WikiDiscuss

WikiDiscuss


xorlo & mi nitcu lo mikce

xorxes:
> --- And:
> > xorxes:
> > > I think the same possibilities exist for pixra:
> > > a) A picture of a doctor (Dr Smith)
> > > b) A picture of a doctor (no one in particular)
> > > c) A picture of a doctor (a cardiologist)
> > > d) A picture of a doctor (no speciality in particular)
> >
> > Yes, (a-d) are possibilities. But (a) has a further ambiguity according
> > to whether the doctor exists in the same world as the picture.
>
> In that case, all four of them could be ambiguous that way. That's
> a third axis of distinctions.
>
> > It may sound like I am introducing a wholly new idea, but I believe
> > that the general lojbanological understanding was, implicitly, that
> > all propositions in a clause were claimed to be true of one and
> > the same world.
>
> I don't dispute there was a tendency (and maybe there still is)
> to do that, but surely it could never have been absolute
> because some predicates (like xanri) require their arguments to
> exist in different worlds.

{da xanri mi} and {su'o crida xanri mi} are unproblematic, because
{da xanri mi} and {da crida} are still true of the local real world
(because the truthconditions of xanri and crida include "in a
world other than the local real one"). ({su'o gerku cu xanri mi} would
have fallen into the same problematic category as we are discussing
here.)

The same goes for (c): the claim that there is a kind of doctor
(and I drew it) can be true of this world even if that kind is
not manifest in this world; at least, that is so under my
ontology... As for (b) & (d), they don't claim that something is
a doctor or a kind of doctor, so they don't share (a)'s ambiguity.
So I maintain that only (a) is significantly ambiguous.

Incidentally, in my interpretation of XS, the reading of (a) where
Dr Smith is not necessarily a doctor in this world was not distinct
from (c). So there were four readings, (a-d), but (a) (if
expressed as {su'o mikce}) would unambiguously mean that
the drawee is a doctor in this world.

However, I don't necessarily deny that the ambiguity of (a)
operates on a different axis. Certainly that seems to be so
under xorlo.

> > That is no longer the case, since {ti pixra pa
> > -detective} can now describe a depiction of Sherlock Holmes, even
> > when it is mutually manifest in the context that Holmes is a
> > literary fiction. I think therefore that there has been an
> > ontological shift in Lojban of late. I don't object to it, but I
> > do think there ought to be a way of expressing things with the
> > old-style meaning too.
>
> We don't impose any ontology on Lojban.

That's debatable, since some ontology is hardwired into sny
semantics. But be that as it may, the question I'm asking
concerns how to express things in the old-style ontology.

> Speakers are free to use the language in such a way that they
> only refer to non-fictional things if they so wish.

The issue doesn't have to do with referring to only
nonfictional things; it has to do with making it clear
what is and isn't claimed to be true of the local real
world. Normal discourse, including fictional discourse (e.g.
novels), makes a distinction between propositions that are
claimed to be true of the local real world and propositions
that aren't. So, for instances, the truthconditions of
{da gerku}, given that gerku are by definition real (in
the world in which they gerku), are such that one evaluates
them by checking through the local real world to see if
it contains something that has doghood.

Consider English "There is at least one cure for AIDS, and
we discussed it". That entails or very very strongly
implicates that one can go out into the world and find
at least one cure for AIDS. "We discussed at least one
cure for AIDS" doesn't imply that the AIDS cure is
necessarily real. So the two English sentences seem not
to be synonymous. But the Lojban equivalents are
synonymous, and are equivalent to English "We discussed
at least one AIDS cure". So I want to know how to render
in Lojban the English "There is at least one AIDS cure,
and we discussed it".

To reiterate (for the sake of anyone else reading this), I
am not saying that it is the job of *xorlo* to provide a
way of translating "There is at least one AIDS cure,
and we discussed it". Rather, I'm saying that one would
like Lojban to have a way of translating it, and that
xorlo happens not to provide it.

--And.