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Re: [engelang] Xorban: Semantics of "l-" (and "s-" and "r-")



Good essay. I hope Martin likes it too. I struggled a bit with the abbreviations/notation, but got the general gist...

Would it make sense to talk of "singulation" rather than "myopic singularization", when describing the function that derives an individual by whatever semantic means? In the sense in which I invented the term, myopic singularization was one of the methods, like massification is, of turning a plurality into an individual. It's based on a type-A ontology, in which there is no inherent distinction between categories and individuals. If you have what looks at first glance like an individual but then peer closely at it, it can be seen as a category with multiple instances. Conversely, if you have what at first looks like a category with multiple instances, but look at it myopically, you can't see the differences between the instances, and it looks like one individual.

That type-A ontology is to me and Jorge the most natural one, but to Martin, to John C, to John Woldemar, and probably to most folk schooled in logic (or even in common sense?) it isn't, so I reached the conclusion that a loglang should be ontologically neutral, either by not saying anything in its formal rules that necessitates specific ontological premises or by having an array of parallel mechanisms that cater to a range of different ontological proclivities.

--And.

On Sep 12, 2012 9:26 PM, "Mike S." <maikxlx@gmail.com> wrote:


It was time for a new post on the blog.

_Operator “l-” and FOL_: http://xorban.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/operator-l-and-fol/

That's more or less where *I* stand at the moment.  Feedback appreciated.