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

On 5/29/06, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:

On 5/29/06, Maxim Katcharov <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com> wrote:

> > > What surrounds the building?
> > > (The students.)
> > > Does each student surround the building?
> > > (No.)
> > > Then what is it that surrounds the building?
> > > (The students.)
> > > So you mean the students together?
> > > (No, the students.)
> > > ...
> >
> > The last one should be: "Yes, the students do it together."
> >
> Your definition of "together" seems very strange.

I didn't offer a definition of "together". The sentence "the students do it
together" is perfectly standard English as far as I can tell.

>No definition described at
>
> http://www.answers.com/together?ff=1
>
> seems to cover it, rather, they indicate that "together" is used to
> describe masses of things, or reciprocal relationships.

3.b. By joint or cooperative effort:
               We ironed the entire load of clothes together.

               The students surrounded the building together.



Interesting. To clarify what this definition seems to imply:

This has to do with grammatical aspects. For example, I might start
reading a book, pause halfway through, and then resume and complete
reading the book. Now, if you were to start reading the book, pause,
hand it over to me, and I resumed and completed reading it, we would
say that we read the book "together (3b)". So, together, we ironed the
clothes, and together, the students surrounded the building.

Is this a good explanation of your position?

While interesting, I argue that it is useless to spread completion
over several entities (without there being a "mass" involved). Let's
take the students example:

Let's consider some 50 positions that need to be occupied by students
for the students to surround the building. We draw an X in chalk on
each one of those positions.

(7.1) 50 students stand on those marks. Together (3b), the students
surround the building.

(7.2) 25 students stand on 25 marks, leave, and then another 25 to
stand on the other marks. Together (3b), the students surround the
building.

(7.3) Two students stands on 25 marks for 10 seconds per mark.
Together (3b), the students surround the building.

There's clearly something amiss with (7.2) and (7.3). Let's put this
aside for now, and consider another example, one with spacial aspects.
Consider a simple pencil of wood and graphite.

(7.4) Viewing this radially-outward, a piece of graphite begins the
pencil, pauses, and then the wood resumes - thus, a pencil is
completed. Together (3b), they are a pencil.

(7.5) A piece of graphite exists, and a hollow piece of wood exists.
Together (3b), they are a pencil.

What is amiss with (7.5) is the same thing that is amiss with (7.2)
and (7.3). Let's put this aside for now.

What is a composite entity, or "mass"? It is something whereby all its
component parts complete a piece of the pie (if you will). I am a
human; together (3b) my heart, lungs, bones, brain, consciousness,
[etc.] complete parts of "human". None does the job on its own, but
the job is completed (a composite entity exists) through their
combined efforts.

(As I've noted before, most if not all things are masses/composites.)

While it is interesting to note this "togetherness (3b)", it is, for
all practical purposes, useless. Why is it that (7.1) and (7.4) are
useful, while the others are not? Because in (7.1), the students are
component parts of the same "that which surrounds the building"; in
(7.4), the lead and wood are of the same "that which is a pencil".

"Togetherness (3b)" is not what we're getting at when we say "the
students surround the building" - it's about as important there as it
is in (7.2/3/5). What's important is that they're combining into the
/same/ entity. Into the same mass.

So, yes, the students surrounded the building together (3b) - yes,
each one "incompletely" surrounds the building, but as (7.2/3/5)
demonstrate, this is interesting, but beside the point. The point is
that their combined efforts created an actual surrounder of the
building. A mass.


> "The 50 students (individually)" refers to each entity, that is, we
> have a set of 50 entities that are students in mind. If we say that
> "the students run", we mean that it is true that each student of this
> set of 50 runs. If any of the students do not run, the statement is
> false.
>
> "Together the students" refers to the students as a collective entity.
> Sometimes, this collective entity can be seen as a "crowd" or a "mob".
> When people look at groups of people, they never have trouble
> recognizing that this amalgamation is an entity on its own - that is,
> they see a forest, and not 10000 trees, they see a book, and not 500
> pages. "The forest is burning", and not "3542 trees are burning". So
> when we say "together the students surround the building", we mean
> this thing that is a mass of students surrounds the building.
>
> Can you offer something similar? It can be as crude as you'd like to
> start, I just want /something/.

I can only repeat what I have already said: "The students" refers to all
the students in question, namely to Ann, Bob, Charles, Diana, ... and Zoe.
We can predicate things about them in many different ways. We can say
that they do things together, we can say that they do things individually, we
can say that they do things in groups. In all cases, we are predicating things
about the same students, i.e. about Ann, Bob, Charles, Diana, ... and Zoe.
Some things, like wearing hats, they do individually. Other things, like
surrounding the building, they do together. Some things, like holding hands,
they do in pairs, some things, like talking to one another, they do in groups
of three or four. But it is always the same students that do all these things.
Some things it is not even clear or important whether we consider they do
them together or individually. If I say "I see the students", I can
think of it as
saying that I see each of them or that I see them all together, it makes little
difference. What's so difficult to understand? Certainly it is not the informal
description that can cause any trouble. If it's the formalism that bothers you,
then you will have to go to one of the references I gave you. I went through
McKay's book and I didn't find any inconsistencies. I can certainly not explain


Where did you find a copy of the book?

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?ISBN=0199278148

states that the release date is July. Is it available elsewhere?


to you the whole formalism of plural reference with all the theorems in a post
here, perhaps if you find some dubious point we can discuss it, but nothing
you've said suggests that it is something in the formalism that bothers you.
You simply assert that plural reference is not sensible.


Upon further reading,
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plural-quant/
and many other sources of "plural quantification/predication" seem to
talk of the sort of plural quantification that we have in Lojban -
that is, inner/outer quantifiers. The "singularist viewpoint" that
they target seems to be the requirement of first order logic to split
something like "the apple and orange were on the table" into two
sentences, and the ensuing inability to cope with reciprocality. I
could be wrong, since I didn't read it in sufficient detail, but this
sort of "singularism" seems to have little to do with the
"singularism" that you identify my viewpoint as supporting. I would be
grateful if you could direct me to some material (perhaps a
subsection) that discusses your "singularism" specifically.