Re: bits & pieces to Jorge on quantifiers

[ucleaar <ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk>]

Jorge:
> > > 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.
> 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.

I think the problem in fact lies in conceptualizing the mass of Caesar
and my sock (especially as distinct from the mass of C's body and my
sock). Masses require some kind of internal homogeneity.

Thus I agree that it is highly strange to say the mass of C & my sock
wrote a book, but not for the same reasons as you. We continue to
disagree on the relevant points.

> > 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.

Yes. I should instead say it's {loi pa lo rorci} but not {loi suo re
lo rorci}.

> (I don't think it's either.) In any case, that would kill the concept
> of veridicality.

which could be a good thing...

> If I can say veridically that {lo rorci be lo jbobau cu smoka lo
> mapni} then descriptions are utterly useless.

Why? This is a question of how we conceptualize the world. There is
no objectivity. I wouldn't conceptualize the world in such a way as
to consider that sentence accurate, but it is possible to do so.

> I don't care about truth conditions. Let's just consider meaning.
> Does {lo djacu} admit your sock as a referent?

No, I don't think so. I don't think what I've been saying predicts
it could.

> 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.

Ah, well that's a different matter. If the sock is conceptualized
as a constituent of a mass that is djacu, then you could conclude that.
I doubt that I would conceptualize it in such a way, of course, but
that's somewhat beside the point.

> > > > 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.

Ah. Okay. What I think is that there is no objective criterion for
deciding whether the mass has all or less than all properties of
its consituents. In principle it can have all, but it needn't. It
is, as it were, in the eye of the beholder.

> > 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}.

Yes it does, although I think they can both describe the same state
of affairs (with from one to a zillion acts of carrying).

But at any rate, the difference between your two sentences is not
an argument for distinguishing masses from individuals. It could
be taken as an argument for distinguishing intrinsically bounded
entities from entities that are not intrinsically bounded.

> > 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).

Of course there are two relevant types of gadri; but I'm suggesting
they don't naturally or consistently capture a genuine semantic
distinction. {lo} is sometimes (ii) and sometimes (iii), depending on
the sense of the gismu (e.g. djacu versus gerku}. {loi} is always
unspecified between (i) and (ii). Thus we can say that {lo} means
"not (i), not unbounded", and {loi} means "not (iii), not intrinsically
bounded".

How this corresponds to the mass/individual distinction is a matter
of terminology. Putting it more clearly, I claim the valid taxonomy
is (i,ii,iii), and "mass/individual" is a falsely dichotomous way of
groping towards the valid trichotomy.

> > {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.

On what grounds do you say this? I of course don't agree, but maybe
you have compelling arguments.

> > 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}.

If that is correct, then {loi} is better understood as a group than
as a mass. I find what you say inconsistent - and incompatible -
with other things that have been said about {loi} (making it sound
more massy), but I can accept that {loi} may not refer to a mass
after all.

> > 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.

That I think is the current rule, but I think some people have dissented.
Certainly I think it makes (almost) as little sense as making {lo} default
to {pi suo lo}. What I said was assuming {loi} is just {loi} and not
{pi suo loi}.

> > > > >     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}.

By current stipulation, not by definition (in the sense that it doesn't
inhere in the meaning of {loi}). I oppose the current stipulation both
because it is inconsistent, applying only to {loi/lei/lai} and because
I don't know of any way of explicitly cancelling the implicit {pisuo}.

> > > 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.)

I know. Did I say somewhere I thought that was wrong? I may well have
done, thinking foggily.

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And