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loi (was Re: [lojban] Rosetta Project Genesis translation)

At 5:42 PM -0400 5/23/01, pycyn@aol.com wrote:

In a message dated 5/23/2001 3:42:09 PM Central Daylight Time,
rob@twcny.rr.com writes:


Okay, I see this translation referring to {loi danlu} and calling it a
"massified singular", glossing it as "Mr. Beast". I've seen this referred
to in
a few other old lojban discussions (but only once in the time I've been on
the
list). What the heck does this mean?



I haven't gotten to the details yet, but this one of those recurring
discussions: What does {loi broda} mean?  The short answer is "the mass of
all lo broda," but that proves to be ignotum per ignotius and leads to
various stories about what a mass is.  One of these (Quine
In Quine's set theory and in many others, sets are commonly defined so that ( x | f(x) ) is the set of all x having the property f, where f is subject to certain syntactic restrictions. I find it much easier to deal with such sets using lo'i for many purposes than with the much fuzzier notions you get into below. 


 or Trobriand
Islanders?) is that the mass is an individual, each what we would call
individual broda, is merely a manifestation of that individual (I think this
may owe something to Christian theology, too), Mr. Broda.
Jewish legend also uses such notions. In Kabala, G-d prepared several vessels, and divided off several parts of himself to put into the vessels, which were unable to contain his radiance, and broke. We are sparks of that radiance, now bound in vessels that can hold our tiny sparks, trying to rejoin ourselves to the original radiant splendor. In some versions, animals, plants, and even inanimate objects also hold sparks.
The idea of the ideal individual of which all instances are but shadows is of course Platonic Idealism. 

There are, of course, numerous other forms of Idealism and pantheism.


Another view is
that a mass is a kind of goo and each individual is a piece of that goo. 

But then they aren't individuals, except on Deep Space Nine.


Yet
another is that a mass is a team of some sort.  And there are several other
tales, which I am trying to pull up out of the archives and put into some
semblance of order for my (curiouser and curiouser as I "correct" problems)
website.
You list three possible relations between the individuals and the "loi", corresponding to three different properties of all "loi". They can be 

o individuals that have manifestations, like Platonic Ideals and various gods
o substances with extent but not individuality, like water
o "teams" that are not sets but have members, like...what?
Each of these supposedly grammatical theories is in fact an ontology. Since we can't very well agree on the correct ontology on behalf of the rest of humanity, it would be better if we had a way to specify an ontology explicitly when we needed it. That is however a can of worms that I am happy not to have to deal with the reality of.
Please note that in Buddhist ontology some things are said not to fall in any of the categories 

Existence
Non-existence
Both existence and non-existence
Neither existence nor non-existence


Reminders of these would be very welcome.


Well, let's see...How about

o Existence as an aggregate of matter in spacetime?
o Mathematical existence of types of objects, categories, or models?
o "Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist." (Wittgenstein)?
o Paul Weiss's four modes of being (actuality, ideality, possibility, and God)?
o The mass of Plato's beard? ("...a tangled doctrine, which has often dulled the 
     edge of Occam's razor."--Quine)
How did this word get into Lojban in the first place? I understand lo'i (the set of individuals that...) but who thought of "mass of individuals" and what did *he* think he meant by it? 

--
"I can prove anything you like by whatever means you may require of me,
for the very simple reason that I am a monstrous clever fellow."
Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice, by James Branch Cabell