From @uga.cc.uga.edu:lojban@cuvmb.bitnet Wed Jun 21 23:28:04 1995 Received: from punt2.demon.co.uk by stryx.demon.co.uk with SMTP id AA3520 ; Wed, 21 Jun 95 23:28:03 BST Received: from punt2.demon.co.uk via puntmail for ia@stryx.demon.co.uk; Wed, 21 Jun 95 13:42:37 GMT Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by punt2.demon.co.uk id aa24959; 21 Jun 95 14:42 +0100 Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 1209; Wed, 21 Jun 95 09:40:22 EDT Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@UGA) by UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 3555; Wed, 21 Jun 1995 09:40:22 -0400 Date: Wed, 21 Jun 1995 09:39:46 -0400 Reply-To: John Cowan Sender: Lojban list From: John Cowan Subject: Re: ears and legs X-To: Lojban List To: Iain Alexander In-Reply-To: <199506210740.DAA09007@locke.ccil.org> from "Logical Language Group" at Jun 21, 95 03:35:25 am Message-ID: <9506211442.aa24959@punt2.demon.co.uk> Status: R la lojbab. cusku di'e > You might if "emergent properties" of the mass of two are present. ^^^^^^^^ > > Imagine two people are lost in the woods, and you have reason to believe > they might be together. You know one is wearing a bright blue garment. > You and others are looking, and you spot through the underbrush, > something bright blue and appropriately sized moving. You might yell to > the others "I see them", even though you actually have not seen any > piece of any person, but merely the garment of one of the people, and > even though you don't actually know that the second person is with the > blue-garbed one. > > The bright-blueness is an emergent visually-detectable property of the ^^^^^^^^ > mass of the two people in that we can attribute it to the mass even > though it is really a property of one indivdual. [remainder of argument omitted] I think this argument is perfectly sound in itself, but it is muddled by misuse of "emergent", which need not be here at all. If one component of a mass is bright blue, then the bright-blueness of the mass is a resultant, not an emergent, property. A simple example of an emergent property: nitric acid will not dissolve gold, nor will sulfuric acid, but a mixture of the two (so-called "aqua regia") will do so. Furthermore, if the nitric acid happens to be fuming nitric acid, the resulting gas will require you to evacuate the room. (This example stolen from Alfred Bester's sf novel >The Computer Connection<.) -- John Cowan cowan@ccil.org e'osai ko sarji la lojban.