As I noted, in L-sets, membership and subsets are not distinct= , i.e. every member is a subset and under certain interpretations, ever sub= set is a member, though some members are more basic, having no members but = themselves. So, a bunch of things also contains all the combinations = of them. From this point of view, then, a mass is just the bunch of i= ts lowest level (what it is a bunch of, say): gold is the maximal bunch of = gold atoms, lion is the maximal bunch of lion cells and so on. More f= amiliar object arise in the intersection of bunches: lions are in the inter= section of lion and living organisms and so. And every gold thing is = in the intersection of gold and its particular form. The only Lojbani= c thing I see in all of this at the moment is that that maximal bunch ought to be given a separate gadri.

There do remain a number of cas= es to which this general notion does not seem to apply. Your case of = the real line is one, letters seem to be another. Here the approach s= eems to be to start at the top, work down and then back up, I think, but I = don't know just how that goes. Even with cases that fit this pattern = pretty well, water, for excample, there are some problems, as you note.&nbs= p; Water molecules don't display the characteristic behavior of water (as d= o not also ice and steam), since they don't flow, etc. But then, gold= atoms don't shine and are not malleable, so this seems a minor problem.&nb= sp; And for generic cases, they probably are not significant, since the far= more numerous and visible sub bunches will take over the "statistics".&nbs= p;

I find you idea of an aspect difference among the various uses o= f kinds (max. bunches) interesting, though I still tend to think of them in terms of different connections to predicates, a relic of the early= days of plural reference. And, indeed, even with aspects, some of th= is will still come into play with regular bunches, that is to say, bunches = which do not claim to take in all the possible "atoms" (I am used to your u= sage here).

I kinda like this result, since it leaves basic things b= asic but covers kinds and masses economically from them. Until some r= eal snag comes along.

From: maikxlx = <maikxlx@gmail.com>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sen= t: Tue, November 15, 2011 4:49:16 PM
Subject: Re: [lojban] Lions and levels and the like
<= /font>
Okay, that's pretty close to Bunt's ensembles, as I might as expected. = ; The most primitive notion in these mereological systems is the "part-of" = relationship, which effectively replaces "subset-of" (although it re-uses t= he same rounded "less than or equal" symbol to represent it). In C-se= ts, membership is most primitive and subset is derived from membership i.e.= "A is-subset-a-of B" is shorthand for "if x is-member-of A then x is-membe= r-a-of B". In ensembles "partship" comes first and members (atoms) ar= e defined as the contents of ensembles that happen not to have parts and th= erefore are effectively singletons, which seems different from what you cal= l an "individualizing principle" (although that sounds like an intriguing c= oncept). Either way, I suspect that you can get everything you need f= rom there.

To be clear about one thing, when I said "atoms" previously I only mean= t "individuals" and not the things that compose molecules. In fact, m= asses in ensembles are a bit weird in the sense that there is absolutely no= necessary commitment whatsoever to the notion of "smallest things" (except= exactly when you need them). There are good reasons for this, both t= heoretical and practical. In the real number line, there is an infini= te number of line segments and none of them are smallest. In the case= of, say, water (defined as a liquid), it's really impossible to say what a= smallest part actually is. A single molecule is not water, though a = small group may be, obviously overlapping with other potentially smallest g= roups before dissolving into its surroundings. But since we're dealin= g with natural language semantics, there is never a practical need for "wat= er" to encode these vanishingly small quantities, and there are other predicates to do the job.

On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 2:11 PM, John E = Clifford <kali= 9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:

A so des! Sorry to be so slow.. A mass is a k= ind extended to be closed under "part of", a kind is the intersection of a = mass and an individualizing principle (say "viable organism" for lions from= lion). But the relations are formally the same, the jest of mereolog= y (member/subset -- they fall together). Or, from my on the ground vi= ew, kinds grow upward from individuals to bunches and masses grow downward,= from individuals to physical parts to ultimate atoms, the smallest things = that are still of the sort (atoms, molecules, cells, etc.).
I'm not at all sure what this says about Lojban and {lo} expressions or abo= ut levels, come to that. But at least I am, I think finally near the = page you all have been on for awhile.

From: maikxlx <maikxlx@gmail.com>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Mon, November 14, 2011 6:55:26 PM

Subject: Re: [lojban] L= ions and levels and the like

Ah, you jarred my memory. Having studied Bunt, I think that I can mak= e some sense of your earlier writings about Le=C5=9Bniewskian sets (L-sets)= and Cantorian or classical sets (C-sets) e.g. http://pc= kipo.blogspot.com/2009/09/c-sets-and-l-sets-draft.html I take it = that your "bunches" are basically L-sets as there described then? I a= m not quite sure how L-sets work differently than C-sets, other than they c= an't be nested and {a} =3D a. C-sets clearly handle individuals effic= iently and masses poorly; how do L-sets handle masses and individuals? = ; Or is there a difference?

FWIW, Bunt's "ensembles" which I mentioned are a bit different than you= r L-sets. Ensembles are a set-like structure in which mass is the bas= ic concept, and atomic individuals are derived or secondary. Any non-= empty ensemble may contain or atomic members (essentially a count ensemble)= , or for lack of a better word non-atomic "stuff" (mass ensemble). It= could also contain both atoms and non-atomic stuff. Count and mass e= nsembles may combine in predicate relationships freely as in "The five ring= s were gold". So they seem pretty useful for capturing human language= semantics.

On Mon, Nov 14, 2011= at 4:16 PM, John E. Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:

Hmmm! Nice case! Of course, some fi= rst transistor must have been invented that all the others copied and impro= ved upon, but that doesn't really dodge your point. At the moment, I = don't know what to suggest, except to hope that Lojban still has = ;a word for kinds. Bunches are, inter alia, Lesniewski's wholes (but = xorxes doesn't like this kind of objectifying, preferring plural reference,= which works the same way formally). I don't take 1a to be about kind= s, but just about some unspecified bunch of lions (at least i= n Lojban, lo cinfo). Kinds don't seem to be the sort of things that r= uin gardens, though their exemplars may. The factual situation, as fa= r as transistors, etc. are concerned, is about genealogy, all transistors d= escend from something invented by Shockley. But that is at least as h= ard to express as types, so I wait a while on it.

Sent from my iPad

On Nov 14, 2011, at 2:24 PM, maikxlx <= ;maikxlx@gmail.com> wrote:

I can understand the appeal of your concept of bunches -- if I understand = them correctly as being something like subsets of the extensions consisting= of mundanes/atoms (perhaps generalized to something like Bunt's ensemble, = derivative of Le=C5=9Bniewski 's mereology, to cover masses). = E.g.:

- (1a) Lions are ruining my garden.

- (1b) There exist so= me lions that are ruining my garden.

where (1a) invokes a kind and (= 1b) invokes a bunch or somesuch, and yet both sentences seem to have the sa= me truth conditions or almost the same.

But yesterday as I was reading random online materials (this one = - http://amor.cms.hu-berlin.de/%7Eh2816i3x/Talks/GenericitySeat= tle.ho.pdf ), I found what I think is a good bunch-resisting, kind-exam= ple:

- (2a) Transistors were invented by Shockley.

One can't get the = same result by referring to any bunch:

- (2b) *There exist some tran= sistors that were invented by Shockley.

Nor does taking the biggest= possible bunch of transistors help:

- (2c) *All transistors were invented by Shockley.

It seems that though transistors as a kind of thing were invented, no m= undane transistor nor any extension, ensemble, or bunch of them was invente= d. In (2a) there does seem to be some sort of "transistor kind" (dare= I say "form") above the mundane, even taking into consideration the possib= le worlds that Montague would have in his model.

On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 11:45 AM, John E Clifford <kali9put= ra@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Here we have the advantage of taking kinds and the like as bun= ches (without
> ontological commitment of things called "bunches"): {su'o lo stuci) ha= s
> essentially the same result under either interpretation, a subbun= ch of lo
> stuci. It may, of course, not correspond to the bunc= hes put in as kinds of
> teachers, but it produces a kind of its own. Of course, there re= mains the issue
> of how this bunch talks to all the students, but, a= s I have noted elsewhere, it
> all works out to there being some teac= hers (mundanes) who talk to all the
> students, even if no one teacher does.
>
>
>
>= ----- Original Message ----
> From: Jorge Llamb=C3=ADas <jjllambias@gmail.com>
> To: lojban@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Sun, November 13, 2011 7:10:17 AM
> Subject: Re: [lojban] = Lions and levels and the like
>
> On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 2:39 = PM, Martin Bays <mbays@sdf.org> wrote:
> >
> > What I mean by this (i.e. by "really"): if B hears A= say {su'o ctuca cu
> > tavla ro le tadni}, and B wants to underst= and what A means to say about
> > actual teachers and actual stude= nts, and if {ctuca} and {tadni} do not
> > specify levels, then B has to guess which levels A intends them t= o refer
> > to. If, for example, B guesses that A is talking about= kinds of teacher
> > and about actual students, all B can deduce = about actual teachers and
> > students is that every student was talked to by some teacher.
= >
> You have some hidden assumptions there, for example that there= are
> actual teachers of the kind that talks to every student.
>
> And B can deduce more: that there is some kind of teacher such= that
> every student was talked to by some teacher of that kind.
= >
> mu'o mi'e xorxes
>
> --
> You received this = message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "lojban" group.
> To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> lojban+unsubscribe= @googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/lojban?hl=3Den.=
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribe= d to the Google Groups "lojban" group.
> To post to this group, send email to lojban@googl= egroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googleg= roups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban?hl=3Den.
>

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "= lojban" group.
To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegroups.= com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.googl= e.com/group/lojban?hl=3Den.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "= lojban" group.
To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegro= ups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.googl= e.com/group/lojban?hl=3Den.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "= lojban" group.
To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegro= ups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.googl= e.com/group/lojban?hl=3Den.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "= lojban" group.
To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegro= ups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.googl= e.com/group/lojban?hl=3Den.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "= lojban" group.
To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegrou= ps.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojba= n?hl=3Den.