Re: dying gasp of latest masses thread

[jorge@phyast.pitt.edu]

la stivn cusku di'e

> this thread can't really die till its been fuzzed. the issues regarding mass
> description can be simplified considerably with a fuzzy approach.

Lojban threads never die. At most, they go away for a while to get their
strength back.

> Thus a gaggle of 23 geese, one of whom has jumped into the buckingham
> fountain, and the other 22 of which are happily eating geese can be
> described as:
> The gaggle of geese is slightly in the fountain.

        lei gunse cu tolmutce zvati le jausro

> If 8 are in the fountain:
> The gaggle of geese is somewhat in the fountain.

        lei gunse cu milxe zvati le jausro

> If 19 are in the fountain, and the rest are eating grass:
> The gaggle of 23 geese is mainly in the fountain.

        lei reci gunse cu mutce zvati le jausro

I don't have any problem with those. They work well.


> The atomic basis of matter is a very successful theory, ladies and
> gentleman. Why should we not acknowledge this in our lojban usage?

The theory of relativity is also very successful, but I wouldn't dream
of using it when talking about ping-pong balls, nor do you use it
for water molecules. It's a matter of relevancy. The atomic basis of
matter is mostly irrelevant for everyday purposes.

> When I describe the synthesis of a drug in my laboratory, I say we made
> picomole quantities or millimole quantities or kilomole quantities (!) of
> the drug. A mole is a *number* of molecules. One mole of water is 6.02 E23
> molecules of water.

In your laboratory of course you want to speak in terms of moles ({molro}
in Lojban), but usually not when asking someone for a glass of water.

> A molecule is discrete, thus water is a collection of
> discrete members, not an infinitessimally divisible mass of waterish stuff.
> The quantum behavior of molecules is irrelevant for groups of several
> hundred or more water molecules; smaller collections of water have
> interesting, surprising behaviors.

Right, and that's why it doesn't make that much sense to use the same
word for such different concepts. One concept (the most useful for
most people) is {lo djacu}, "a quantity of water". Another concept is
{loi djacu selci}, "a mass of water molecules", useful when the fact
that your object is made of molecules has relevance.


> many of the discussions seem to be about "the best" way to say something in
> lojban or exactly how something translates into english. if we are all
> worried about "the best" way to say something, we will tend to gloss over
> certain little idiosyncratic differences in worldviews which are most
> interesting in shedding light in how we think differently about our mutual
> situation. I am more interested in whether or not the lojban utterance i
> produce accurately reflects the (possibly idiosyncratic) way i think about
> the world.

Yes, but how do you know if it reflects it accurately if we don't even
know what it means?  The discussions are about what this or that means,
and practically the only way we can discuss it is by comparing it with
English approximations.

Jorge