Retract Ontology #2

[Nick Nicholas <opoudjis@optushome.com.au>]

Retract my substance definition: Jorge's counterexample with the 
solid cube is correct (EzAnAy:P(y), EzAnAy:~P(y) ). A substance is 
something of which P is true, and which does not contain an atom of 
P. A group is something which does contain an atom of P, whether or 
not P is true of the entire group (to allow demergent properties.)

For any property P, there is a property P-goo which is true of all 
possible components (memzilfendi) of P. Fractional quantification of 
anything --- individual, substance, or group --- ranges over P-goo, 
not P.

My idea of portions is all wrong: something is countable not if it is 
a memzilfendi of a, but if it is a *non-contiguous* memzilfendi of a. 
Otherwise, every glass of water can be said to be one, two, fifty, or 
infinity --- but we really want only the one.

This does not generalise to groups, since groups consist of atoms 
(inherently non-contiguous) or non-contiguous portions of substance. 
Groups are divided into subgroups, possibly of onesomes, and counting 
groups means counting non-atomic subgroups of the big group. But 
everything is non-contiguous. I have to think on this more.

I'm going to start putting my ontology up on a web page, to retain my 
sanity. I'll attempt Ontology #3 and put it up tonight.


--
**** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** ****
* 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. *
**** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** ****