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On Tue, 17 Dec 2002, Nick Nicholas wrote:
> 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.
I think that we have to look at Mr. Bird the same way we look at Mr. Nick
Nicholas: Does Mr. Nick wear diapers and suck on a pacifier? Yes,
sometimes he does. Usually he doesn't. Individu-izing Mr. Nick into a
collection of Nicks, one for each day or month, we see that only the baby
Nicks wear the diapers. When coagulated into a Mr. Nick, though, we
consider all the Nicks as a single entity, who is all the avatars
simultaneously.
So Mr. Bird usually flies (when he looks like an Eagle) but sometimes he
can't (when looking like a penguin). The contradiction lies in our
(reasonable?) difficulty in really seeing all birds as a single Mister.
This Mister stuff seems pretty useless to me, but that's exactly why we
need it!
I think that loi cipni has a billion wings, but Mr. Bird only has 2.
--
jipno se kerlo
re mei re mei degji kakne