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Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2011 20:25:58 -0400
From: Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org>
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Subject: Re: [lojban] {zo'e} as close-scope existentially quantified plural variable
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* Tuesday, 2011-10-25 at 00:45 +0100 - And Rosta <and.rosta@gmail.com>:

> Martin Bays, On 24/10/2011 19:46:
> > * Monday, 2011-10-24 at 19:22 +0100 - And Rosta<and.rosta@gmail.com>:
> >
> >> Martin Bays, On 24/10/2011 16:14:
> >>> * Sunday, 2011-10-23 at 18:57 -0400 - John E. Clifford<kali9putra@yah=
oo.com>:
> >>>> On kinds, my position is just that kinds (if you want to use that
> >>>> word) are just biggest bunches viewed in certain ways and so call for
> >>>> nothing other than things of the ordinary sort.
> >>>
> >>> I seem to be in agreement. But I guess no-one else is, so far.
> >>
> >> I don't think me and xorxes disagree with you and John. If there is
> >> disagreement, it is over how many are in the biggest bunches. You,
> >> I gather, would say that there is only one possible cardinality for
> >> the biggest bunch of broda, whereas xorxes and I would say that the
> >> universe, or universe of discourse, can be understood in infinitely
> >> many different ways, such that across these different ways the
> >> cardinality for the biggest bunch of broda varies from one to
> >> infinity. I think xorxes and me would also say that this holds also of
> >> referents of {la}, and also pronouns like {mi, do}, and that these
> >> biggest bunches are treated like individuals.
> >
> > This last - reification of bunches as individuals - is the only point of
> > disagreement I would consider key.
>=20
> Would you say that the referents of la & do are always treated like
> individuals? Or that when the referents are individuals they're
> treated as individuals and when the referents are bunches they're
> treated as bunches? If the latter, then we might still agree.

I think the referent of any term, {la foob} and {do} included, is
a bunch. There are minimal ("atomic") bunches, i.e. ones with no
subbunches other than the bunch itself - we can call these individuals.
We can say that a bunch is a bunch of the individuals which are its
minimal subbunches.

(Note that a quantity of water is an individual, not a bunch of
subquantities of water.)

> > Of course I wouldn't claim that there is one fixed universe of discourse
> > within which all lojban expressions must be interpreted.
> >
> > I would consider it perverse for you to make what appears to be general
> > statement about lions, and yet have only one or a few lions in your
> > universe for the statement to apply to. But that's because I would only
> > accept lions, and not the kind 'lions', as lions.
>=20
> It depends how many lions there are. You're free to think it perverse
> of me to think there is only one lion (-- that all lions are one and
> the same), just as I might think it is perverse of you to think there
> is only one Obama (-- that all Obamas are one and the same). Given
> that we may disagree how many lions and Obamas there are, it can't be
> reasonable to insist on our agreeing on the number of lions and Obamas
> as a prerequisite to us communicating in Lojban.

But unless you're being *really* perverse, we don't actually disagree on
how many lions there are, just on what the phrase "how many lions there
are" means. Does it really seem unreasonable that we should try to agree
on what its lojban equivalents mean?

Martin

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