Bunches
On 12/2/05, John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Well, the way I would do kinds — as collocations
> of properties, the foundation thesis is, I think,
> derivable, since there comes a point when all the
> properties are dealt with one way or the other
Do you presuppose that only a finite number of properties
are available? Otherwise, why would there come a point
when all the properties are dealt with?
> But the issue is not how you think of the flow of
> events (loading the issue) or what you say in
> English or anything other than what is the
> linguistic nature of time in Lojban.
Originally the issue was whether or not stages of
individuals constituted an example of a system
without the foundation thesis.
Even reducing the issue to the linguistic nature of time
in Lojban, I am not at all convinced that Lojban treats
time differently than other languages. In my view,
Lojban does not impose a particular conception
of discrete or continuous time on its speakers. Both
views would seem to be available and represented.
> However, as you
> see, the claim that Lojban treats time as
> discrete can be carried quite a ways. Whether it
> is far enough to give a definitive answe, I am
> not sure. And, as I have said before, I don't
> really care, since nothing seems to hang on the
> answer at the moment.
Nothing seems to hang on the answer, true. (Except,
perhaps, the issue of whether stages of individuals
constitute an example of a system without the foundation
thesis, but we already have other examples anyway.)
> > But I see nothing close to
> > a formalization (of that particular thesis) yet.
>
> As you are fond of saying in similar situations,
> what exactly do you want? I hope that, as I do,
> you will give a fairly precise answer.
I don't require anything, really. All I said was that it would
be nice to see that thesis expressed in formal terms, like
all the others in the page, in terms of "in" and "+" and not
in terms of undefined (though intuitively clear) things like
"breaks down completely". But I certainly won't be accusing
you of not making sense if such a formal statement turns
out to be difficult or for whatever reason inconvenient.
> > xod wrote:
> > > That we generally refer to non-zero intervals
> > of time does not
> > > mean that we treat it as discrete. Those
> > interval endpoints can be
> > > situated anywhere in the timeline, and that
> > means we treat it as
> > > continuous.
> >
> > I agree.
> No, by defintion thend points are always
> immediately adjacent to another event — the
> previous and the next. There is no timeline on
> which they are laid out; the timeline is in
> Lojban (if it can be done at all) an abstraction
> from sequences of intervals — the rest is not in
> the language but in what is said in the language.
Couldn't {ze'e} be pretty much a representation of the
timeline?
> > 1. A brief, indefinite interval of time.
> > 2. A specific point in time, especially the
> > present time: He is not here at the moment.
>
> In any case, that ia bout English, not Lojban.
> There are no time points in Lojban, only
> intervals of time.
What about {mokca}:
mokca moc point ; 'moment'
x1 is a point/instant/moment 0-dimensional shape/form
in/on/at time/place x2
x1 is dimensionless; (cf. jipno, jganu, linji, stuzi, tcika)
mu'o mi'e xorxes