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

On 5/30/06, Maxim Katcharov <maxim.katcharov@gmail.com> wrote:


> > (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).
>
> Right, in those cases at no point in time would the building be
> surrounded by students.

In what ways are those cases different from the first?


In 7.1, there is a time x, such that at time x the students are surrounding
the building. In 7.2 and 7.3 there is no time x, such that at time x the
students are surrounding the building. I doubt that any speaker of English
would say, in the situations described in 7.2 or 7.3, "the students surround
the building".


> > (7.5) A piece of graphite exists, and a hollow piece of wood exists.
> > Together (3b), they are a pencil.
>
> It is perfectly sensible to say "a piece of graphite and a graphite tube
> constitute a pencil together", but in order for them to constitute a pencil
> together it is not enough that each of them exists, they must also be
> arranged in a certain way. Similarly for the students around the building,

Arranged in a certain way? So as to form a pencil, you mean?


Exactly.


> it is not enough  that they occupy some space for them to surround the
> building, they must occupy the space at the same time for the
> surrounding to take place.

They must be arranged in a certain way whereby they form a surrounder
of the building.


Indeed, that's what the predicate claims.


It's not my point that it matters what someone thinks at some point in
time. I may as well be stating that all dogs are animals. I don't
think of {rokci} when I say {braro'i}. But boulders are rocks, dogs
are animals, and human bodies (sans implications of consciousness) are
masses of human organs. I assume that while you don't have to specify
in your mind that a pencil is a mass of molecules, you nevertheless
would acknowledge that it is, factually, a mass of molecules, or at
the very very least a mass of some graphite and wood.


I certainly would, yes. But I would never say "May I borrow those molecules,
please, I need to jot something down", and I don't think anyone would. The
scientific question "what does a pencil consist of?" is fairly irrelevant to the
linguistic question "how does one refer to a pencil?".


This applies in the opposite direction. If you wanted to think of
molecules arranged pen-wise (assuming your mind was up to the task),
you could do that without having to think of the concept of "pen".


With some effort, yes.


However, not having to think of "pen" does not mean that those
molecules ("arranged pen-wise") aren't a pen, just as not having to
think of "body" does not mean that those organs ("arranged body-wise")
aren't a body. This is true even if you don't have a word for pen or
body.


If you are trying to prove that aggregates have linguistic existence, you
don't have to convince me, I'm on your side. I have no ontological problem
with the existence of groups as groups, as I said from the start.


You need not think of "mass" nor "group" when you think "the
students". However, "the students" /is/ a mass. The students are
"arranged surrounder-of-the-building-wise". The students are a
surrounder of the building.


That is a perfectly fine way of looking at it, and I have never disputed
that. What I have disputed is your claim that it is the *only* possible
or sensible way of looking at it.


The pluralist view would like one to believe that there's something
between mass and set.


Not between them, but prior to both. The pluralist view says that you can
refer to the students without making any reference to sets, masses or any
other encompassing entity.


"The students" is predicated like a mass ("a
surrounder of the building"), but because the speaker is not thinking
of it as a mass, it must be some sort of set (?) that in some special
way ("plurally") surrounds the building. That's not the case.


"The students" is a referring expression, not a pedication. Something
else is predicated of its referents. You don't need to know what the
predicate will be in order to identify the referents of "the students".


> 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.

Ok, so a set? A mass? Something else?


It does not refer to one thing, neither a set nor a mass nor any other
encompassing entity. It refers to many things (to many people in this case).


> 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

What is the distinction between doing things together and doing things
in groups?


I think "together" suggests "in a single group".

The guests arrived together. (They all arrived at the same time.)
The guests arrived in groups. (None arrived alone.)


> about the same students, i.e. about Ann, Bob, Charles, Diana, ... and Zoe.
> Some things, like wearing hats, they do individually.

je'e, A wore a hat; B wore a hat; ...

> Other things, like surrounding the building, they do together.

je'e, this is the mass of students example discussed above that you've
argued isn't a mass.


I never argued that they can't be referred to as a mass or that they aren't
a mass. Only that they need not be so referred, you need not refer to the
mass to say something non-distributive about them.


> 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.

It makes little difference which one you choose, but you do choose one
of them. You either think (and hence say) "I see the crowd", or you
think "I see each of the people".


Well, maybe you mean you do. Personally, I don't.


You tell me that "the students surround the building" is different
from "the students talked in groups" (clearly so). After giving these
seemingly random examples of predications that are different to you,
you ask me what is unclear. What is unclear is how "the students
(plurally) surround the pole" differs from "the students
(individually) surround the pole" and "together the students surround
the pole". Please provide explanations (or examples) that illustrate
/that/, in the same way that my crude explanations of "as a mass" and
"individually" indicated differences between those two.


"The students surrounded the pole" covers any of these situations:

The students surrounded the pole one at a time.
The students surrounded the pole in groups of three.
The students surrounded the pole five times each, in varying groups of four.
The students surrounded the pole taking turns for five minutes.
The students surrounded the pole for two hours.
The students surrounded the pole first together and then in pairs.
etc.
etc.

They are all covered by "the students surrounded the pole".

"The students surrounded the pole" just leaves many things unsaid. Each
of the longer sentences, which add more information, still leaves a
lot of things
unsaid. You just cannot hope to cover every possibility with a simple
sentence, you only say what is relevant in the context.

mu'o mi'e xorxes


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