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Re: [lojban] Re: A (rather long) discussion of {all}
On 7/11/06, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
On 7/11/06, Maxim Katcharov <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Also, I've mentioned it before,
> but if we're not referring to any one of the students in "the students
> surround the building", then what is being considered?
But we are referring to each of the students. What we are not doing is
claiming, of each of the students, that they surround the building. There
is a difference between "refer" (that's what sumti are used for, to refer) and
"claim" (that's what selbri are used for, to claim something of the things
we refer to with the sumti). We may refer with one sumti to several things
at the same time, and in the same sentence not claim anything about each
of the things we refer to, but only make a claim about all the things we
referred to together.
Sure, if you'd like. The issue I have still stands. We're claiming
something about something, yes? That something, to me, is the students
treated as a single entity. How are you claiming it about the multiple
things? That it's true of them when you're considering them as a mass,
but not when they're apart?
Perhaps a ..."visual" explanation of the model of thought that I'm
using would help. Imagine that you have singular 'things' (identities)
floating around up there, and relationship-strand-things connect them
to each other/abstractions. So when you think of "humanity", a certain
singular thing is brought up, and you know by following some very
strong strands that it's composed of many humans, and so on. When
someone says "the students", a single thing is created, and then
perhaps they tell you that there were 100 of them, and a strand is
spun from that thing to that number.
Now, when you tell me that something is predicated of 100 singular
things, and nothing else is involved, but that none of those 100
things has a little strand (or a series of strands) connecting it
somehow to the building, I have to wonder what the heck's being
related. And really, speaking of these 100 singular things seems
aburd: unless you're a savant, I doubt that you're capable of keeping
that many things simultaneously in your mind in the first place. My
brain seems to go with two: the fact that they're students, and the
fact that there are 100 of them.