Re: sets and masses (was: Quine text)

[John Cowan <cbmvax!snark.thyrsus.com!cowan>]

Mark Shoulson writes:

> I think I'm slowly getting to understand the way {loi} works, from a
> statement made in passing by John Cowan in one of his papers.  As I see it
> now (as opposed to how I saw it 2 weeks ago and how I will see it in a
> little while), the mass is sort of talking about the individuals
> collectively.  That is, the qualities of the collective do not enter into
> things.  As John worded it, the qualities of the mass are the qualities of
> the members.  Thus, the collective of humanity, {lo'i remna}, is neither
> male nor female, but the mass of humanity, {loi remna} is both male and
> female.  {loi bidju} is small, since pebbles are small, but {lo'i bidju} is
> large, since there are many pebbles ({lo'i} works with qualities of the
> collective, not the individuals).

Absolutely correct.  You use the term "collective" for what I (and the
draft textbook lessons, and the cmavo list) call a "set".  Confusingly,
you also use "collectively" for the mass.  I suggest sticking to the terms
"set" and "mass", but all your statements in detail are perfectly correct.

> This leads me to worry a bit about the
> distinction between {loi} and {lo'e}, so I've gotta think about it more.

        loi ratcu cu blabi
        The-mass-of rats is-white.

        loi ratcu cu bunre
        The-mass-of rats is-brown.

        lo'e ratcu cu bunre
        The-typical rat is-brown.

In other words, some rats are brown and some are white, so the mass of all
rats (loi ratcu) is both brown and white.  The typical rat, though, is
brown (white rats are albinos).  Likewise, the typical cat has four legs,
although some cats have three legs and therefore

        loi mlatu cu se tuple ci da
        The-mass-of cats is-belegged-by three things.

(There is also "le'e", which is to "lo'e" as "le" is to "lo": the stereotypical
thing, the thing which I think of as typically having the property.)

> By that reasoning, {loi remna cu morsi} would work well for "Man is mortal"
> (would {lo'e remna} be better?), and {lo'i remna noroi morsi} would work
> for "Man is immortal" (i.e. the human race as an entity).

All these are correct.  However, any set whatever can be put in the x1 place
of "noroi morsi", because no set is ever dead, sets not being the sorts of
things which live or die.  Therefore,

        lo'i morsi cu noroi morsi
        The-set-of dead-things are-never dead

is also true.  I think the real point of "Man is immortal" is something like:

        roroiku da poi remna naku zo'u da morsi
        At-all-times there-exists a-human such-that-it-is-false that it is-dead.

By shifting the "naku" to the front, we get:

        naku noroiku roda poi remna zo'u da morsi

or even

        noroiku ro remna na morsi

which is terse and provably equivalent but hard to understand.

--
cowan@snark.thyrsus.com         ...!uunet!cbmvax!snark!cowan
                e'osai ko sarji la lojban