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RE: Ontology #1

Message: 19
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 20:06:11 -0000
From: "And Rosta" <a.rosta@lycos.co.uk>
Subject: RE: Ontology #1

Nick: 
If a is an individual with respect to property ^\lx.P(x),
then kairselci(a, ^\lx.P(x)) =>
\An\Ay~\Az: n > 1 & memzilfendi(a,n,y,z) & P(a) -> P(y)

This means a is a true *individ*ual: however you cut it up --- into
2nds, 3rds, 4ths..., vertically, horizontally, diagonally... if the
property P holds of a, it cannot also hold of all of the fractions of a


Surely this is too strong. In Lojban, if we way "each sheet of paper
is white" then we are talking about individuals, yet whiteness holds
of all fractions of the paper. Perhaps you mean the criterion to
hold only of the individuating property (the te memzilfendi), so that
for this example, not every fraction of each sheet of paper is itself
a sheet of paper? This does seem to be your intention, give the rest
of what you said.

That is so. Individuals are always individuals only wrt a specific property.

> A collective is anything that is neither an individual nor a substance. 
It is something with individual components: that is, it does have
fractions for which the property still holds, but below a certain

> threshold you can divide it up no further
You mean the property by virtue of which the collective is a collective --
the te memzilfendi.

Yes.


> If a is a collective with respect to property ^\lx.P(x), 
then kairgirzu(a, ^\lx.P(x)) =>
\E!n\Ez\Ay: ( n > 1 & memzilfendi(a,n,y,z) & P(a) -> P(y) )

> & (~\Am>n: memzilfendi(a,n,y,z) & P(a) -> P(y) )
What does "E!n" mean?

There exists a unique n.

> As {ce'u blanyselbartu gi'enai xunryselbartu} shows, not all properties 
have the same ontological type hold of all their members. Contrary to
founder intent though, it is clear that some properties *do* have
intrinsic type. It is intrinsic to the definition of {citka} that, when
the property {pizrolcitka ce'u} is claimed of a foodstuff, that
property holds of all the fractions of the foodstuff. (You betcha I'm
not going to get into pisu'o vs. piro yet; right now, I'm assuming a
piro default, though.) If I eat an entire apple, I do eat both halves

> of it, the four quarters of it, the 16 16ths of it, and so on
I'm not clear how this makes a point about te memzilfendi. Are you
saying that, for example, {pizrolcitka ce'u} can be te memzilfendi
only for a substance.

Yes.

That seems right, but I construe the founder
intent as entailing that using {pizrolcitka ce'u} as an indivuating
te memzilfendi would coerce (in the technical linguistic sense of
'coercion') an interpretation of {pizrolcitka ce'u} that is different
from its dictionary meaning. I don't see a conflict between founder
intent and what you're saying.

Coercion is indeed how it must work. So, uh, that means everything is OK, yes?

> I haven't read Link's paper on Masses and Collectives properly yet, but 
one of the things he points out very early on is that spatial
properties are intrinsically substance-related. If the apple is in

> London, every conceivable fraction of it is in London
I think that's untrue. "The car is in the garage" doesn't mean the
bumper can't be outside, and "The British Council is in Paris"
doesn't mean it isn't also in Bombay.

The first exposed a hole in my formalism: I need to have a distinct formula for piroloi and pisu'oloi. The second is a Kind, and for now I'm not going to deal with it.

Yes. You are doing what we did three months ago, only more nicely.
But I'm eager to see you hit actual Lojban!

Wel, you saw what I did off the top of my head with lo and loi, and I'm not sure you liked it. :-) But I must do this with deliberation...

> (And then I gotta do intensionals, and *then* work out if Kinds do the 
same thing, and how prototypes work. I doubt I will see this all the
way through; but like I said, it's Rubicon time: I cannot continue to

> do anything with Lojban until I understand its gadri.)
Very admirable, but you're cleverer or dafter than me if you think
that understanding logic will make you understand SL... But hopefully
you will either come up with an unmonstrous gadri scheme that the
BF will adopt, or you will become a convert to my proposal.

I am working to the former, of course. :-) I want to preserve as much of the existing lojbanmass as possible, but I want the metalanguage to speak explicitly of substance and collective (which the CLL doesn't.) As long as the same sentences are generated for the same meanings, I don't think anyone particularly cares that the underlying mechanics abide by CLL. This is loosening fundamentalism again: CLL is held to be descriptively adequate, but not necessarily explanatorily adequate...
--
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* Dr Nick Nicholas, French & Italian Studies nickn@unimelb.edu.au *
University of Melbourne, Australia http://www.opoudjis.net
* "Eschewing obfuscatory verbosity of locutional rendering, the *
circumscriptional appelations are excised." --- W. Mann & S. Thompson,
* _Rhetorical Structure Theory: A Theory of Text Organisation_, 1987. *
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