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John:
> Great stuff, Nick, and 99% sound. Herewith a few nits:
>
> > A mass simply says that you cannot
> > make the bridi claim of individuals in the group, but only in the whole
> > group. {loi nanmu cu bevri le pipno}: not Andrew, Barry and Chris each
> > carried the piano, but the three of them in concert carried the piano.
>
> This needs tightening: it might be the case that each of them did so
> Loi kanba is hairy, and indeed ro kanba are hairy too
I don't concede that we have a proper logic for masses. Specifically,
I don't concede that it has been established to our general satisfaction
that masses *necessarily* inherit properties of their constituents,
though I do concede that my intuitions are that they at least usually
do.
> > Now, count all the Americans there are. Bob
> > and John and Robin and xod and Jay and Mark and and and.
>
> I first read "and and and" as "and And and" and was about to object that
> And's no American (he is, of course, sralo selmamta)
And proud of it. I do, though, have American relatives on both sides,
and hence can claim familial credit for, say,
http://www.angelfire.com/dc/1spy/Amerasia.html
(google for further details) -- a conspiracy theory to appeal to xod.
> > So where does this lo'e merko d00d live? How many kids has she got? Did
> > he cheat on his taxes last year? Do you think she'll go out with me?
> >
> > Now, these questions are nonsense, right?
>
> I don't think so. The first one may be na'i,
I don't know. Maybe the answer is "California"? Or "not North Dakota".
> and the second one is
> probably about the (statistically) average American rather than the
> typical one. But the third and the fourth have answers. I don't know
> the answer to the third (or even if the answer is known). But
> I think it's clearly just false, not meaningless, to claim that the typical
> American will go out with you Friday week. The overwhelming majority of
> them will not: indeed, those that will are a small and highly atypical
> subset
Me & xorxes opine that to determine the truth or falsity of these
examples requires a further metaphysical context not inherent in
lo'e. For example, if I know only one American girl, or if I am
fixated on one in particular, then when I do my squinting, her
features may persevere as all other Americans abstract away. And lo,
she, lo'e merko, may indeed go out with me (-- sorry Nick!
nobody can compete with my sexual magnetism...).
Now, I know that you and Adam & very possibly Nick don't squint
in this way, but our differences are different theories of squinting,
not different theories of lo'e.
> > (If I can't become a lecturer, I'll try
> > the next best thing...)
>
> Man subjects us all to a (highly witty and entertaining, actually) lecture,
> and says he can't become a lecturer. He is a lecturer. He reminds me of
> the people who upload megabytes of fiction to the Web for all to read and
> then whine that they can't get published
He is a lecturer, but without having to do all the marking, all the
admin, all the office politics, all the publishing for publishing's
sake, all the brownnosing indolent but litigious customer-students
(who when you correct their punctuation complain at the student
consultative committee that you are discouragingly reminding them
that you are the lecturer and they the student)...
> As a final note, I think that while "mi nelci lo'enu mi limna" is clearly
> better for "I like swimming", "mi nelci lenu mi limna" is just salvageable
> because of the specific (as opposed to definite) nature of "le". It
> means "I enjoy certain events of (I swim)", and that is not the *same*
> claim as the lo'enu version -- you might have in mind only highly
> particularized swims, but it need not be so
Certainly true.
--And.