From jcowan@reutershealth.com Tue Aug 21 11:18:05 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: jcowan@reutershealth.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_3_1); 21 Aug 2001 18:18:05 -0000 Received: (qmail 54659 invoked from network); 21 Aug 2001 18:14:32 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by l8.egroups.com with QMQP; 21 Aug 2001 18:14:32 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mail.reutershealth.com) (204.243.9.36) by mta2 with SMTP; 21 Aug 2001 18:14:32 -0000 Received: from reutershealth.com (IDENT:cowan@[192.168.3.11]) by mail.reutershealth.com (Pro-8.9.3/Pro-8.9.3) with ESMTP id OAA08160; Tue, 21 Aug 2001 14:16:15 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <3B82A4D1.8040003@reutershealth.com> Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 14:13:37 -0400 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:0.9.3) Gecko/20010801 X-Accept-Language: en-us MIME-Version: 1.0 To: And Rosta Cc: lojban Subject: Re: [lojban] Retraction, Part 1 References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: John Cowan And Rosta wrote: > #Russell's example: \iota x (x wrote _Waverly_) means "the (unique) > #author of _Waverly_" and refers to Walter Scott. > > Strictly speaking I wouldn't use {tu'o} here, because the referent > of {x: x wrote _Waverly_} can vary across possible worlds. If it didn't, iota would be useless. It is silly to speak of \iota x (x + x), because it is equivalent to just x + x. But if \iota x (x wrote _Waverly_) meant "Walter Scott", then "Walter Scott is the author of _Waverley_" and "Walter Scott is Walter Scott" would be equivalent in meaning, which they plainly are not. I should have said before that if x such that p(x) is not unique, then \iota x p(x) does not refer, the same as if there is no such x. The nearest Lojban equivalent is "lo pa". -- Not to perambulate || John Cowan the corridors || http://www.reutershealth.com during the hours of repose || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan in the boots of ascension. \\ Sign in Austrian ski-resort hotel