From Pycyn@xxx.xxx Sat Oct 30 02:03:25 1999 X-Digest-Num: 270 Message-ID: <44114.270.1481.959273825@eGroups.com> Date: Sat, 30 Oct 1999 05:03:25 EDT From: Pycyn@xxx.xxx Subject: Re: 3 dogs, 2 men, many arguments In a message dated 10/26/99 3:33:19 PM CST, jjllambias@hotmail.com writes: From: "Jorge Llambias" <As for "collectively", what do you mean? Masses where a single member's >validity is enough? No, that is definitely not my view of masses. For example, when I say that a mass of three dogs weighs 20 kg I don't mean that only one of the dogs may weigh that. I mean that they weigh 20kg as a whole.>> Masses have the *logical* sum of the properties of their members, according to one standard view. In the case of weight, this amounts to the arithmetic sum, in most non-numerical cases it is the disjunction. On that view, a mass of three dogs would bite a mass of two men if one of the dogs bit one of the men -- though we do need to know how/why they sets were massified. The mass form would be most useful for the case where we knew there were some bites but not how many nor how distributed: all cases from one of each to all on all would be covered. pc I think a message of mine went astray (replied to sender not source): I will try to retrieve it and send it on or ask the recipient to foreward it to the list.