ears and legs

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

>> In English, let us say one person asks "I am looking for
>> a man, a woman and a child.  Can you see them?"  If you can see only the
>> man's ear and leg, but have other evidence (e.g. voices) that tell you
>> that the others are present, you might indeed be considered to answer
>> truthfully if you say "Yes, I see them."
>
>But you wouldn't say "I see two of tham" if what you see is the man's
>ear and leg, would you?

You might if "emergent properties" of the mass of two are present.

Imagine two people are lost in the woods, and you have reason to believe
they might be together.  You know one is wearing a bright blue garment.
You and others are looking, and you spot through the underbrush,
something bright blue and appropriately sized moving.  You might yell to
the others "I see them", even though you actually have not seen any
piece of any person, but merely the garment of one of the people, and
even though you don't actually know that the second person is with the
blue-garbed one.

The bright-blueness is an emergent visually-detectable property of the
mass of the two people in that we can attribute it to the mass even
though it is really a property of one indivdual.  It happens to stem
from a property of only one component of the mass.  On the other hand,
if you found a trail of blood, and tracks of one of the two people, you
would not say that you saw "them" and probably not "signs of them" if
there was an absence of indication of the second person.

On the other hand, you would not say "I see them" if you saw nothing
and heard both of their cries for help. %^)

lojbab