Subject: Re: Three more issues

From: "Adam Raizen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 17:54:28 -0000

la xorxes cusku di'e

> la adam cusku di'e
> 
> >It's not really that masses have contradictory properties; rather
that
> >they take their properties from part of their components, and the
> >components may have contradictory properties.
> 
> I don't understand how one and the same thing can have a property
> and lack that property at the same time, unless I go into zen mode.

That's just how masses work, I guess, and maybe how the world works :)

> >It actually parallels the individual descriptors, I think. For
> >example, it's true that
> >
> >loi cinfo cu xabju le fi'ortu'a ije loi cinfo naku xabju le
fi'ortu'a
> 
> I agree that that is true, but for me {loi cinfo} means
> {pisu'o loi cinfo}, some part of the mass of all lions.
> There is nothing contradictory there. 

"loi cinfo" is "pisu'o loi cinfo", according to the book (chapter 6,
section 7)

> However, I would not
> agree with:
> 
> loi cinfo le fi'ortu'a cu xabju gi'enai xabju
> 
> because that would claim that the same part of the total mass
> of lions both lives and does not live in Africa.

IMO, it would be false because it claims that some part of the mass of
lions inhabits Africa, and also that it is false that some part (not
necessarily the same part) inhabits Africa.

> >Except that I want to make a claim about ALL lions, noting that
there
> >may be some exceptions, but without refering to some specific group
of
> >lions I have in mind.
> 
> Then you can use {piso'a loi cinfo}.

Only if I want to explicitly note exceptions, but I don't. I want to
make a claim about all lions, which will still be true logically, even
though I haven't bothered to actually check that each and every lion
lives in Africa.

> >To take another example, say a meat-eater says "loi rectu cu
kukte". m
> >does not want to claim that every piece of meat is tasty,
> 
> Unfortunately, you are thinking of {piro loi rectu} (and you
> do have the Book on your side for this) while for me {loi rectu}
> is {pisu'o loi rectu}, so we will both agree that it is true but
> for different reasons...

No, I'm thinking of "pisu'o loi rectu", as per the book.

> >However, it
> >would defeat the point of the statement to limit the claim to some
> >mass of meat that m has in mind.
> 
> I would say {lo'e rectu cu kukte} in that case, since it is not
> really a claim about any actual rectu, but rather about the
> se kukte.

I suppose that "lo'e" works okay for some of these uses, but there's
still a distinction that needs to be made.

> In your view of things, does the mass of five books also
> weigh 1, 1.5, and 2 kg? i.e does it inherit the properties of
> its submasses as well as those of its components?

Yes, it weighs all of them. Under most circumstances it's probably not
useful to claim those weights, but there might be circumstances. For
example consider the following:

a: i mi nitcu lo ki'ogra be li papimu
b: i lei mu cukta cu ki'ogra li papimu

The books may very well satisfy what a wants.

> Is {lei mu cukta} heavier or lighter than a 1.5 kg object? If
> you accept that strange inheritance of all properties and take
> it seriously, you end up with them being practically useless,
> but nobody really takes it seriously in practice, only in
> theory.

Both, if you want to force the meaning of "all 5 of the books
together, you can use "piro lei mu cukta cu ki'ogra li repimu". I
think this works if you consider the individual properties of masses
as special cases of the collective properties, when the group making
up the property is of size 1. Then "piro lei mu cukta" specifies that
we want a collective property involving the entire mass, and the only
one having to do with weight is "ka ki'ogra li repimu".

mu'o mi'e adam