From jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU Wed Apr 14 14:27:30 2004 Return-Path: X-Sender: jimc@math.ucla.edu X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 10689 invoked from network); 14 Apr 2004 21:27:30 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.172) by m23.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 14 Apr 2004 21:27:30 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO simba.math.ucla.edu) (128.97.4.125) by mta4.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 14 Apr 2004 21:27:30 -0000 Received: by simba.math.ucla.edu (Postfix, from userid 228) id D9C981B776; Wed, 14 Apr 2004 14:27:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by simba.math.ucla.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id D2B425EAB5; Wed, 14 Apr 2004 14:27:29 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 14:27:29 -0700 (PDT) To: Pierre Abbat Cc: lojban@yahoogroups.com In-Reply-To: <200404140841.27846.phma@webjockey.net> Message-ID: References: <194.2732bc22.2dadade0@wmconnect.com> <20040414044901.GB603@ccil.org> <200404140841.27846.phma@webjockey.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-eGroups-Remote-IP: 128.97.4.125 From: Jim Carter Subject: Re: [lojban] the 17 tallest men X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=810565 X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 22026 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. James F. Carter Voice 310 825 2897 FAX 310 206 6673 UCLA-Mathnet; 6115 MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA, USA 90095-1555 Email: jimc@math.ucla.edu http://www.math.ucla.edu/~jimc (q.v. for PGP key)