Re: [engelang] Myopic singularization

* Saturday, 2012-09-29 at 22:13 -0400 - John Cowan <cowan@hidden.email>:

> Martin Bays scripsit:
>
> > But couldn't, as John Clifford was I think suggesting, these things
> > also be true of the corresponding masses/bunches? If I ask how many
> > legs the mass of cats has, the answer might be large, but if ask how
> > many legs it has *at the location of a particular cat*, wouldn't it
> > make just as much sense to say that the answer to this is 4 as it
> > would to say this for the MS?
>
> Well, yes, but suppose the cat is sleeping wrapped around another cat?
> Then the present locus of the Cat-mass would have 8 legs.

And if one of the cats was white and the other black, what colour would
the MS be there? Same question for the mass?

> The point of MS is that it doesn't require you to go through
> a massification stage, but directly reduces all cats to a single cat
> *without* making a mereological sum first.

Point taken.

> > I take it you would say the same of the MS of the union of all cats
> > and all dogs?
>
> If by "union" you mean set union, then no, because MSing a singleton
> (a set or not) has no effect.  If by "union" you mean mereological sum,
> then no, for the same reason.

.

I meant: the MS of the elements of the set-union of the set of all cats
and the set of all dogs.

Martin