Re: [lojban] Re: A (rather long) discussion of {all}

["Maxim Katcharov" <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com>]

On 5/19/06, John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> MK>
>
> <<Yes, though the bounds of this set may vary
> from
> > individual to
> > individual. >>
[...]
> I think that this admission is a tactical
> mistake.  If the set of all bears (actual,
> possible, past, present and future, etc.) varies
> from person to person, then you have essentially
> conceded xorxes' point.  First, if every person
> has such a set, then there is a maximal set which
> embraces all of these (their union -- available

The union of all of these bear sets is /not/ what I would call the
"maximal set". The union of what I call this set is "everything" (as
in including pencils), because surely there are crazy people out there
who think/have thought that beds are bears, or that knives are bears.

Perhaps the /average/ of these sets, and surely the /consensus/ of
these sets would be the very closest we're ever going to come to this
"*ideal* mega-set".

> even for L-sets).  Since, ex hypothesi, no one
> actually has this as his set, then no one really
> means ALL bears when he say {lo ro cribe}, only
> "all the things I think of as bears."  Further,

There is no such thing as a universal set "all bears". There is only
what is considered "all bears" by each person, and what may be
considered "all bears" mutually by two people when they have changed
(even in minor details) the bounds of their model of what constitutes
a bear and reached a consensus. Each person has a model of something
like the most ideal or typical bear, and then a certain tolerance to
deviation - a certain bounds at which something is no longer a bear at
all. My tolerance may be smaller than yours. My 'typical bear' may be
a bit different than yours. This is simply a fact, and I'm not going
to gloss over it by saying "there is one ideal of 'bear' that is based
on the mind of no mortal".

> once you allow that what counts as a bear varies
> from person to person, you have to allow that for
> each person it varies with time (as it clearly
> does as the person grows in knowledge, but not
> obviously only that).  And once you do that, the
> step to "it varies with the person's interests at
> the time" is hardly a step at all.  And then we
> are at xorxes' place "all bears" is everything I
> count as a bear at the moment.

No, you've made a jump from "everything I consider a bear at the
moment" to "those bears that I am referring to at the moment". Both
can be expressed by the ambiguous "everything I count as a bear at the
moment". xorxes' position is that

"all bears must be accounted for..."

refers not to *all* bears, but the bears in the X. Now, someone who
says the above would still considers/counts/etc. a bear that is not in
the X a bear - they're simply not referring to it. It doesn't "count"
as a bear that they're *referring to*, but it still clearly counts as
a bear. The vagueness that I've asserted exists is as follows:

Let's say that a hunter shoots an abomination of some sort. It's a
sort of bear-cat looking thing. The hunter may not consider this a
bear. The forest ranger who comes by to check may consider this a
bear. A lab showing that the parentage of this thing is two bears (but
it was furless, skinny, and mutated) would give more insight to both
parties. The hunter may still try to say "yeah, but that's not a
/truly/ a bear", but odds are, this does fit his now-current
perception of what a bear is (in fact, his perception/bounds probably
didn't have to change, if 'through nature born of bears' was within
his bounds).

In that very contract, there's a definition of what a "cub" is. The
definition of "child" is much more prone to having incompatible
bounds. But they are the speaker, and they have set out exactly where
/their/ bounds for "bear child" are. Now the listener knows where
these bounds are - now they know the model that the speaker is using -
so they really have no argument to make regarding "well, these are the
bounds /I/ thought you were setting out".

Anyway, point is, the argument is wrong because it fails to
differentiate between "think truly is" and "am currently referring to
as".