From pycyn@aol.com Tue Oct 30 13:56:27 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: Pycyn@aol.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_0_1); 30 Oct 2001 21:56:27 -0000 Received: (qmail 57462 invoked from network); 30 Oct 2001 21:56:27 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by m8.onelist.org with QMQP; 30 Oct 2001 21:56:27 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO imo-r03.mx.aol.com) (152.163.225.99) by mta1 with SMTP; 30 Oct 2001 21:56:27 -0000 Received: from Pycyn@aol.com by imo-r03.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v31_r1.8.) id r.b7.15f086b5 (4453) for ; Tue, 30 Oct 2001 16:56:12 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 16:56:18 EST Subject: Re: [lojban] a construal of lo'e & le'e To: lojban@yahoogroups.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="part1_b7.15f086b5.29107c02_boundary" X-Mailer: AOL 6.0 for Windows US sub 10535 From: pycyn@aol.com X-Yahoo-Profile: kaliputra --part1_b7.15f086b5.29107c02_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 10/30/2001 9:24:42 AM Central Standard Time, arosta@uclan.ac.uk writes: > The referent of {lo'e tanxe} is something > you can see and touch, so is not abstract, unlike anything > that is {du'u ce'u tanxe}, but one way of arriving at a conceptual > representation of {lo'e tanxe} is through a process of *abstracting* > away from the differences between individual boxes. > OK, so lo'e broda is not abstract but something I can see or touch (if any broda is, I suppose). Dare I go on to say it is concrete then? In any case, it must be a broda, since it would be odd to say the typical (etc. etc.) broda is not a broda at all (the typical Englishman is a Poland China sow in Silesia?). So it is a member of lo'i broda and some particular member. But then it has some properties that NO other member has and lacks some properties that EVERY OTHER member has. Needlwss to say, this raises the question of the relation between the properties of the typical broda and typical properties of brodas. If the properties typical of brodas are defined as those of the typical broda, then some properties which almost all brodas have are not typical and some which almost none have are typical. And this seems wrong. OTOH if the typical broda is defined as the one that has the typical properties, then the one we have singled out is not -- as we said -- the typical one (and no ohter one will do significantly better). Further, picking a candidate (doomed to fail) is an entirely useless job, since we already have to know what we want to know in order to pick the candidate -- namely the properties typical of brodas. In short, there is no typical broda, any more than there is an average man (having sex with 7.1 partners in his lifetime and raising 2.3 children and, at any one time, 1.4 dogs and 1.3 cats). Talking about the typical broda is a way of saying very complicated things about the set of brodas or its members or its mass (maybe "and" rather thna "or")in a fairly simple way (note how seldom anyone tries to completely unpack these sentences and what messes they get into when they do it -- even if they do it more seriously that making it absentence about an individual). In the case of typical/stereotypical//archetypical -- as opposed to statistical -- the claims are probably subjective or, at most, cliquish, to add to the p-roblems of unpacking what is said. Probably the only logical point here is: don't infer from {lo'e broda cu brode ije lo'e broda cu brodi} to {lo'e broda cu brode gu'e brodi}. --part1_b7.15f086b5.29107c02_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 10/30/2001 9:24:42 AM Central Standard Time, arosta@uclan.ac.uk writes:


The referent of {lo'e tanxe} is something
you can see and touch, so is not abstract, unlike anything
that is {du'u ce'u tanxe}, but one way of arriving at a conceptual
representation of {lo'e tanxe} is through a process of *abstracting*
away from the differences between individual boxes.


OK, so lo'e broda is not abstract but something I can see or touch (if any broda is, I suppose).  Dare I go on to say it is concrete then?  In any case, it must be a broda, since it would be odd to say the typical (etc. etc.) broda is not a broda at all  (the typical Englishman is a Poland China sow in Silesia?).  So it is a member of lo'i broda and some particular member.  But then it has some properties that NO other member has and lacks some properties that EVERY OTHER member has.  Needlwss to say, this raises the question of the relation between the properties of the typical broda and typical properties of brodas.  If the properties typical of brodas are defined as those of the typical broda, then some properties which almost all brodas have are not typical and some which almost none have are typical.  And this seems wrong.  OTOH if the typical broda is defined as the one that has the typical properties, then the one we have singled out is not -- as we said -- the typical one (and no ohter one will do significantly better).  Further, picking a candidate (doomed to fail) is an entirely useless job, since we already have to know what we want to know in order to pick the candidate -- namely the properties typical of brodas.
In short, there is no typical broda, any more than there is an average man (having sex with 7.1 partners in his lifetime and raising 2.3 children and, at any one time, 1.4 dogs and 1.3 cats).  Talking about the typical broda is a way of saying very complicated things about the set of brodas or its members or its mass (maybe "and" rather thna "or")in a fairly simple way (note how seldom anyone tries to completely unpack these sentences and what messes they get into when they do it -- even if they do it more seriously that making it absentence about an individual). In the case of typical/stereotypical//archetypical -- as opposed to statistical -- the claims are probably subjective or, at most, cliquish, to add to the p-roblems of unpacking what is said.  
Probably the only logical point here is: don't infer from {lo'e broda cu brode ije lo'e broda cu brodi} to {lo'e broda cu brode gu'e brodi}.
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