On Thu, Sep 13, 2012 at 7:04 PM, John E Clifford
<kali9putra@hidden.email> wrote:
Intensional critters are actually a rather rare lot in conversation. Why take up a very useful extensional notion (long scope s, if you will) for them. Especially when all the cases so far cited are nicely handled with extensional tools and abstractors (abstractors setting up alternate worlds, within which extensional tools remain extensional, only appearing intensional when viewed from our world.)
Your example in two clearly says that the cat is a real one, regardless of what happens with l.
Can you show me your version of "se li mlti pxreki vska'ake" with the
reading that it is unknown whether the picture was intended to represent a real or
imaginary cat? Lojban is fine if you are more comfortable with that, or even ad_hoc metalanguage. Anything, could you just please give an illustration this time?
I am not decided on intensional "l-". I am considering the options. You may not agree with it as a design decision, but I see no good reason to dismiss out of hand the idea that the "pxreki" unpacks the intension and chooses the correct cat from indefinite possible worlds, which may or not overlap with the world in which I see the picture. That seems to be what is happening in English.
f doesn't say that the event or whatever is not in this world, it just opens that possibility. We may take all the precautions we want and still find that the picture is of the artist's cat, Pushkin.
AFAICT "f-" is just a device to tag a formula as a whole with a free variable, rendering a new formula. I think that it has a rather general meaning in order to obviate the necessity of half a dozen NU-like creatures, but "fu F" can roughly be translated "U is the state of affairs in which F [is true/happens]" which in translation usually winds up simply "that F [is true/happens]". My first guess is that its extensionality would be treated like that of any other formula, though it could be interpreted always one or the other if someone shows a good reason for doing so.