Re: TECH: lambda and "ka" revisited

la .and. joi mi cusku be di'e casnu

> > > > Whereas sets must be abstract, because they have no empirical
> > > > correlates, events and forks are concrete (in the sense of being
> > > > observable).
> > > > Forks are concrete: I can point at them, pick them up, etc.  Event
> > > > abstract objects are not.
> > > Events can be pointed to, albeit not picked up. Event abstract objects
> > > and fork abstract objects can be pointed to if they're real; the fork
> > > abstract object, if real, can also be picked up.
> > I think it is only the concrete fork, not the "fork-type abstract
> > object", which can be picked up.
> 
> Right.
> 
> > To tell the truth, I have no idea what a "fork-type abstract object"
> > might be; I only say that Lojban has a way of referring to such
> > objects if anyone finds it useful to postulate them.
> 
> Well, if an event-type-abstract-object is a conceivable
> not-necessarily-actual event, then a fork-type-abstract-object is a
> conceivable not-necessarily-actual fork.

Ah, I understand the problem.  You think that there are events, and that
I wish to postulate "event abstract objects" as being something else.
But I deny that there are events, in your sense of the term.  In my sense,
"event" and "event abstract object" are synonymous: both are abstract,
not pointable-at.  I admit that there are forks, and suppose that there
might be "fork-type abstract objects" (which are not forks), but I don't
know what these might be.

> > I do not think event abstract objects can be pointed to,
> 
> No. They have to be actual events to be point-at-able.

Again, I deny that you can point to an event, existent or otherwise.
You can point to one of the sumti within the event bridi: I can't point to
the event of And writing, but only to And.

> > or only by a kind of metonymy of pointing, whereby you point at some
> > concrete object involved in the event.  You can point at me, and you
> > can point at me-who-is-breathing, but I don't see how you can point
> > at my breathing.
> 
> I don't share your intuitions. It is normal to point at a tornado, or
> at a football match. Events (dynamic) have times and places which makes
> them point-at-able. And concrete objects can be viewed as events
> abstracted from time; e.g. a melon is in fact a melon event.

I believe that you point at the wind composing the tornado, or at the field
on which football is being played, or at the players, or at the (porridged)
mass of field-{joi}-players.

> > The current definition makes both of us wrong: "x1 is a
> > group/cluster/team showing common property (ka) x2 due to set x3
> > linked by relations x4."
> 
> A weird definition. Why that x2?

I don't know: I simply don't understand "girzu" at all.

> > I had thought that "selcmima" was a set defined extensionally
> > (relationship between set x1 and each member x2) and "girzu" was
> > a set defined intensionally,
> 
> I thought that was {klesi}.

You are basically right, although "klesi" has a place for the superclass,
so it is a genus-and-specific-differentia definition, which is probably
in fact more useful.

-- 
John Cowan					cowan@ccil.org
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban.