Re: small universe consequences

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

Bob:
>    I'm still unable to see what you mean. Your Lojban example means
>    "one of the three cats is grey" (roughly). What difference does it
>    make whether this is true or false? Okay it may make a difference to
>    you if you bet $1000000 that one of the three cats is grey, but I don't
>    see how we have 2 different meanings according to whether there is
>    or isn't a grey cat.
>
> We are using very different sense of the word `meaning'.
> The key point is that it does "make a difference to you if you bet
> $1000000 that one of the three cats is grey,...".

Suppose we're writing our grammar of Lojban. What meaning does the
grammar give to "Lo mlatu cu xekri"? Part of the story is "Ex: mlatu(x)
& xekri(x)", & the rest is the definition of what it takes to be
a mlatu or to be a xekri. Now I ask you: Where in the grammar do
we have to discuss whether you've bet $1000000 that there is a
black cat? - I see of course that the existence of a black cat
"means" a lot to you, and since the truth of the proposition "lo
mlatu cu xekri" is contingent on whether there is a black cat, I
of course see that the truth of the proposition "means" a lot to
you. But this sort of "meaning" is a matter of your gambling
activities rather than of Lojban grammar: the truth of the proposition
means a lot to you because of the $1000000 bet, not because of anything
the grammar says.

It is the grammar that says LO is nonspecific and LE is +specific,
and since the truth of utterances and the size of your bets are
beyond the purview of the grammar, they have nothing to do with
the specificity of LO/LE.

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And