Re: [WikiDiscuss] Re: BPFK gismu Section: Parenthetical Remarks in Brivla Definition

On 9/26/06, John E. Clifford <[email protected]> wrote:
> --- In [email protected], "Jorge Llamb=EDas" <jjllambias@...> wrote:
> > On 9/25/06, John E. Clifford <clifford-j@...> wrote:
> > >  I agree that if
> > > someone says {lo pavyseljirna} in a primary place, I take it that
> > > there is at least one unicorn in his universe and adjust the universe
> > > I am constructing accordingly (or get him to readjust his). But this
> > > does not say anything about the critters John wants: in your mini
> > > universe, John could want a hippopotamus or a centaur without changin=
g
> > > anything.
> >
> > John could want those things in addition to wanting unicorns, but if
> he doesn't
> > want unicorns, then the model constructed in the discourse, which
> includes
> > {la djan cu djica lo pavyseljirna} as one of its true sentences,
> would not be a
> > very good model (even if internally self-consistent).
>
> I wasn't saing that he does not want unicorns, only that he can want
> things other than unicorns, things that do not appear in the
> universe.

And I agree with that. We won't know what else he wants one way or
the other if all we know is the set of truths of the theory of the model.

> So, indeed, he could want unicorns in a model which contained
> only John and a bunch of elephants.

That I don't quite follow. One doesn't want things in a model. If you
mean that the sentence {la djan djica lo pavyseljirna} could be a member
of the theory of a model whose domain of discourse does not include
unicorns, then no, that sentence could not be a member of that theory. If
you mean that his actual wanting of unicorns won't affect the validity of t=
he
model (which cannot have any sentence about unicorns) then I agree, it
won't.

> (He could alsosay truthfully in
> this smaller model that unicorns do not exist -- indeed that there are
> no unicorns.)

If there are no unicorns in the domain of discourse of the model, then
{no da pavyseljirna} could be a true sentence of the model, I agree, but
{lo pavyseljirna na zasti} I would take as uninterpretable in the model.
We would need to expand the domain of discourse in order to make
sense of it. If he wants something that is not in the domain of discourse
of the model,  then the model won't be useful to express that, a new
model will need to be constructed that includes what he wants as a
member of its domain of discourse.

mu'o mi'e xorxes


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