On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 3:13 AM, tijlan
<jbotijlan@gmail.com> wrote:
On 15 August 2011 23:35, Jonathan Jones <
eyeonus@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Worse, if you adopt the axiom that a whole satisfies a property if any
>> subwhole does, the referents could also include rhinoceroses.
>
> No, it could not. While it is true that a brain is a mass of neurons,
> it is not true that a mass of neurons is a brain.
just a mass of neurons, so I wouldn't equate the two. Both statements
seem false to me.
First, what "other stuff" are you referring to, and second, not being composed of /only/ something doesn't make it true. An ocean is not 100% water, but would you say it is false that an ocean is made of water?
> While it is true that a rhinoceros has a brain, it is not true that a
> rhinoceros is a brain.
The confusion of a part with a whole is common even in Lojban the
logical language. Consider this:
mi viska gi'e satre gi'e pensi
What exactly does "mi" refer to, such that all the connected bridi
mutually hold true for it? Is it a pair of eyes, an arm, a brain, the
whole body, or something else?
The whole body. However, especially in this case, the whole is not equal to the sum of it's parts. The entity which is being referred to by {mi} is not merely a composite of eyes, arms, etc. Further, eyes do not see. Eyes merely generate neural impulses in reaction to the stimulus of being bombarded by photons, which are then carried to a specific area of the brain, where the impulses are interpreted. Seeing is not possible without both eyes and brain. Similar arguments can be used for the other two examples.
If the whole body rather than
particular organs can be said to viska AND satre AND pensi, the same
principle would allow us to say
A rhinoceros is processing neural inputs and breathing.
instead of
A rhinoceros' brain is processing neural inputs and its lungs are breathing.
Function-wise at least, then, it would seem ok to think that a
rhinoceros 'does brain' as much as a brain 'does brain'. And, given
that "does X" and "is X" are often interchangeable interpretations of
a predicate in Lojban --
No. A rhino can be said to be processing neural inputs, but this is pensi, not besna. The definition of besna is "x1 is a/the brain [body-part] of x2". "Often interchangable" is not "always interchangeable".
zo'e rirni
something 'is a parent'
something 'does parent'
zo'e pensi
something 'is a thinker'
something 'does thinker'
zo'e matra
something 'is a motor'
something 'does motor'
A motor is a thing. It is not a property, nor an event, nor any other abstract. It is a concrete, tangible object, and so, like besna, is not something that can be "done", only something that can "be".
-- we have to consider whether or not that applies to "besna".
Depending on that semantic arrangement, we could have the following:
lo besna cu besna .ije lo [rhinoceros] cu besna
A brain 'does brain'. And a rhinoceros 'does brain'.
A brain 'is a brain'. And a rhinoceros 'is a brain'.
The first two are false because a brain is not something that can be "done". The fourth is false because a rhinoceros is not a brain, it is something of which a brain is a part of.
Your argument is similar to saying that rational numbers are whole numbers. The set includes the subset, but the set does not necessarily include the set.
Should this be not allowed for the concern about the fallacy of
composition, then we would have to pay as much critical an attention
to expressions with such implications as:
mi se kanla .ije lo kanla cu viska .ije mi viska
If the eyes are part of me, and if it's the eyes that see things, then
to say that *I* see things would be to commit the fallacy in question,
unless we recognized some special equation between the parts and the
whole.
>> So with this meaning of {lo}, how would you unambiguously translate
>> "These brains are conscious", without the possibility of being
>> misunderstood as claiming that their component nerves are, nor electric
>> razors?
>>
>> I can only see {ro lo ti besna poi ro ke'a besna cu sanji}.
>
>
> {lo besna cu sanji} is the simplest way to put it.
I suppose many would agree that {sanji} can predicate a rhinoceros too
or other danlu for that matter. We could have the following
simultaneous statements:
lo besna cu sanji .ije lo danlu cu sanji
Would you say this is false, confusing a part with a whole?
I would say that I am a conscious animal who possesses a brain. The question was how would I say "these brains are conscious", not whether I believed such a statement to be truth.
mu'o