RE: [jboske] Collective and Substance

["And Rosta" <a.rosta@lycos.co.uk>]

xod:
> On Mon, 23 Dec 2002, And Rosta wrote:
> 
> > Let me attempt to outline the key features of Collective and Substance 
> > I find this sort of reductive, essentialist approach easier than
> > Nick's more discursive approach. Hopefully they're complementary 
> >
> > None of the below is intended to imply a revision to the taxonomy
> > of gadri types that the discussion has agreed on 
> >
> > * The difference between broda Substance and a single individual broda 
> > * Intrinsic Boundaries (- can be fuzzy) = Countability
> > - broda Substance lacks intrinsic boundaries = is uncountable
> > - a single individual broda has intrinsic boundaries = is countable
> > * divisibility: within reason, you can arbitrarily subdivide broda
> > Substance and end up with broda Substance, but you can't arbitrarily
> > subdivide a single individual broda and end up with a single
> > individual broda 
> >
> > * Collective
> > * is a group of two or more broda (seen another way, a single individual
> > broda would be a group of one broda)
> > * is not Divisible: although you can divide a group into two groups,
> > you can't *arbitrarily* subdivide it -- you must subdivide it at
> > the boundaries between group members 
> > * may or may not have intrinsic boundaries (but a group of a definite
> > number of members does have intrinsic boundaries)
> > [Hence a MOI brivla for Collective would be compatible with both
> > a Substance gadri and a non-Substance gadri.]
> 
> Looks like us Collectivists need to get our story straight! What about the
> central role of emergent properties as the defining justification for
> bothering to use a collective instead of a plural?

I had thought about that when I was writing it, but indeed emergent
properties are central as the justification for marking collectives,
but they are not the defining property of collectives themselves,
and that was what I was trying to do in the message -- defining what
collectives are. 

There probably isn't much point, though, because everybody with an
interest in grasping what Collective and Substance are probably
already has done so.

--And.