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loi'e: singulated prototype or whatever. There's only one Mr Bird. All the exhibit Bird Nature partake of Mr Bird, as avatars or whatever.
I want to talk to Mr Bird ( = a bird, any bird.) "Where does this bird live?"I reject your individuation. Mr Bird lives in Uzbekistan and Mexico and Burkina Faso. Not on Mars, though.
"So wherever there is an individual bird in my ontology, Mr Bird is in yours."
If you say so. "Mr Bird has the haeccity of 'bird'" What I call Bird Nature. Sure. "Only what is intrinsic to 'bird' can be claimed of Mr Bird" Sure. "Can Mr Bird fly?" Yes. "This penguin here; it does not fly. Is it still an avatar of Mr Bird?"It has Bird Nature. I describe Mr Bird as flying, but I reject your laundry list in defining Mr Bird. Though this avatar happens not to fly, it too partakes of Bird Nature. Your Wittgenstein said something about family relationships that is pertinent here.
"But if all avatars have property X, will you not admit that Mr Bird has property X? For example, Mr Bird is a subclass of Mr Animal."
I will concede this. "And if no avatars can have property X, neither does Mr Bird."I would make a more restricted claim, to make sure this is not a contingent property, that just happens to be lacked. {no mu'ei} might do the trick.
"What if flying characterises some avatars and not others? I think we have three alternatives:
1. Mr Bird can fly: TRUE. Mr Bird cannot fly: FALSE. 2. Mr Bird can fly: TRUE. Mr Bird cannot fly: TRUE. 3. Mr Bird can fly: NA'I. Mr Bird cannot fly: NA'I.In case (1), we have my statistical Median Bird, which is not your Mr Bird. For if you are seeking Mr Bird, (1) would rule out a penguin as being an avatar of Mr Bird."
I don't like where you're going with this, but I will accept that."Case 2: I already have a word for your Mr Bird in my language. {loi cipni}. Like Mr Bird, it is a singularisation --- there's only one of them. Anything true of an individual bird is true of Mr Bird. When you talk to a penguin or to an albatross, you talk to Mr Bird."
... Case 3 is starting to look more attractive. ***Somewhere along this line, I must have committed a grievous error. But our Forefathers spoke of Mr Bird as a mass, and masses make a lot more sense as a Trobriander basis of ontology than a lambda expression.
In yr recentmost long email, And, you may have already refuted part of this. And I can't believe lx.bird(x) really is the same as {loi cipni}. But out this email goes anyway...
-- Dr Nick Nicholas [Stephen] King published _The Green Mile_ as Research Assistant the first serialized novel since the 1920s, French & Italian in a gesture that was meant to recall the University of Melbourne serial work of Dickens. No doubt, King is the Australia Dickens this century deserves. nickn@hidden.email -- Richard von Busack, _Metro Santa Cruz_, http://www.opoudjis.net Dec. 8-15 1999, p. 29.