Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: possible worlds

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 04:32:08 EDT

In a message dated 6/24/2001 4:13:08 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> We do not have a clear modal logic model in Lojban for the meanings of such 
> statements and the evaluaton of their truth. Modal logics study statements 
> about possibility and necessity, probability, intention, permission, 
> belief, and the like. I can dig out an old textbook and post some notes, if 
> anybody thinks it will help.
> 
> We also don't have any useful logical model of *impossible* worlds and 
> other weird ontologies. I don't know whether anyone has successfully 
> constructed one, but I could look. Quine wrote about these problems, such 
> as the "square circle" and "Plato's beard" but certainly didn't resolve 
> 

Probably don't have them because logicians have tended to multiply the 
possibilities without coming down very hard for one of them as right. Prior 
always used to insist that it was the logicians' job to do just that, leaving 
it to experts in whatever to decide what was right. But there are precious 
few experts in most of the areas that modal logic encompasses -- indeed, few 
recognized areas, even. 
Lojban has gotten along with an informal notion of "possible worlds" -- which 
I now think may be a mistake -- and an even less clear notion of a situation 
(which allows some work, at least, with impossible worlds). I am inclined -- 
in keeping with the almost concurrent thread -- to see the need for more 
inquiry into the purposes for which language is used. As Cherlin points out, 
a lot of contrary-to-fact comments are intentions, not descriptions. Others 
are simply disguised generalizations (whatever those are). Others may be 
more like hopes. But we don't seem to know much about what the range of 
possibilities is here yet, nor how they are characterized, nor how they are 
represented in languages already fully developed. I think there is a good 
deal of work in the area of Chapters 13 and 14 (and, I suppose, 9, 10 and 11) 
before we have a reasonably satisfactory understanding. Oh and serious 
thoughts about what happens in English and other languages we live in as well.