WikiDiscuss

WikiDiscuss


xorlo & mi nitcu lo mikce

posts: 2388

& says:
> I'm not saying that Lojban should handle this
> overtly in
> terms of different worlds. I am talking about
> different worlds
> only as a means of explicating the different
> readings we
> get with intensional sumti-places. And I'm
> suggesting that
> Lojbanists might want a robust way to express
> the readings
> distinctly on occasion. Is that reasonable?

I gather that the distinction is something like
this: "I drew a picture of a unicorn" might mean
that a) there is a unicorn — in the same world
as the one in which "I" refers to me and in which
I did this action of drawing a picture of it or
b) I drew a picture in this world which
represented the salient visible properties
ascribed to unicorns and either 1) in some other
world there is a unicorn that this is an accurate
depiction of (or would be if it were in that
world) or 2) whether this is a depiction of some
real or not unicorn is irrelevant so long as this
does indeed display the relevant visual
prperties.
The first seems to be covered by "There is a
unicorn and I painted a picture of it," if we
identify the u/d with a world, rather than
insisting on a physical restriction. The third
is in Lojban the standard dodge "I drew a
picture of
the event/property/some relevant abstraction of
something being a unicorn" ("drew a picture of"
will need a careful definition in Lojban of
course). The middle case is harder, since
presumably we want a quantifier of unicorns that
is clearly not in the world of the picture and
the picturer and most of the easy moves with
worlds (or without for that matter) don't
distinguish out the base world (the real is
possible). Calling the unicorn mythical doesn't
do it since it is not in the world where it
exists. Maybe the best move is to add the "which
exists in some situation other than this one" or
the like. How do we make it clear that the
doctor we need is one in Chelm?