Re: [lojban] "lo no"

[Escape Landsome <escaaape@gmail.com>]

Hello

> "A half of one" states that "one" is cardinal to "a half", i.e. you
> can't have "a half" without "one" of which to leave the other half. As
> far as "mei" is concerned, "pipa", "pimu", "cipiso", etc. are
> derivatives from elementary cardinal numbers (0, 1, 2, 3...). And
> there is at least one logical reason why we shouldn't use such
> derivatives as an inner quantifier, as a proper cardinality value of
> something. We must be wary of the fallacy of division:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_division
> Consider this example:
>
> lo pimu vinji
>
> Can we safely say a 1/2 'airplane' is an airplane with vinji2 and
> vinji3 (i.e. a full-fledged vinji1)? A part of something doesn't
> necessarily inherit all properties of that whole. If lo broda lacks
> certain properties that define lo brode, lo broda may not be
> identified as lo brode, any more than it can be *associated* with lo
> brode. We can avoid this issue by not messing up the cardinality &
> reference of "lo vinji" itself and instead outer-quantifying it:
>
> pimu lo vinji
> pipa lo pimu lo vinji


Considering the cardinality of rational numbers, I would like to say
that a 1/2 plane makes sense to me, essentially because a plane has a
plane of symmetry which divides it into two (rather) equal halves.

I suggest that, if something has a symmetry of order N, speaking of a
1/N of this object is valid (and should be regarded as an example of
positive non-zero valid cardinal for this thing)

Yet, a 1/1000000 plane does not exist, and is certainly no screw-bolt,
unless of course you live in a world where planes are just heaps of
1000000 screw-bolts

The *structure* of the massive thing plays a crucial role in the
determination of symmetries.  So, you can't say an electron is a 1/N
plane (N very very big number), because there is no symmetry in the
way the electrons are assembled (no mentioning the fact that there are
other subatomic particles like protons and neutrons, of course)

--.esk.

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