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Re: [lojban] Individuals and xorlo





Le mardi 11 février 2014 06:15:45 UTC+9, xorxes a écrit :



On Mon, Feb 10, 2014 at 11:19 AM, guskant <gusni...@gmail.com> wrote:

{lo linji} in that universe of discourse are not individuals but an infinite number of non-individuals, 

I think you want "sirji" (segments), not "linji (lines). In the universe of discourse under consideration there are no segments or lines, there are only points. In that universe, we can use the predicate "linji" but with a slightly different definition than the standard: "x1 are all the points aligned with points x2". And "sirji" can be redefined for the points only universe as "x1 are all the points aligned between point x2 and (different) point x3".



I don't think the definition of {x1 linji x2} =ca'e {x1 se cimde pa da gi'e se cmima x2 noi mokca} excludes line segments, because cimde_2 may have a finite interval. We may call it {sirji} if you prefer, but actually the straightness is unnecessary for the current topic.


 
Now "lo sirji be abu bei by cu me lo sirji be abu bei cy" is fine, "the points aligned between point a and point b are among the points aligned between point a and point c". As you say, there is no individual "lo sirji" in this universe. "lo sirji" always refers to an infinite number of points.

The problem arises when you say that "lo sirji is a non-individual". It is not. lo sirji are just points, not "an" anything. You may call it a non-individual in some metalanguage, but in the language you can't, because there are nothing but points in the universe, nothing else. "lo pa sirji", in this universe of discourse, is nonsense, because the only things that can sirji cannot do it alone, they must always do it collectively in infinite numbers. There's only "lo ci'i sirji", "the infinite number of points aligned between two points". If you want to quantify over segments, for example if you want to say something about two segments, you are forced to move to a universe of discourse that has segments in it.



As you remarked on, our mathematical knowledge of lines prevented us from understanding, and la selpa'i has kindly changed our topic to {lo sidbo}.
 

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