* Tuesday, 2011-10-25 at 02:07 +0100 - And Rosta <and.rosta@gmail.com>:
> Martin Bays, On 25/10/2011 01:25:
> > * Tuesday, 2011-10-25 at 00:45 +0100 - And Rosta<and.rosta@gmail.com>:
> >
> >> Martin Bays, On 24/10/2011 19:46:
> >>> * Monday, 2011-10-24 at 19:22 +0100 - And Rosta<and.rosta@gmail.com>:
> >>>
> >>>> Martin Bays, On 24/10/2011 16:14:
> >>>>> * Sunday, 2011-10-23 at 18:57 -0400 - John E. Clifford<kali9putra@yahoo.com>:
> >>>>>> On kinds, my position is just that kinds (if you want to use that
> >>>>>> word) are just biggest bunches viewed in certain ways and so call for
> >>>>>> nothing other than things of the ordinary sort.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I seem to be in agreement. But I guess no-one else is, so far.
> >>>>
> >>>> I don't think me and xorxes disagree with you and John. If there is
> >>>> disagreement, it is over how many are in the biggest bunches. You,
> >>>> I gather, would say that there is only one possible cardinality for
> >>>> the biggest bunch of broda, whereas xorxes and I would say that the
> >>>> universe, or universe of discourse, can be understood in infinitely
> >>>> many different ways, such that across these different ways the
> >>>> cardinality for the biggest bunch of broda varies from one to
> >>>> infinity. I think xorxes and me would also say that this holds also of
> >>>> referents of {la}, and also pronouns like {mi, do}, and that these
> >>>> biggest bunches are treated like individuals.
> >>>
> >>> This last - reification of bunches as individuals - is the only point of
> >>> disagreement I would consider key.
> >>
> >> Would you say that the referents of la& do are always treated like
> >> individuals? Or that when the referents are individuals they're
> >> treated as individuals and when the referents are bunches they're
> >> treated as bunches? If the latter, then we might still agree.
> >
> > I think the referent of any term, {la foob} and {do} included, is
> > a bunch. There are minimal ("atomic") bunches, i.e. ones with no
> > subbunches other than the bunch itself - we can call these individuals.
> > We can say that a bunch is a bunch of the individuals which are its
> > minimal subbunches.
>
> Encouragingly, then, I think we're in agreement here.
Surely some mistake!
So is this all you meant by "these biggest bunches are treated like
individuals", not that you actually introduce new individuals to the (or
a second) domain to substitute for the bunches? I understand xorxes as
doing the latter.
> >> It depends how many lions there are. You're free to think it perverse
> >> of me to think there is only one lion (-- that all lions are one and
> >> the same), just as I might think it is perverse of you to think there
> >> is only one Obama (-- that all Obamas are one and the same). Given
> >> that we may disagree how many lions and Obamas there are, it can't be
> >> reasonable to insist on our agreeing on the number of lions and Obamas
> >> as a prerequisite to us communicating in Lojban.
> >
> > But unless you're being *really* perverse, we don't actually disagree on
> > how many lions there are, just on what the phrase "how many lions there
> > are" means.
>
> No, I do mean we disagree on how many lions there are. Or rather, we
> disagree on criteria for deciding how many lions there are --
> especially on criteria for deciding whether Lion X and Lion Y are the
> same or different. The disagreement isn't about what "how many lions
> there are" means.
Now I'm not sure that you aren't being really perverse.
If Lion X is equal to Lion Y, then they satisfy the same predicates. So
if we can agree that Lion X is called Nigel while Lion Y is called
Samantha, or if X likes to eat gazelles while Y prefers humans, then we
must agree that there are at least two lions. Right?
Now you might say that there is just one lion, Lion, which has an
instance which is called Samantha and has an instance which is called
Nigel. But if you claimed this in english, I would suggest that you look
up 'lion' in the dictionary, which will make it clear that lions aren't
things which have instances - they're things which have claws. You are
of course free to talk about this entity, but you can't call it a lion,
because it isn't.
I think the same should go for lojban and {cinfo}. It's part of the
definition of the word {cinfo} that an individual which cinfos is
a lion, not something which has instances which are lions.
Similarly, a bunch cinfos iff all the individuals below it do, i.e. iff
it is a bunch of lions.
> I think the criteria for counting lions should be left up to the
> individual speaker's personal theory of lion-counting; it's not for
> Lojban to prescribe a particular theory of lion-counting.
We might debate whether siamese twin lions count as one lion or two, and
we can conduct that debate in lojban in the obvious way. But I guess
that isn't what you mean.
> However, I also think it could be good for Lojban to lexicalize
> a number of different basic criteria for counting things, so that
> speakers may be linguistically explicit about their preferred
> lion-counting theory.
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