myopic singular

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@access.digex.net>]

I expect Cowan may disagree with me on some of the following, but,
replying to And and Jorge (and whomever else got mixed into this
thread):

>> > There are differences between masses and myopic singulars, as I'm
>> > sure you're aware.
>> What is a "myopic singular"?
>
>The idea is that one elects to conceptualize all instances of a category
>as being the same individual.  Think of how we conceptualize the moon.
>Each night we think of it as the same moon, but in principle we could
>think of the moon on one night and the moon on other nights as different
>moons.  Thinking of them as the same moon is myopic singularization.

Sounds like Trobriand island masses i.e.  Lojban "loi", which seems to
be myopically singular of the sort you are describing.  One thing that
seems to be forgotten is that loi broda displays all *relevant*
properties of a broda.  If the claim about loi broda can be accomplished
using only the nose of 1 member of broda, then that nose is sufficient
to stand for the mass.

The problem comes in dealing with claims like pada/cida cu stedu loi
remna.  The relevant portion of the mass ends up changing depending on
the claim, so both those claims have some truth and some falsity.

Compare the myopic singular mass of water:  "Water has (exactly) two
hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom".  Is that true for a bucket of
water?  Yes and no.  The problem with statements about prenu/remna is
that we sometimes think and translate the words as plural masses, and
sometimes as a myopic singular.  "People have exactly one head" seems
correct.  So does "People have approximately 6 billion heads" (the
latter MIGHT be qualified with "collectively", but not necessarily.

The bottom line question is what happens when you see 2 people.  Are
they two myopically singular humans?  If, per an example I used
elsewhere, you see only parts of their bodies sticking around a corner,
you cannot say "mi viska re lo'e remna".  I guess you could say "mi
viska loi re lo'e remna".

>> If you want to claim that only {pa da stedu lo'e remna}, then that
>> {pa da} has to be a {lo'e} type object as well, and only {lo'e}
>> objects could be in relationship with {lo'e} objects, which would
>> limit its usefulness enormously.
>
>No, I don't want to claim this.  But I would like to know how to say loe
>remna has exactly one head, two arms, two legs.
>
>One of the selling points in the Lojban publicity pack I received
>however many years ago was that it might Whorfianly reshape one's world
>view.  I think myopic singularity is the thing that's done that for me.

I think that lo'e remna CAN be used as a myopic singular as well in some
cases (but it probably doesn't map exactly to your concept).  But unlike
loi, it cannot be easily massified, and it implicitly rules out
abnormality from the prototype.  Thus, even if there is an occasional
freak that has two heads, you cannot say that lo'e remna has two heads.
[pa] lo'e remna cu se stedu [pa] lo'e stedu.  (I can accept that the
default outer quantifier should be "pa" since that is probably what is
going to be the normal usage.)

There may be an implicit abstraction when you try to use "lo'e" with
objects.  Perhaps a non-abstract "lo'e broda" means something like
"[pa?] da poi ckaji lo'e ka broda".  Would this formulation clarify
anything?  I'm not sure, since I don't like distinguishing abstract
sumti from non-abstract ones for such a definition, yet if they are
treated identically, "lo'e ka broda" expands with infinite recursion.

I therefore think of lo'e as a displayant of the ideal prototype
properties of the class.  I have disagreed with Cowan in that I think
that there can be plural individual lo'e, and they may or may not be
real existent referents, but they must all display the ideal prototype
properties.  Thus there may be many instances of "lo'e djacu selci"
which exist, since barring odd isotopes, I suspect that all djacu selci
display the prototype qualities of lo/lo'e djacu selci.  There may be
no existant prototype members of some other predicate for which
properties are more disparate, or else you have to decide that the set
of relevant properties is somewhat smaller in order to be
all-encompassing.

"le'e" comes about when you start imputing properties to a class which it
does not necessarily have.  I put oit into the language to allow for
discussions of prejudice or non-knowledge.  At this point we can make
very few statements about lo'e [dinosaur], but we all have an image of
le'e [dinosaur].  Again it is possible that a stereotypical individual
may exist, though perhaps less likely than for the case of the typical.
"The typical family has 1.5 children" is an example I had in mind for
"le'e", since such a property is not something any real family would
have, and yet it is a property which some impute to be the stereotype of
a family.

My main problem with both of these two is that they are to some extent
intensional - they are dependent on the speaker's conception of what the
prototype properties are in one case, and on the speaker's knowledge and
prejudices in the other case.  I almost want to find ways to glue some
extra sumti on there somewhere - observer and standard places - but I
guess we can do that with the BAI tags.

>> (In fact, I'm tempted to write {ta tanxe reno lo'e plise} for
>> "that's a box for twenty apples", i.e. a twenty-apple box, not
>> necessarily for any particular twenty apples.)
>
>Ooh no - please - rather {ta tanxe loe re no mei plise}.

How about ta tanxe loi reno lo'e plise, or
          ta tanxe lo'e reno lo plise?

Oh.  I guess Jorge suggested it and you could not fathom it %^)

>What I meant is that {do} on its own should be understood as "loe do",
>while if there's a quantifier it should be understood as "lo do".
>
>How, incidentally, does one actually say "le do", "lo do", "loi do",
>"loe do", etc.?  I presume these are ungrammatical.  Would {le suo do,
>(lo) suo do, loi suo/ro do, lei suo do, loe suo do} be okay?

"do", as well as many other KOhA, without a quantifier is ambiguous
between set/mass/individual, with a probable default of some kind of
mass (lei rather than loi).  A quantifier justifies implicatures about
which kind is intended - "redo" implies individuals numbering at least
re; "pimudo" implies masses.  Putting a gadri in front of the quantifier
makes things definite as to what is intended.  You must have a
quantifier in order to put the LE/LA gadri in front, but not the LAhE
operators.

>But you never encounter {lo'e remna}. Or rather, you can't conclude
>anything about {lo'e} remna from properties of the one you encounter.
>Let me try to be more clear:
>
>        mi penmi lo'e remna
>        I had a human encounter (to put it some way).
>
>        le se penmi be mi se stedu pa da
>        The one I encountered is beheaded by exactly one thing.
>
>But that does not allow me to conclude that:
>
>        lo'e remna cu se stedu pa da.
>        Human heads are only one.

I'm not sure you can ever "conclude" anything about "lo'e broda" in this
sense.  Something is true about "lo'e broda" by prototypical definition,
or it is indeterminate (or maybe fuzzy - but that is another thread) in
truth.  I guess you could say that "re lo'e remna cu se stedu re da" by
conclusion after observing just one "lo'e remna", though.

>No, because the default filler is not {da} but {zo'e}, which has lots of
>wonderful properties.  (Very lo'e-like now that I think of it, great
>that the vowels agree!)

It wasn't accidental %^)

Hmm.  Can you meaningfully say "re zo'e" or "re zu'i" in a sumti?  If
so, then you should also be able to say "re lo'e broda", because they
should be similarly parallel.  It might have been better to have "zo'e"
and "zu'i" reversed, given my following comment, but we split zo'e into
the two operators without thinking about formalism zo'o

>What are the properties of {zo'e}?  I thought it was that it could be
>equivalent to {da} or to {keha}; I didn't realize it had extra magic.

I have no idea what to make of equating "zo'e" to "ke'a" in the simple
sentence "zo'e blanu".  It does not mean merely "da", which is a pretty
weak claim in many cases.  "mi klama" = "mi klama zo'e zo'e zo'e zo'e"
wouldn't say much if it only meant "mi klama da de di daxipa"

I guess a formal definition of a zo'e in the nth place of a predicate
broda is "le sexiny broda" or perhaps "da voi sexiny broda" if there is
any distinction from the previous, where "sexiny" is the conversion
operator (SE) for the nth place (yes it's legal to do that to SE).

I guess that "zu'i" under the same principle would be "lu'i sexiny
broda".


lojbab