From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Wed May 31 07:42:00 2006 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Wed, 31 May 2006 07:42:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1FlRtG-0005Yh-C7 for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Wed, 31 May 2006 07:41:42 -0700 Received: from nz-out-0102.google.com ([64.233.162.203]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1FlRtC-0005YY-Sc for lojban-list@lojban.org; Wed, 31 May 2006 07:41:42 -0700 Received: by nz-out-0102.google.com with SMTP id 14so46030nzn for ; Wed, 31 May 2006 07:41:37 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=WPiZVYXlCkw/4dLL2Jg//Sx/AsVY0AxVczHo+SG9q4mB9Hv7YjaD5XZwNqoptDrhpbIxwJKPEdlGjd92TGbl0SU7YrFoXKHhenGdzdwQ4Ob11stJPPfwfciDBpbjh6qjVKqrdGu/yS2XssqWVeCY46ADqwEgh4nmWxv0oL+Rz1I= Received: by 10.64.233.7 with SMTP id f7mr236628qbh; Wed, 31 May 2006 07:41:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.65.237.19 with HTTP; Wed, 31 May 2006 07:41:37 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <925d17560605310741g384f22b1k5b91aba8173006cd@mail.gmail.com> Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 11:41:37 -0300 From: "=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Jorge_Llamb=EDas?=" To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: A (rather long) discussion of {all} In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <925d17560605160731j379ecfdbo42862a88433e112c@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560605291351i15f1def0ocb0e163cb7a6143c@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560605291521s64cb0a2as821eea86d63839b8@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560605291805y7f216d65v33b13eb6741ffda6@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560605300707y79d20b95nd621ac89c5e17215@mail.gmail.com> X-Spam-Score: -2.6 (--) X-archive-position: 11699 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: jjllambias@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list On 5/30/06, Maxim Katcharov wrote: > > > (7.1) 50 students stand on those marks. Together (3b), the > > > students surround the building. > > > (7.2) 25 students stand on 25 marks, leave, and then another 25 to > > > stand on the other marks. Together (3b), the students surround the > > > building. > > > (7.3) Two students stands on 25 marks for 10 seconds per mark. > > > Together (3b), the students surround the building. > > > > > > There's clearly something amiss with (7.2) and (7.3). > > > > Right, in those cases at no point in time would the building be > > surrounded by students. > > In what ways are those cases different from the first? In 7.1, there is a time x, such that at time x the students are surrounding the building. In 7.2 and 7.3 there is no time x, such that at time x the students are surrounding the building. I doubt that any speaker of English would say, in the situations described in 7.2 or 7.3, "the students surround the building". > > > (7.5) A piece of graphite exists, and a hollow piece of wood exists. > > > Together (3b), they are a pencil. > > > > It is perfectly sensible to say "a piece of graphite and a graphite tube > > constitute a pencil together", but in order for them to constitute a pencil > > together it is not enough that each of them exists, they must also be > > arranged in a certain way. Similarly for the students around the building, > > Arranged in a certain way? So as to form a pencil, you mean? Exactly. > > it is not enough that they occupy some space for them to surround the > > building, they must occupy the space at the same time for the > > surrounding to take place. > > They must be arranged in a certain way whereby they form a surrounder > of the building. Indeed, that's what the predicate claims. > It's not my point that it matters what someone thinks at some point in > time. I may as well be stating that all dogs are animals. I don't > think of {rokci} when I say {braro'i}. But boulders are rocks, dogs > are animals, and human bodies (sans implications of consciousness) are > masses of human organs. I assume that while you don't have to specify > in your mind that a pencil is a mass of molecules, you nevertheless > would acknowledge that it is, factually, a mass of molecules, or at > the very very least a mass of some graphite and wood. I certainly would, yes. But I would never say "May I borrow those molecules, please, I need to jot something down", and I don't think anyone would. The scientific question "what does a pencil consist of?" is fairly irrelevant to the linguistic question "how does one refer to a pencil?". > This applies in the opposite direction. If you wanted to think of > molecules arranged pen-wise (assuming your mind was up to the task), > you could do that without having to think of the concept of "pen". With some effort, yes. > However, not having to think of "pen" does not mean that those > molecules ("arranged pen-wise") aren't a pen, just as not having to > think of "body" does not mean that those organs ("arranged body-wise") > aren't a body. This is true even if you don't have a word for pen or > body. If you are trying to prove that aggregates have linguistic existence, you don't have to convince me, I'm on your side. I have no ontological problem with the existence of groups as groups, as I said from the start. > You need not think of "mass" nor "group" when you think "the > students". However, "the students" /is/ a mass. The students are > "arranged surrounder-of-the-building-wise". The students are a > surrounder of the building. That is a perfectly fine way of looking at it, and I have never disputed that. What I have disputed is your claim that it is the *only* possible or sensible way of looking at it. > The pluralist view would like one to believe that there's something > between mass and set. Not between them, but prior to both. The pluralist view says that you can refer to the students without making any reference to sets, masses or any other encompassing entity. > "The students" is predicated like a mass ("a > surrounder of the building"), but because the speaker is not thinking > of it as a mass, it must be some sort of set (?) that in some special > way ("plurally") surrounds the building. That's not the case. "The students" is a referring expression, not a pedication. Something else is predicated of its referents. You don't need to know what the predicate will be in order to identify the referents of "the students". > > I can only repeat what I have already said: "The students" refers to all > > the students in question, namely to Ann, Bob, Charles, Diana, ... and Zoe. > > Ok, so a set? A mass? Something else? It does not refer to one thing, neither a set nor a mass nor any other encompassing entity. It refers to many things (to many people in this case). > > We can predicate things about them in many different ways. We can say > > that they do things together, we can say that they do things individually, we > > can say that they do things in groups. In all cases, we are predicating things > > What is the distinction between doing things together and doing things > in groups? I think "together" suggests "in a single group". The guests arrived together. (They all arrived at the same time.) The guests arrived in groups. (None arrived alone.) > > about the same students, i.e. about Ann, Bob, Charles, Diana, ... and Zoe. > > Some things, like wearing hats, they do individually. > > je'e, A wore a hat; B wore a hat; ... > > > Other things, like surrounding the building, they do together. > > je'e, this is the mass of students example discussed above that you've > argued isn't a mass. I never argued that they can't be referred to as a mass or that they aren't a mass. Only that they need not be so referred, you need not refer to the mass to say something non-distributive about them. > > Some things it is not even clear or important whether we consider they do > > them together or individually. If I say "I see the students", I can > > think of it as > > saying that I see each of them or that I see them all together, it makes little > > difference. > > It makes little difference which one you choose, but you do choose one > of them. You either think (and hence say) "I see the crowd", or you > think "I see each of the people". Well, maybe you mean you do. Personally, I don't. > You tell me that "the students surround the building" is different > from "the students talked in groups" (clearly so). After giving these > seemingly random examples of predications that are different to you, > you ask me what is unclear. What is unclear is how "the students > (plurally) surround the pole" differs from "the students > (individually) surround the pole" and "together the students surround > the pole". Please provide explanations (or examples) that illustrate > /that/, in the same way that my crude explanations of "as a mass" and > "individually" indicated differences between those two. "The students surrounded the pole" covers any of these situations: The students surrounded the pole one at a time. The students surrounded the pole in groups of three. The students surrounded the pole five times each, in varying groups of four. The students surrounded the pole taking turns for five minutes. The students surrounded the pole for two hours. The students surrounded the pole first together and then in pairs. etc. etc. They are all covered by "the students surrounded the pole". "The students surrounded the pole" just leaves many things unsaid. Each of the longer sentences, which add more information, still leaves a lot of things unsaid. You just cannot hope to cover every possibility with a simple sentence, you only say what is relevant in the context. mu'o mi'e xorxes 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.