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I agree with most of what Jordan has said on this issue.
Imaginary worlds with unicorns are just like the real world
with horses, quantifiers work the same in both cases.
I maintain that in a world with no unicorns, all of the
following are true:
All unicorns are white.
All unicorns are purple.
0% of all unicorns are male.
50% of all unicorns are male.
100% of all unicorns are male.
200% of all unicorns are male.
Any percentage of zero is zero, so there is no problem with
any of the above, since zero unicorns are male in the real
world, and they all say that. The statements are utterly
uninteresting, but true all the same.
"All trespassers will be shot" can be true in the real world,
even if there is no trespasser ever. This statement is interesting
for as long as we don't know whether there will ever be trespassers.
If we find out that there never will be any trespassers, the
statement becomes trite. If we find out that there will be some
trespasser, then we know that it entails "some trespasser will
be shot". But we can't reach this conclusion unless we know that
the set of trespassers is not empty.
I don't think we have ever discussed whether {100ce'i} means {ro} or
{piro}. I'm agnostic for the moment on that question.
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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