Subject: RE: sets, masses, &c. (was: RE: [lojban] Re: [jboske] RE: Anything but tautol...

From: And Rosta <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2002 14:50:54 +0000

>>> Jorge Llambias <[email-masked]> 03/04/02 02:19am >>>
#la and cusku di'e
#>Hence if we did want to distinguish between a bowl
#>full of apple and a bowl full of apples, I would suggest making
#>the first be full of lei apple and the second full of le'i apple.
#
#I think that the answer is that {lo plixe pesxu} is not {lo plise}
#nor {loi plise}. The notion of {plise} incorporates shape and peel,
#it is not just about a kind of material, so {lei plise} consists
#of complete apples.

That may be the best answer. Consider: a broken vase is still a vase, 
though it is less of a vase than an unbroken one, and as it gets more and 
more broken there will come a point where it ceases to count as a vase. So 
likewise, if you cut an apple in half, it can still be seen as an apple,
albeit one with deviant shape. If you then cut 5 apples in
half and put them in a bowl, you could then call them lei (mu)
plise. OTOH if all you know is that the bowl contains 10
apple halves, from an unknown number of apples (anywhere
between 5 and 10), then it would follow from your position
that these are not lei plise.

Anyway, 2 further questions:

1. How DO you say "apple" (as in "the bowl was full of apple") in
Lojban?

2. Why do we insist on understanding lV'i gadri to refer to pure sets
rather than to groups/teams? What is to be gained from this?

--And.