X-Digest-Num: 267
Message-ID: <44114.267.1445.959273825@eGroups.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1999 14:32:51 PDT
From: "Jorge Llambias" <jjllambias@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: 3 dogs, 2 men, many arguments
X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 1445
Content-Length: 3005
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la xod cusku di'e

>I no longer understand this notation. Let me try:
>
>3x 2y F(x, y)	ci da poi gerku re de poi nanmu zo'u da batci de
>G(x) = 2y F(x, y)	broda cei re de poi nanmu zo'u da batci de
>
>Now, by "G only depends on x " you mean broda has no place for da?

It has no place for de actually, because broda would be a
one-place predicate. (Your second line is not grammatical
Lojban, but I think I understand what you mean. The first
line is a full expression, a sentence, the second line is only
meant to be the definition of a predicate, G(x), it doesn´t
state anything.)

>Why is "formula reduction" a value? Is that the way we think and speak?

I don't know and I don't think anybody knows just
what is the way we think and speak. What I called
"formula reduction" is just one way to analyse what
we say.

>As for "collectively", what do you mean? Masses where a single member's 
>validity is enough?

No, that is definitely not my view of masses. For example,
when I say that a mass of three dogs weighs 20 kg I don't
mean that only one of the dogs may weigh that. I mean that
they weigh 20kg as a whole.

>Where if at least one of the 3 dogs bites only one of
>the 2 men, the sentence is true?

No, that's not what I mean. I mean that it would be under
extremely rare circumstances that we have a situation where
there are three dogs and two men such that each of the
dogs bites each of the men.

>How would you state my sample sentence "There exist exactly 3 dogs, and 
>there exist exactly 2 men, such that: every dog bites every man at least 
>once."

One of the suggestions in another round of this discussion
was {ci da poi gerku e re de poi nanmu zo'u da batci de}.
This is grammatical, but not with an officially sanctioned
meaning, as far as I know.

>Do you really think this is an unlikely sentence to utter?

Extremely unlikely. I don't think I have ever been in such
a situation, nor remember anyone ever telling me about
something like that.

>In these sentences we are defining a relationship between every element of 
>some sets. The prenex declares the composition of the sets; the bridi 
>defines the relationship.

Many bridi are not relationships between all members of one
set and all members of another set.

>Why should there be another, implicit relationship between the sets? And 
>why handle sets enumerated by ro and
>su'o differently?

{ro} and {su'o} do not enumerate the sets. In fact all
sets have ro members, so ro is useless as an enumerator.
In their function as quantifiers, numbers are not primarily
enumerating either. I'm sure I'm using all the wrong
technical words, but if you don't agree that the order in
which ro and su'o appear is of great significance, then
we have a much more basic disagreement than with
numbers. {ro da prami su'o de} (everyone loves at least
someone) does not mean the same as {su'o de se prami
ro da} (at least someone is loved by everyone). This is
basic logic, not particularly Lojbanic.

co'o mi'e xorxes