Re: [lojban] Re: A Proposed Explanation of {gunma}

[John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net>]

--- Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 12/16/05, John E Clifford
> <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > Type face problem: it was "ui" not "ul." Has
> a
> > distribution like member of the selma'o that
> > includes {ui}.
> 
> Ah, that explains it!
> 
> > > "Hence" is inappropriate there, since {loi
> > > broda} would not
> > > be the typical sumti to put in the x1 of
> gunma.
> >
> > Now that is interesting.  I would have
> thought
> > that {loi broda} was an archetypal mass.  If
> not
> > it, what?
> 
> loi broda are, eventually, the constituents of
> a mass.
> 
> Examples of "masses" (as in gunma1) would be,
> besides the obvious
> lo gunma: lo girzu, lo se cmima, lo bende, lo
> kanmi, lo lanzu, lo derxi,
> lo mixre, lo salta, etc. These are all things
> which in turn have other things
> as constituents.

So, by you, {lo broda} are just some brodas that
you happen to be considering together for the
nonce, while a gunma is several whatevers
together where there togetherness has achieved
some sort of separate status: a team, a
committee, a wolf pack, and so on, maybe even
enough status that it could continue to be that
thing even if some of the whatevers left and
others came in.  In other words, a togeherness
that has achieved reification, which lo broda per
se have not collectively.  OK, even if I thought
that {lo broda} was a set of some sort, this
distinction is a useful one to make.  How do we
refer to a particular gunma? I suppose with a
description like {lo kamni} (or maybe better,
{le}) or a name: {la ienkis}oor explicitly
massifying some tiher object like {lu'o lo
broda}.  There will be grey cases, of course, but
presumably the distinction is not so crucial that
the  different decisions will make a real
difference.  Masses can be predicated of either
distributively or collectively, with possibly the
additional feature that in the collective case
not all the constituents of the mass actualy have
to participate in the event described (or these
cases might be taken as individual predications
of the thing, not as either distributive or
collective. Although presumably the demassified
individuals in the mass could still be predicated
of in the two ways. As these possibilities mount
up, I see that such objects cannot be defined
outright in either version of bunch theory but
enter as a new type in each.  I wonder what they
will look like axiomatically.

> 
> > Someday I need to find out what is the
> meaning in
> > Lojban speak of "orthogonal;"  I don't get
> "at
> > right angle to" even as a metaphor (or rather
> it
> > makes sense as at least two conflicting
> metaphors
> > and I don't see enough usage to figure which
> is
> > intended).
> 
> It's not a common English idiom? It simply
> means
> that two properties are independent of each
> other, each on
> its own axis. In this case, the
> distributive/non-distributive
> distinction is independent of the
> generic/specific distinction,
> you can have all combinations.

Thanks.
 
> > From this I get either that you don't think
> that
> > {lo broda} and {loi broda} are the same
> thing(s)
> > in different predication relations
> 
> I do think that they are the same thingS,
> possibly
> in the same predication relation even, but with
> {loi broda} blocking the distributive
> interpretation
> and {lo broda} not blocking it. The plural is
> significant
> because if they were to refer to one thing the
> distinction
> between them vanishes.

I don't get the last point.  {loi broda} is just
some brodas of whom some property is predicated
collectively, {lo broda} is the same guys without
specifying whether the predication involved is
one way or the other. What distinction is lost?
To be sure, the predication is always either
distributive or not but we don't have to say
which.  It looks to me like you really do want to
build the type of predication into the argument,
making loi broda lo broda plus something else. 
Surely saying that they are both the same fusion
does not prevent any other interpretation of the
distinction.


> >or that you
> > don't think that masses are just are things
> in
> > collective predication, leaving it open what
> they
> > are exactly.
> 
> As I said, I rather not bring the word "mass"
> or any other
> noun into it, because I don't want to say that
> {loi broda}
> refers to one thing, which any noun immediately
> invites.

Invites, but does not require.  As McKay points
out, the axioms and definitions for "among" and
the rest are the same as those for mereological
"part of" with atoms.

> So, I don't think that loi broda is a mass, I
> think that
> loi broda can be the constituents of a mass.
> 
> > Or both, of course.  In either
> > case, I don't see what that has to do with
> > genericity, which I tend to read as your take
> on
> > at least {lo broda}.
> 
> It has nothing to do with it. I thought you
> were bringing
> it up by suggesting that avatars/exemplars
> would be
> the constituents of an Urgoo, but I probably
> misunderstood.

I don't suppose that Urgoo, Mr. Broda, for
example, has constituents.  Which seems to mean
that either you have abandoned  Mr. Broda as the
referent of {lo broda} -- and with it several of
the peculiar proerties of xorlo -- or you are
using "not a single thing but several things" in
a very poetic way, which I can't unpack while
keeping it connected to the rest of the
discussion.  I of course hope it is the former,
but am not sanguine.