WikiDiscuss

xorxes:
> > xorxes:
> > > The (present?) material world is not especially favoured by the
> > > _grammar_ as the universe of discourse, although it is a very
> > > frequent obvious choice in many contexts.
> >
> > Okay, but one would like to somehow be able to make unambiguous
> > claims to the effect that exactly two things have the property of
> > doctorhood in the world in which I need them.
>
> That would be {re da mikce}, "exactly two things have the
> property of being a doctor".

I.e. {re da zo'u ge da mikce gi mi nitcu da}? So that is not
synonymous with {mi nitcu re mikce}? (That's a neutral question.)

> > In other words,
> > that one can go out into the world in which my needing occurs,
> > and find & grab hold of these two individuals that are doctors.
>
> By "universe of discourse" I mean the set of things that we may
> make reference to in a given discourse. In one context, {lo mikce}
> may have a single referent in the universe of discourse, in other
> contexts it may have more than one. In any context,
> {mi nitcu re lo mikce} says that exactly two of the referents of
> {lo mikce} (from all the referents of the universe of discourse)
> are such that I need them. In that discourse, I don't need any
> of the other referents of {lo mikce} (from all the referents
> in the universe of discourse).

I understand this — the universe of discourse can simultaneously
contain something that is a needer in World X but not necessarily
in World Y, and something that is a doctor in World Y but not
necessarily in World X.

But what I'm asking is how to say "something is such that in
one and the same world, I need it and it is a doctor".

> > For clarity, a second example: There is an ambiguity in "I drew
> > two unicorns" that doesn't exist in "I ate two unicorns". How
> > can one remove the ambiguity, if one wanted to do so?
>
> Do you mean the "I drew two unicorns" that is like "I took
> a photograph of two unicorns" vs. the "I drew two unicorns"
> that is like "I made two unicorns out of clay"? maybe we can
> distinguish them with different predicates:
>
> mi pirfi'i lo re pavyseljirna
> I picture-created two unicorns.
>
> mi pirfukygau lo re pavyseljirna
> I picture-copy-made two unicorns.
>
> You can draw two unicorns into existence, but you can't
> eat them into existence, so that would be the difference
> between those predicates.

That's not really the distinction I mean. Our local mythology
may contain unicorns that already exist in that mythology.
I might draw two of them (Dasher and Prancer, say) without
thereby bringing them into existence. But "I photographed
two unicorns", unlike "I drew two unicorns", entails that
the photographees exists in the same world as the one in
which I took the photo.

> > > I think that unless the grammar is to impose an ontology,
> > > that distinction can't be made with gadri. One way to make
> > > it is through prediacates: "is a subkind of", "is an instance
> > > of"
> >
> > I understand your reasoning, but "lo instance of lo mikce"
> > would not guarantee that we are referring to actual instances;
> > we could be referring to imaginable instances. That's why
> > I can't see how to do it without involving gadri. (More
> > precisely, I can't see how to do it without having a way
> > to distinguish quantification over subkinds from quantification
> > over instances.)
>
> Would that require fixing the universe of discourse
> to the one set of referents we all agree are true material
> indivisible objects in the real meterial world, irrespective
> of context? I don't think that's desirable, but I'm not sure
> it's even possible. For some broda we may all agree on what
> counts as a true individual concrete real single broda for
> any and all contexts, but for many broda we won't, it will
> depend on context.

I opine that a proposition is claimed to be true of some
particular world (-- and the universe of discourse can
span many worlds). I further opine that it is desirable to
have some way to indicate whether two propositions (such as
"mi nitcu da" and "da mikce") are claimed true of the same
world (since there seems to me to be a pretty patent
distinction in meaning).

I was about to explain what I meant by "instances", in the
light of what I have just said, but I'll take things slowly.

--And.