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?
Not finite, but I do assume that all kinds are in
the system. So, "point" may be a bad choice of
words, since the point comes with the system
already.
> > 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.
True but that somehow led to this muck about time
in Lojban, whose formulation I think I have
correctly.
> 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.
Then, the issue was ill-formed. That is, if
there is no one way that Lojban treats time,
there is no one way that Lojban views time. I am
not sure I agree with the first part of this, but
that doesn't really matter. We can, to be sure,
do allsorts of things with languages that don't
deal with things that way — process philosophy
in English, a static metaphysical language, for
example )Buddhism in Sanskrit is even worse)-- so
the fact that we can talk about time as a
continuum or as series doesn't tell us what it is
in the language.
> > 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 answer, 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.
But the foundation thesis is in terms of "+" and
"in." In what way is it defective? Any thing
other than that it applies only to finite cases?
> > > 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 definition the end 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?
Well, unqualified it would seem to apply to
events that take up all of time, but that doesn't
give a time *line,* just an all-inclusive
interval (a slight misnomer, obviously).
> > > 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 is about 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)
Well, that seems to be a spatial term extended by
analogy to time, once we get the idea that there
is an analogy to use. It does not jibe with
{temci}, which is the authoritative word aon
time, I suppose.