WikiDiscuss

At least since Fridegesus (I haven't checked the spelling), talking about nothing has been a problem (see the bit from Alice cited in CLL). Lojban ought to do a good job at this and make it clear that what is involved is always simply the denial of something. And I think it does. But it does not prevent perverse humanity from trying to make a problem again. Assuming that {nomei} is about sets, then of itself it is no problem and it is meaningful to speak of {lo nomei be ko'a} as being different from {lo nomei be ko'e} only in the sense that we are viewing the same thing under different descriptions (cf. unicorns are different from cenataurs). Nothing extensional is changed but the intensions are different (as Frege asked "How is "x=y", if true, different from "x=x?"). But we can't have that at all with plurality or groups
Is {lo noda} really grammatical? What does it mean, spelled out in detail? (Being and Nothingness is certainly not about {du} (or {ka du}), but finding a way to say it crisply in Lojban stumps me (it is not about {ka zasti} or {nu zasti} either); too mmuch technical jargon gets involved.
I am not at all sure that {la djig zbasu le munje noda} implicates {la djig zbasu le munje zi'o}, unless we can expand on what that means. I don't mean that the lack of material is the only reason that Jeeg didn't pull it off, only that it is the one being blamed at the moment. In the traditional case, of course, it is not even the reason it did not come off, since it did, and in that case the {zi'o} form is appropiate. Consequently, we can see how {zbasu2} is different from {patfu2}: being a father is definitionally linked (bound) to there being children of the subject while creating is not so linked to there being preexisting material out of which to construct (asssuming the traditional story is not just meaningless). Not having children is sufficient (and also necessary) for not being a father, not having material is neither for not creating.

Jorge Llambías <jjllambias2000@yahoo.com.ar> wrote:
pc:
> Well, {lo nomei} is problematic too, because {nomei} is if {mei} does not
> refer to sets: pluralities or groups can not be empty, apparently. We leave
> open the question whether creating something out of several nomei is
> different from creating out of one.

I guess if ko'a is different from ko'e, then lo nomei be ko'a
might be different from lo nomei be ko'e.

A more absolute nothing might be referred to as {lo noda}.
Maybe {lo du jo'u lo noda} for Sartre's "Being and Nothing(ness)".

But {noda} by itself certainly does not refer to the thing that
is nothing. It refers to nothing in the sense that it doesn't refer
to anything. It says that no thing applies. Similarly {pada} does not
refer to anything either. It just says that exactly one thing applies,
but without referring to the one thing that applies.

> The pragmatic solution is that {la djig zbasu lo munje noda} (I would say
> {le} probably) denies {la djig zbasu lo munje da} and implicates that the
> failure is from the insistence that there was some preexisting material. Is
> pragmatics enough? Probably; we all sense that the above is different from
> {la djig na zbasu lo munje da}.

So {la djig zbasu lo munje noda} implicates {la djig zabsu lo munje zi'o}?
Probably that's how it will turn out in practice, but this I would simply
take as evidence of {zbasu}'s bloatedness. Otherwise, if it's a general rule,
then {mi patfu noda} should also implicate {mi patfu zi'o}. Or what is
special about the x3 of zbasu that the x2 of patfu doesn't have?

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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