Qualities & Properties (was: Re: Another stab at a Record on ce'u

[Invent Yourself <xod@sixgirls.org>]

On Wed, 29 Aug 2001, Nick  NICHOLAS wrote:

>
> cu'u la xod.
>
> [Free ka]
> >I am not sure this distinction is useful enough.
>
> *shrug* Lojbab invokes it, and wants his 'abstract' {ka} to be the
> default in those contexts (whether he realises it or not. :-) The debate
> is on the very issue of whether this distinct is in fact useful or not.


It may be time for him to step up and offer some examples.



>
> >I might open a new can by demanding an example of the difference between
> >"quality" and "property". Or I could be Lojbanic and observe that clearly
> >whatever difference there may be in English, in Lojban at least as far as
> >ka is concerned, there isn't any.
>
> I think I've been pretty explict on these (and I've been explicit
> precisely because I know you like to raise this objection):
>
> .i lo se ckaji be su'o pa su'e re steci cu me zoi gy. property gy.
> .i lo se ckaji be zi'o .a piro loi selbri sumti cu me zoi gy. quality gy.
>
> {le ka ce'u xendo zo'e zo'e} is a property.
> {le ka ce'u xendo ce'u ce'u}, which some would call {le si'o xendo},
> and others {la'ezo xendo}, (and which Lojbab was originally thinking of
> as {le ka zo'e xendo zo'e zo'e}) is a quality.
>
> Properties are properties of something; qualities are in and of
> themselves.


This sounds like a metaphysical distinction that, like all of them,
doesn't actually refer to anything in reality, but is an artifact of our
concepts.

Dogness, a property or a quality? Fiveness? There can't be any instance of
a quality existing outside of an observable.




-----
"It is not enough that an article is new and useful. The Constitution
never sanctioned the patenting of gadgets. [...] It was never the object
of those laws to grant a monopoly for every trifling device, every
shadow of a shade of an idea, which would naturally and spontaneously
occur to any skilled mechanic or operator in the ordinary progress of
manufactures."   --  Supreme Court Justice Douglas, 1950