From xod@sixgirls.org Sat Feb 10 11:09:14 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: xod@erika.sixgirls.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@egroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_0_3); 10 Feb 2001 19:09:00 -0000 Received: (qmail 13989 invoked from network); 10 Feb 2001 19:08:59 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by l7.egroups.com with QMQP; 10 Feb 2001 19:08:59 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO erika.sixgirls.org) (209.208.150.50) by mta1 with SMTP; 10 Feb 2001 19:08:58 -0000 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by erika.sixgirls.org (8.11.2/8.11.1) with ESMTP id f1AJ8vM03900 for ; Sat, 10 Feb 2001 14:08:57 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 14:08:56 -0500 (EST) To: Subject: Re: [lojban] RE:su'u (fwd) Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: Invent Yourself za'a .uanai ba'onai benji dei do .xu nabmi tu'a la .ia'u. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 13:21:07 -0500 (EST) From: Invent Yourself To: And Rosta Cc: lojban Subject: Re: [lojban] RE:su'u On Wed, 7 Feb 2001, And Rosta wrote: > (I) The relation between a name and its referent (e.g. between "jimc" and > you) is a mere labelling, like the relationship between you and what > I believe Americans call the Social Security number. (And note that > a Social Security number needn't be arbitrary.in your sense: for example, > you might have been born 03/04/1960 and have an IQ of 155 and have > a Soc Sec No. 03041960155.) > > (II) So-called names don't actually have referents. "Jimc" does not > refer to you. Instead it denotes 'jimcness, jimchood', a predicate > 'jimc(x)'. So when I say "jimc is at UCLA", what this means is that > something that has jimcness/jimchood -- x such that jimc(x) -- is at > UCLA. This, I think, is what pc meant by disguised descriptions. > Note that if there were somebody else also called "jimc", this would > denote a different essence from the one denoted by your name -- names > are quite ordinarily infinitely-many ways homonymous. > > (I) is what we think is the Lojban view. (II) is the only view I find > coherent. PC says Lojban needs both (II) and (I), but I haven't understood > the rationale for (I) yet. Thank you for this clarification! I think the difference between I and II is an illusion. Names are actually arbitrary labels, even if they go so far as to "describe" the referrent. But once the meaning of a name is known, the listener knows what the qualities of the referrent are, and can attempt to abstract its uniqueness. At that point "jimc-ness" can be asserted. Then, if jimc changes enough his observers may claim he's not the jimc we always knew -- that he now lacks jimc-ness. The validity of this statement is questionable. Strictly, he takes the definition of the quality "jimc-ness" along with him. But everybody remembers the well-established previous definition of jimc-ness. Hence we get paradoxes like "I'm not feeling myself today". ----- We do not like And if a cat those Rs and Ds, needed a hat? Who can't resist Free enterprise more subsidies. is there for that!