WikiDiscuss

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wrote:

>
> pc:
> > You have also dealt with the "no broda"
> problem
> > of negated descriptions by moving to a gappy
> or
> > many-valued truth system (not clear which).
>
> How does logic deal with constants that have no
>
> referents? Can there evn be such a thing? Can
> you
> really evaluate F(a) if 'a' does not refer? I
> would
> have thought that a constant refers by
> definition.

Yes, in logic a constant has a referent by
definition (except, of course, logics that
explicitly make allowances — free logics and the
like). But, whether or not {lo broda} ends up
being a constant, it starts as a description, and
that can be unmet: {lo pavyseljirna} has no
referent but is perfectly acceptable in other
ways in the language — or do you just shiift to
another domain when such expressions occur, even
without other indications of the shift? There are
also accidental shifts, given that there are
brodas and brodes you might expect there to be
{lo broda poi brode}, but there may not be.
Grammar is pretty free from facts, but truth is
not.

> I think our approaches don't really differ in
> the
> truth system. It's rather that I take {lo
> broda}
> to be a constant, and therefore it must
> necessarily
> refer in order to be meaningful, whereas you
> don't
> take it to be a constant, and so for you the
> expression can have meaning (and thus can be
> part
> of a claim) even when there is nothing that
> brodas.

OK (aside from the part about cit being a
constant — that still gives problems), you use a
gappy or many-valued truth system, with the extra
piece of space being "meaningless" (and deopping
out of the overall valuation if the result vcan
be otherwise determined?)

> > As for your comments this time, I take it
> that
> > your claim to do without groups is more than
> a
> > bit disingenuous. I agree that you do not
> talk
> > about groups but you still seem to use them:
> if
> > {lo broda} is at any way related to {ro
> broda} or
> > {su'o broda} — or {ro da poi broda} and
> {su'o
> > da poi broda}, then the logic of the
> situation
> > still requires that it be a single thing,
> whether
> > it is called a group or a mass or a plurality
> or
> > whatever.
>
> I don't see why. When {lo broda} has many
> referents,
> lo broda are many things. {PA lo broda} is a
> quantification
> over those things: {PA da poi ke'a me lo
> broda}. There is
> no recourse here to a single thing that
> contains them.
> How does the logic require that I introduce a
> group?

If {lo broda} had many referents, it would be
many things, but, given the underlying logic of
Lojban, it cannot have many referents. The
quantifier — distributive predication — problem
does indeed disappear, as I said. The problem is
with the original {lo broda}.

> Of course, you can talk about the set of those
> things, or
> the group of those things, but {lo broda} does
> not refer
> to that, it refers to the things themselves.

No, inevitably (so far as I cansee and assuming I
understand your claim this time) it refers to
their collection, however described.

> > I didn't realize that I had said that {lo'i
> > broda} had a different referent from {da poi
> > selcmi be lo broda} (I assume that this has a
> > built in namely-rider so that it has a
> referent
> > at all), only different from {lo selcmi be lo
> > broda}, unless you are identifying them as
> well,
> > which seems against something you said
> elsewhere,
> > presumably on another topic altogether.
>
> Not sure what you mean. What I said was:
>
> > > The bit you were presenting until recently,
> > > where {lo'i broda}
> > > and {lo pa selcmi be lo broda} have
> different
> > > referents, is
> > > not something I would want.
>
And I repeat, where did I say that as opposed to
saying that {lo'i broda} and {lo selcmi be lo
broda} have different referents? I can't find it.