glibly in the Lessons, I have no clear idea 
of the boundary bewteen an arbitrary label and a description. For 
example, my own name is an arbitrary label, in that my parents did not 
consciously choose to describe me as "Fame-bright"*, but what about 
"Dances with Wolves"? Sorry, getting off-topc here ...
Actually not. The difference is not crucial, however, for the present 
issue. What is important is that {la} is a subclass of {le} and so assumes 
that there is something to which the expression refers.