From sbelknap@northwestern.edu Mon May 03 09:53:48 2004 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Mon, 03 May 2004 09:53:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from deptvachi-cp.va.gov ([205.183.31.120] helo=vhaishgats.vha.med.va.gov) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.31) id 1BKghJ-0004QA-VT for lojban-list@lojban.org; Mon, 03 May 2004 09:53:42 -0700 Received: from [10.97.181.88] ([10.97.181.88]) by vhaishgats with InterScan Messaging Security Suite; Mon, 03 May 2004 11:53:10 -0500 Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v613) Message-Id: <5BE01D46-9D22-11D8-AE0C-000393629ED4@northwestern.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed To: lojban-list@lojban.org From: Steven Belknap Subject: [lojban] Re: the 17 tallest men Date: Mon, 3 May 2004 11:53:10 -0500 X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.613) X-archive-position: 7630 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: sbelknap@northwestern.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list One needs to either specify upsort or downsort or alternatively to describe the tail in some fashion. "The set of 17 tallest men comprises the first 17 men in the list obtained by downsorting all the men by height." co'omi'elaStivn On Apr 14, 2004, at 4:27 PM, Jim Carter wrote: > On Wed, 14 Apr 2004, Pierre Abbat wrote: >> But Lojban has grammatical setness and massness, so we can say "The >> subset >> which, considered as a mass, is tallest among the 17-element subsets". > > Aaaa, this again! A mass doesn't have properties coherent with its > members. For example, a sports team (mass) wins even though its > members > individually don't win. Particularly, a purely subset type of mass > doesn't > have height, no matter what properties its members have. > > I would approach this problem along these lines: > > > The 17 tallest men = > the members of the tail, of length 17, of the list gotten by sorting > "the" men by height > when you sort a quantitative measure, the natural order puts > the larger values at the end. > > > Your most efficient approach to extremal subsets is through sorting. > And you have to remember to deliver the result as members in > extension, or > as a set, or when applicable, as a list or a mass, according to how the > result will be used in the containing sentence.