From arosta@uclan.ac.uk Wed Oct 31 08:47:58 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: arosta@uclan.ac.uk X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_0_1); 31 Oct 2001 16:47:57 -0000 Received: (qmail 85868 invoked from network); 31 Oct 2001 16:46:57 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by 10.1.1.224 with QMQP; 31 Oct 2001 16:46:57 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO com1.uclan.ac.uk) (193.61.255.3) by mta3 with SMTP; 31 Oct 2001 16:46:57 -0000 Received: from gwise-gw1.uclan.ac.uk by com1.uclan.ac.uk with SMTP (Mailer); Wed, 31 Oct 2001 16:23:18 +0000 Received: from DI1-Message_Server by gwise-gw1.uclan.ac.uk with Novell_GroupWise; Wed, 31 Oct 2001 16:57:51 +0000 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 5.5.2 Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 16:57:13 +0000 To: pycyn , lojban Subject: Re: [lojban] a construal of lo'e & le'e Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline From: And Rosta X-Yahoo-Profile: andjamin >>> 10/30/01 09:56pm >>> #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= =20 #broda is, I suppose). Dare I go on to say it is concrete then?=20=20 Yes #In any case,=20 #it must be a broda, since it would be odd to say the typical (etc. etc.)=20 #broda is not a broda at all (the typical Englishman is a Poland China sow= in=20 #Silesia?). So it is a member of lo'i broda and some particular member. B= ut=20 #then it has some properties that NO other member has and lacks some=20 #properties that EVERY OTHER member has.=20=20 But there is no other member. lo'e broda is the sole member of lo'i broda. On the other more mainstream ontology, either (a) there is no such thing as lo'e broda, and lo'i broda is many-membered, or (b) when the gadri is not lo'e/le'e, the selbri means "is a version of lo'e broda". #Needlwss to say, this raises the=20 #question of the relation between the properties of the typical broda and=20 #typical properties of brodas. If the properties typical of brodas are=20 #defined as those of the typical broda, then some properties which almost a= ll=20 #brodas have are not typical=20 I don't follow that reasoning #and some which almost none have are typical.=20=20 or that #And this seems wrong. OTOH if the typical broda is defined as the one tha= t has=20 #the typical properties, then the one we have singled out is not -- as we s= aid=20 #-- the typical one (and no ohter one will do significantly better). Furth= er,=20 #picking a candidate (doomed to fail) is an entirely useless job, since we= =20 #already have to know what we want to know in order to pick the candidate -= -=20 #namely the properties typical of brodas. #In short, there is no typical broda, any more than there is an average man= =20 #(having sex with 7.1 partners in his lifetime and raising 2.3 children and= ,=20 #at any one time, 1.4 dogs and 1.3 cats). Talking about the typical broda = is=20 #a way of saying very complicated things about the set of brodas or its=20 #members or its mass (maybe "and" rather thna "or")in a fairly simple way=20 #(note how seldom anyone tries to completely unpack these sentences and wha= t=20 #messes they get into when they do it -- even if they do it more seriously= =20 #that making it absentence about an individual). In the case of=20 #typical/stereotypical//archetypical -- as opposed to statistical -- the=20 #claims are probably subjective or, at most, cliquish, to add to the p-robl= ems=20 #of unpacking what is said.=20=20 I agree with all this, I think.=20 #Probably the only logical point here is: don't infer from {lo'e broda cu=20 #brode ije lo'e broda cu brodi} to {lo'e broda cu brode gu'e brodi}. First of all, hang on: if what you're saying is addressed to me, then I had= explicitly said to John that I don't think lo'e should be understood in terms of typic= ality or averageness -- at least not definitionally. Second, whichever interpretation of lo'e one goes for, inferences of any so= rt about lo'e broda could be pretty iffy in some cases. So again, I agree with your moral, I think. (except I can't remember what "gu'e" means...) --And.