[YG Conlang Archives] > [jboske group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
la djan cusku di'e > I think the reason for my intuition that statements of the form "Mr. Bird > is *ivorous" are false is that "is *ivorous" has a negation in it. But "is male" has no negation, and it would seem to stumble with the same intuition. > If "X is carnivorous" means "X does not [contradictory negation] eat plants", > then "Mr. Bird is carnivorous" is false, since there he is, over there, > eating birdseed. Mr. Bird is not carnivorous always and everywhere. Is that what you mean by "Mr Bird is carnivorous"? > And mutatis mutandis, "Mr. Bird is herbivorous" is also > false. These follow from the (I hope) uncontroversial view that if a > statement is true (false), its contradictory negation is false (true). You are arguing that since nothing can be both hervivorous and carnivorous, then Mr Bird can't be both hervivorous and carnivorous. But nobody is saying that he is both at the same time (i.e. in the same instance). Your intuition is that "being carnivorous" is absolute and non-negotiable: something either is or is not. But we are arguing that "being carnivorous" is like "sitting down". You can't be sitting down and not sitting down at the same time, that's contradictory, but you can at different times. Similarly, Mr Bird can "be being" carnivorous at some instance and not "be being" carnivorous at others. Permanent and unchangeable properties of avatars need not be so for the One Individual. mu'o mi'e xorxes __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo. http://search.yahoo.com