Re: small universe consequences

[ucleaar <ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk>]

Bob:
> ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk cusku di'e
>     What matters for purposes of meaning is not whether a proposition
>     is true or false but the conditions under which it would be true
>     or false. The meaning of the above example, then, can be defined
>     as the set that includes every universe in which there is one
>     grey (?) cat, and excludes every universe in which there is
>     no grey cat. What universes actually do or don't exist isn't
>     relevant. If every possible universe exists, then for the purposes
>     of defining meanings, we can *pretend* that some don't.
> Yes, you are correct.  This is what I saying, with the proviso that we
> can and should define the context in which we are speaking without
> including parts that are outside the context.  (Your statement,
> `includes every universe', leaves open the possibility that you
> include universes that contain one gray cat, yet are not part of the
> context in which we are speaking.)
>
> Of course, as soon as you admit the possibility of pretending that a
> universe or part of the universe does not exist, then you may define
> your context as you wish.  That is how we get to universes that
> contain only three cats or three dogs.  After all, there is nothing
> that says we must use the universe `as known by JCB on the day he
> first invented Loglan', or `as known by my gray cat', or `as was
> imagined by everyone on 1 November 1984'.

I agree that when we decide/choose/pretend/assume which universes
exist this affects the truth or falsity of the proposition an
utterance expresses. But I don't agree that it has any effect on the
meaning of the utterance. If the meaning of "lo mlatu cu xekri"
is defined as the universes in which there is a black cat, and you
choose a "context" where there is a black cat, then the proposition
expressed by the utterance is true, while if you choose a "context"
where there is nothing that is a black cat then the  proposition
expressed by the utterance  is false. But the set of universes in which
the proposition is true and the set in which it is false doesn't
change, so the meaning doesn't change.

So I can't make any sense of the rest of your arguments.

> Then the whole discussion of whether {lo} and {le} expressions are
> intrinsically + or - specific and definite is seen as misplaced.

I think you're now the lone voice of dissent against the orthodoxy,
which says that LO is -specific, LE is +specific, and neither is
intrinsically specified for definiteness.

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And