From robin@Bilkent.EDU.TR Sun Oct 31 10:56:19 1999 X-Digest-Num: 272 Message-ID: <44114.272.1509.959273825@eGroups.com> Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1999 20:56:19 +0200 From: Robin Turner Subject: Re: 3 dogs, 2 men, many arguments la xorxes. cusku di'e > > la pycyn cusku di'e > > >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. > > Yes, that makes sense. That at least one of the dogs bites > at least one of the men would be a necessary condition > for our description, but not sufficient. There would also > have to be a reason for taking the dogs as a unit and the > men as another unit. > This is also the way I look at it. I conceptualise Lojban masses like units in strategy games, so if the archers fire at the spearmen, it doesn't need to be the case that every archer needs to fire an arrow at every (or any) spearman. Incidentally, in my course I explain {lu'o} and {lu'i} by analogy to the "group" and "ungroup" commands. > In any case, that would be a more common situation than > the perfectly coordinated full distribution of bites. You bet! co'o mi'e robin.