From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Wed Dec 14 16:39:16 2005 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Wed, 14 Dec 2005 16:39:16 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.54) id 1Emh99-0002dZ-4V for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Wed, 14 Dec 2005 16:38:59 -0800 Received: from web81308.mail.mud.yahoo.com ([68.142.199.124]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with smtp (Exim 4.54) id 1Emh97-0002dL-JX for lojban-list@lojban.org; Wed, 14 Dec 2005 16:38:58 -0800 Received: (qmail 5330 invoked by uid 60001); 15 Dec 2005 00:38:56 -0000 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=sbcglobal.net; h=Message-ID:Received:Date:From:Subject:To:In-Reply-To:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding; b=gfEDt7LlyQhlmTQGyGQufvagxkZfL91uUPcbaR9X7Opj3+T5PmWK2RZCe5vOmh6W1MFe/QBOXM79mwezF2C95WbNLIPlRHeMlSRWezn2RD6KrcxcOeMLaOsrepfQeudKQSCiIPm8UCB4wnJAXYUqbuXcGx8vj7GrtwYhQ5pIt2E= ; Message-ID: <20051215003856.5328.qmail@web81308.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Received: from [70.230.168.167] by web81308.mail.mud.yahoo.com via HTTP; Wed, 14 Dec 2005 16:38:56 PST Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 16:38:56 -0800 (PST) From: John E Clifford Subject: [lojban] Re: A Proposed Explanation of {gunma} To: lojban-list@lojban.org In-Reply-To: <20051214061237.GF3616@chain.digitalkingdom.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Spam-Score: -0.1 (/) X-archive-position: 10890 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: clifford-j@sbcglobal.net Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list The talk about the place structure of {gunma} and the subsequent expansions on that got me wondering just what a gunma, a "mass," is. Since this is Lojban, ordinary usage and ordinary technical jargon are not reliable guides, though they cannot be ignored. So we go back to the last definitive answer on this question, CLL 6.3 & 4. There several rather different -- though perhaps interrelated -- things are said about masses. Masses differ from sets in that, while they do encompass pluralities, they have properties that depend upon the properties of the individuals encompassed, while sets do not (this is only true of pure set theory, not applied, but the point is clear). Secondly they differ from simple pluralities of individuals (in CLL the nebulous way of dealing with plurals and singulars without overt distinction) in that masses have properties that depend upon the collaboration of the members, not just upon the properties of each individually --- they have collective, not merely distributive or individual, predication. Third, masses inherit all the properties of their members; the collective properties are over and above these. Finally, masses are like the referents of what linguists call mass nouns, substances that override (or underlie) their individual manifestations: water, as opposed to drops of water (as in "Water covers 3/4 of the world") or cow (As in after an accident "There was cow all over the road"). Although I have at one time or another argued for most of these positions and tried to interrelate them, I now think that some of them are seriously flawed and that a couple of errors pervade the list above. I think that the first two points -- that masses differ from (pure) sets in that they have properties that depend upon the properties of the members and that masses differ from individuals or plurals in that they take collective predication rather than distributive (or individual individual predication). I also think that the fourth point -- that (some) masses do the work of mass nouns is correct but that that description of this role -- in Lojban -- is incorrect as given above. The third characteristic -- that a mass inherits all the properties of its members (I used to call it a logical sum) -- I now think rests upon some interlocking errors. I take it that it is obvious that masses are what {lVi} decriptions refer to and so discussions of these also are discussion of masses. Yet the various such descriptions seem to be radically different: {lei broda} refers apparently to a fixed mass composed of the things I have in mind and call brodas. It remains the same mass on several different occurrences (or, if my consideration shifts to other things I call brodas, I am under conventional obligation to note the shift with {bi'u} ir such). But {loi broda} -- in CLL -- contains an implicit particular quantifier so that separate occurrences of the same expression may have different referents (or satisfiers). Yet we tend to think of all {lVi} expressions in the same way -- like {lei}, generally. And this leads to the peculiar notion that a mass inherits all the properties of its members -- a position that does not fit well with the notion that a mass has collective properties. Reconstructed, the steps seem to go like this. Suppose there is a bald man and a man with long hair. Then there is a submass of the mass of men (or a massification of some men) which is bald, namely the mass comprised of the bald man. Since the characterization of this case is exactly what is required for CLL {(pisu'o) loi (ro) nanmu cu krecau}, loi namu is bald (collectvely, even). Similarly, loi nanmu is long-haired, taking another submass into consideration. But if we take {loi nanmu} to be like {lei} descriptions, a fixed reference, then it follows that loi nanmu is both bald and long-haired. But the move from sP & sQ to s(P & Q), which is legitimate when s has a fixed reference, like {lei broda}, is invalid when s involves a particular quantifier, as here. Take away that illegitmate step -- and the understanding of {loi broda} that makes irt seem to have a fixed reference -- and there is no obvious reason to hold that a mass inherits the properties of each of its members. Another mistake underlying this reasoning seems to be the notion -- probably inevitable in a language like Lojban -- that a collective predication must come directly from the individual predications of the member of the collective and thus that for a collective predication to hold all the individuall predications must as well. It may even be that a collective predication is taken just to *be* the cooccurrence of those individual predications. A century and more of attempts at reductionism has shown that this is not the case, that a collective predication cannot be defined or even causally related to the actions of the members of the collection -- without remainder. That is, even the most minute explication of the actions of the participants will rarely, if ever, either define or entail a collective predication (there are typically references to predications of things not in the collective and to generalizations not overt in the collective predication). Thus, even the more speculative need for inheritance of individual properties is not required The problem with masses as referents of English mass nouns, as the Urgoo to be divided up into bits as needed, that it is backwards of what Lojban actually does. loi djacu, "water," is not the name of a substance, from which isolated quantities of water (glasses, lakes, etc.) are carved out by determiners of some sort. Rather, loi djacu is a collecting of several isolated quantities of water and and considering what can be predicated of this collection. That is, as always in Lojban, the delimited isolated continuous individuals are primary and the "substance" is built up from them. (The "cow" mentioned earlier is not, of course, a collection of cows, since when this usage is appropriate the cows have been deconstructed, but rather a collective of cow bits, loi bakni spisa or so.) All this is about CLL explanations, of course, and many flaws have been noted in these and many "corrections" have been proposed. Pretty much all these proposals reject the reading of of {loi broda} as {pisu'o loi ro broda}. One thread takes {loi broda} to be more like {lei broda} (and that more like {le broda}) to have a fixed reference in context, several unspecified brodas who collectively have the property mentioned and who continue to be the referents of {loi broda} throughout the context. If quantifiers are mentioned at all, they would be {piro} on the outside and {su'o} on the in ({loi} having also shifted that way). While this does give {loi broda} a fixed reference in a context, the argument does not go through, because that referent does not collectively have the properties of one of its members, since it does not generally reduce to one of its members. The other major line is to take it that the referent of {loi broda} is always the same (in a given domain at least), namely Mr. Broda, who is conceptually like the Urgoo in the sense that individuals, if they are relevant at all, have properties derivatively from the substance (and the substance may have properties that none of its subsumed individuals does, even collectively). This position accepts that loi broda inherits the properties of the individuals -- or rather that if a subsumed individual displays a property, the substance must already have that property in. Because this notion is not built up from individuals as is usual in Logic and Lojban, this notion requires a secondary semantics where substances receive properties in the same way as ordinary individuals do elsewhere in the system and these properties of substances are then to be tied incidentally to properties of underlying individuals. But the underlying individuals need play no actual role in the discussion. I prefer the first version as seeming to me to be more in accord with the Sprachgeist of Lojban and also simpler, requiring nothing not needed elsewhere. In the version I particularly like, a mass is nothing in itself but is simply the way of showing the collective predication of a bunch of things, contrasting with {lV} referents for distributive predication. (This way of showing the type of predication involved is theoretically inadequate but has been used for half a century without a serious problem arising.) The mass is then simply the bunch (as is the referent of {lV} expressions) and its members can be given as a list or a {joi} string or just about anything but {e} strings, assuming the list has to be complete (it doesn't for sets; why the difference here?). I tend, therefore, to think that {gunma} means "bunch," a less confusing term than "mass" and closer to what we want in ordinary language. I do, by the way, agree with xorxes that sets are basically useless or at least misleading or unnecessarilyy complicating in most real situations. The work can usually be done with bunches (which may mean, remember, just plural reference/quantification). Of course, bunches may just be sets in applied set theory, but then it is their bunchiness noit their settiness that plays a role. To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.