Truth

[Logical Language Group <lojbab>]

>From: ucleaar <ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk>
>Subject:      Re: truth vs. fact
>When I look out of my window I don't see fictional people solving
>fictional crimes.
>
>I see real people solving real crimes.  [This is
>rhetorical - what I actually see is a roof and a multistorey car park.
>That last sentence is a red herring.]
>
>The proposition "S.H. solved many crimes" is true of the relevant
>fictional world and false of this world.

Maybe you see the world much more accurately than some others.  I think
the line between perception and imagination is rather arbitrary at
times.  I have no trouble with the predicate "solved" applying to
imaginary solvers and imaginary crimes in exactly the same way that it
applies to real solvers and real crimes.  I think that the imaginary
world in such cases IS incorporated into the 'real world'.  Actual
language use doesn't traditionally mark all imaginary things as
irrealis, as far as I know, and in fact makes no distinction between
'real', 'perceived', and 'purely imaginary'.  I think this is due to
the differences being epistemological.  

One can treat a fictional world as an isolate from reality, but it is
much harder to isolate reality from all epistemological variations on
what is 'true'.

>I certainly have taken this view all along, as, I believe, has Jorge.
>But one of the points I've been trying to make is that there are certain
>statements about S.H. that *don't* "automatically invoke an epistemology
>that incorporates fiction" such that this epistemology applies to the
>statement as a whole.  For example, "I described Sherlock Holmes" can be
>true of the real world.

No, at least in the sense that you have talked of the real world, I
don't think you are correct.  You can say "I described my idea of what
Sherlock Holmes might look like if he were real", or "I stated Doyle's
description of his character Sherlock Holmes".  In Lojban terms, you can
describe losi'o da crlak. xolmez.

>Certainly.  If there remains any disagreement on these matters, it
>concerns whether {mi te pixra lo unicorn} can be true of this world, or
>whether one must instead say {mi te pixra lo dahi unicorn}.  [I go for
>the latter view, except when the predicate is {nu}.] We agree that {lo
>unicorn came up to me in the street} cannot be true of this world (and
>nor can {lo dahi unicorn came up to me in the street})

I disagree.  I think that "da'i" renders a statement as being outside of
truth considerations.  It supposes it to be true whether it is or not.
Thus any statement with "da'i" in it is by definition (or rather
supposition) true.

lojbab