Re: What the *%$@ does "nu" mean?

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

>What are the truth conditions on {da du`u/nu broda} and
>{da na du`u/nu broda}?

With no tenses the former is a pretty weak claim =
 probably that the
relationship is possible.  But the bottom line is that it depends on the deaful

dwfault tense.  I think this actually is true of most tenseless predications
- you have to assume something about the tense or evaluating the truth
conditions is rather difficult.

If the former indicates possibility, then the latter indicates impossibility.
Neither says anything about the nature of said relationship above and beyond
the sumti that are filled in.

Note that potentiality is a little stronger than me
re possibility, and yet it
is in another sense weaker.  It is in the nature of ducks that they can swim,

so that ducks potentially swim.  But no
a duck egg cannot swim, and yet it is
potentially a duck and thus potentially a swimmer.  I don't claim to have explor
ed even a fraction of the possible nuances of potentiality, but if you are
looking for strict truth functionality, you really need to supply an
appropriate CAhA.

This should not have much to do with whatthe abstractors mean, but when you
are asking me to talk about truth conditions of an abstract without sepec
pecifying
what potentiality you are assuming, it is very difficult.


>Do all nu exist in space-time?

I dunno.  What does it mean to exist in space-time?    I'm not even sure what
it means to exist independent of the question of space-time, when one gets
into existence of the sort pertaining to logic (i.e. there exists an x ...).
Previous discussions have stated that the universe of discourse can easily
be a universe of the mind as opposed to the real world.  Does the mind exist

in space time?  Do universes that exist only in the mind exist in space time?
Events/relationships can certainly exist in the mind that cannot occur in
reality e.g. lo nu [unicorn].  So if you ask me the truth value of
da nu [unicorn], I have to wonder what the universe of discourse is before
I can answer.  Yet I can say that lo nu da [unicorn] na ca'a fasnu.

>I'm still trying to get a handle on what Lojban Central (and
>Peripheral) think these abstractors mean.

They "mean" that we are taking the relationship as a whole and then looking
at some aspect of that whole relationship.

>You can no more observe a ka than you can a number. A ka is
>abstract.

I certainly can observe loka datka sovda.
Whether we choose to look at the
fact that a duck laid the egg or that we have examined the genetic material
of the cell nucleus and determined it to be duck chromosomes, or whatever
otyher things we might need to determine to tell whether it might or might n
ot
be a duck egg.

>Noone knows for sure what {ni} means:

I think I do, but no one believes me.  I can observe a ni in some conditions
as well - e.g. when I can observe the degree to which a relationship extends.
e.g. ni blanu

>as you know, the
>refgrammar is contradictory

I don't "know" this as I took the opposite position in that debate and
did not concede the point (and will not).

>I'm still not clear about what
>you think {nu} means.

I'm beginning to think that we will only "understand" what these things mean
given lots of usage.  I can certainly tell "lo ka nu broda"  those properties
by which I would judge that a given relationship is a nu broda.  But invoking

ka is a little like saying "if it looks like a duck and quacks like one ...".

>> This is one
>> reason why I like the aristotelian event categories - it allows me
>> to talk about how I an observe/perceive an event, and reminds me
>> that there are other possible ways to perceive many events.  I can
>> see an explosion, but can imagine the "process of explosion" which
>> happens at a rate too fast to consciously observe.
>
>Are these differences between the subtypes of nu truth-conditional?
>The way you talk suggests they're not.

I wonder what you mean by truth-conditional here.  Or maybe I would rather not
know %^)

It is possible to look at most events using any of the aristotelian persep
ctives.  I often use a race as an example.  The Big Bang is an event that is usi
ually
seen as a point-event, but some physicists talk about it as a process.  I do
not know how it can be viewed as an activity or a state though.  This doesn't m
ean that it cannot be so viewed, merelythat it is not within my comprehension.

>Anyway, I am totally and utterly clueless about what you think
>the meanings of nu and certain other NUs are. Either their
>meanings are really undefined (i.e. not yet defined) or they
>are defined but whoever knows the definition has utterly
>failed to communicate that knowledge to me or to anyone else
>who is able or willing to contribute to this discussion.


I think that ytou are looking for a definition at the level of a philosophical
treatise and I am not a philospher, nor do I intend to play one on TV.
pc can probably point to discussions in appropriate literature on events,
and their nature and aristotelian subtypes, and maybe it will even answer
your questions about truth conditionality.  But it is outside of my
competence to argue the definition at a level that wuill satisfy you for
rigor.

lojbab
----
lojbab                                                lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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