Re: bits & pieces to Jorge on quantifiers

[jorge@phyast.pitt.edu]

And:
> > The mass didn't write it, one of its components did. For the mass to
> > have written it, there would have to be some contribution or some
> > meaningful relationship from all components.
> This is not obviously correct.
> In the case of, say, "Water is on the floor" (or "People stream
> past me", "Crockery needs washing"), my intuitions tell me
> that I needn't be saying that the entirety of a bounded mass of
> water is on the floor.

I didn't say that the properties of the mass follow in any algorithmic
way from those of the components. I agree that not every molecule
of water must be in contact with the floor to say that some water
is on the floor, because there is meaning to the claim that the single
entity that is a mass of water is on the floor.

There is no meaning for me to say that the mass of Caesar and your sock
wrote a book. That entity is not the sort of entity that writes books.
The mass of water entity is the sort of entity that can be on the floor.
For both I only look at the mass, not at its components.

> For your rule to hold, it must be the
> case that
>   (1a) All masses are bounded;*
>   (1b) (?) All masses have recognizable components;
>   (1c) A mass cannot have a property of one of its components
>        unless all its components have the property.

No. You can ignore the components to determine the properties
of the mass. (I'm not sure what the "bounded" part means.)

> That may turn out to be a desirable stipulation, but it is unlike
> my understanding of masses, for which it is the case that
>   (2a) Masses are by default unbounded, but can be bounded;
>   (2b) Not all masses have recognizable components;
>   (2c) A mass can share properties with not all of its portions
>        (cf. "The milk in the saucepan was boiling over the rim")

I have no problem with this. I don't agree that a mass _must_ share
all the properties of its components, but I agree that it may.

> However, all this said, while I continue to claim that
> {la lojbab joi le do zunle smoka ku joi la iulius kaesar cu rorci
> be lo jbobau} and {la lojbab joi le do zunle smoka ku joi la iulius
> kaesar cu du lo rorci be lo jbobau}, I suspect I may have been
> wrong to suggest (as I did in the inception of this thread) that
> {la lojbab joi le do zunle smoka ku joi la iulius kaesar cu du loi
> rorci be lo jbobau}.

If it's {lo rorci be lo jbobau} then it has to be also {loi rorci be
lo jbobau} in my opinion. (I don't think it's either.)

In any case, that would kill the concept of veridicality. If I can
say veridically that {lo rorci be lo jbobau cu smoka lo mapni} then
descriptions are utterly useless.

> It wouldn't make them useless. Truth-conditions are of marginal
> importance in semantics (understood as located in the mind) - they're
> a sometimes useful expository device, but little more.

I don't care about truth conditions. Let's just consider meaning.
Does {lo djacu} admit your sock as a referent? What do you understand
if I say {lo djacu cu cpana le loldi}? Do you think that I could
conclude that from seeing that your sock is on the floor? I don't.

> > > For masses, I see no reason to say that
> > > masses don't have all properties of their constituents.
> > I see no reason to say that they do.
> Well, in addition to the rest of what I've said, there is the
> impossibility of establishing criteria for which properites a
> given mass does share with its constituents.

Exactly, but why should we have to establish those criteria?
It has its own properties, and the relation with the properties
of its components varies with the kind of broda and the kind of
property. When you say that some water is on the floor you don't
care at all what each molecule is doing.

> However, I am dubious about whether bounded masses should properly
> be considered masses. We can count them, for instance, which makes
> them look like individuals.

It may be too hard to count them, or irrelevant. In any case, it
is necessary to distinguish them from individuals, even when you
can count the components. {lei ci nanmu cu bevri le pipno} means
something very different than {le ci nanmu cu bevri le pipno}.

> In work on English I have recognized
>   (i) unbounded entities
>   (ii) extrinsically bounded entities (e.g. {re lo djacu})
>   (iii) intrinsically bounded entities (e.g. {lo gerku})
> (in English at least these behave differently from each other in
> certain respects).

But in Lojban we can only distinguish (with gadri, at any rate)
individuals and masses (which are also individuals in themselves,
but they are masses as seen from the point of view of the components).

> {loi broda} at present can be (i) or (ii). I think that may be
> unhealthy.

It can't be (ii). You can take fractions of a mass, but not multiples.

> Our notion of "the typical mass" seems radically different. For me,
> "there's wheat/water/pork/pig all over the place" is a canonical example.
> Having components is uncharacteristic of masses.

If you use {loi broda} or {lei broda} you are commited to the components.
It is them that satisfy the predicate {broda}.

> > > The existence of masses and the existence
> > > of their constituency are mutually dependent.
> > I'm not sure what that means. "Mass" is a way of reference that contrasts
> > with "individual".
> Only in the case of unbounded masses - if, that is, {lo djacu} is an
> individual. Or are all masses individuals? What's the difference?

All masses are individuals in a sense. {lo djacu} is a quantity of
water, so you would call it a mass term in English. In Lojban you
can say {lo djacu cu gunma so'i selci}, but that is not obvious
just from the reference {lo djacu}. On the other hand, just from the
reference {lei ci nanmu} it is obvious that {lei ci nanmu cu gunma
le ci nanmu}.

{lei} and {loi} make it clear what kind of components the mass has.
Other than that, everything can be taken as individual or as mass,
but what are the components may not be obvious.

> No fallacy. There's just one {loi ro lo tanxe}, or at least there's
> just one mass of all boxage.

{loi ro lo tanxe} is {pisu'o loi ro lo tanxe}, it is not the mass
but some fraction of the mass.

> > > >        pimu lei remna poi nenri le kumfa cu banzu le nu ky culno ry
> > > >        Half of the people in the room are enough to fill it.
> > > Well, maybe, in which case {pimu lo remna poi nenri le kumfa cu banzu
> > > le nu ky culno ry} or {pimu la ron poi nenri le kumfa cu banzu le nu
> > > ky culno ry} should be equally okay.
> > No, half the mass is enough, not half of one component.
> It depends on the size of the room... The point is that {pimu loi/lo/la}
> are all okay, but {loi/lo/la} don't entail {pisuo loi/lo/la} or {piro
> loi/lo/la}.

{loi broda} is by definition identical to {pisu'o loi broda}.

> > If I say that {lei remna poi nenri le kumfa cu banzu le nu ky
> > culno ry}, will you also conclude that {la ron poi nenri le kumfa
> > cu banzu le nu ky culno ry}?  How do you say that the people fill
> > the room without implying that each of them does?
> {pi mu loi remna} - an extrinsically bounded entity.

But that's what I said in the first place!

(Well, I used {lei remna}, otherwise you get half of all humanity.)

Jorge