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Nick:
> So now Jorge and I understand loi differently, as well as all the
> other gadri. Right now, I'm empathising with pc. :-(
'Mass' is a very unfortunate term, because loi/lei do groups not
masses (in the linguistics sense). From a linguistics point of
view (tho not a maths one), JCB's 'set' was better than 'mass'.
But I'll go with 'group' or 'collective'.
> But as far as loi is concerned, the official definition is: anything
> that can be predicated of an individual {lo broda} can be predicated
> of {loi broda}, and some extra claims (let's call them mass claims)
> can also be predicated of {loi broda}
I think (with hindsight -- no criticism of CLL is meant) that this
is deeply misguided. If there is a logic of Groups, it is not one
that is intuitively obvious to people in general. We should
content ourselves with identifying some prime exemplars (piano
carriers, etc.). We don't try to spell out logics for the brivla,
and we shouldn't try to do it for Groups or Uniques, either.
This may sound odd coming from me, the arch-formalist, but in fact
I am not being inconsistent. Where logicosemantic distinctions
and properties are clear, I want Lojban to be clear about how it
expresses them. Where logicosemantic distinctions and properties
aren't clear, I don't want Lojban to force on them a spurious
and erroneous clarity.
I mean, you can try it for yourself. Is it true that The Beatles
married Yoko Ono? I think not. Is it true that they wrote
Strawberry Fields? I think yes, even if only John wrote it.
There is no generalizable logic to determine which properties
can and can't be predicated of the group. Encyclopedic knowledge
and similar extraneous factors enter into our judgements.
> So {loi cinfo} lives in both Africa and Australia, because individuals do
>
> I don't see why quantitative and qualitative claims are different in
> this regard
>
> So, most {cipni} have two wings; very few have one. The mass claim
> of {cipni} is that {loi cipni} has zillions of wings. True. But the
> individual claim of having two wings also holds, no? So just as {loi
> cipni} lives both in Africa and Asia without contradiction, surely
> {loi cipni} has both two wings and a zillion wings without
> contradiction
If The Beatles even have legs, they have 8 (or 4, by certain criteria).
They don't have exactly two legs, even though Ringo has exactly two
legs. That's what my intuition tells me. Now I'll be happy to sit and
philosophize with Lojbanists of the future about how many legs the
Beatles had, but I'm not happy for us to prescribe a definitive
answer.
> So I still think Mr Bird is {loi cipni}.
The group of all birds is not the single bird. The group of all
versions/avatars of Nick is not Nick. You may want to call the
group of all birds "Mr Bird" and the group of all avatars of Nick
"Mr Nick", but that simply means we need to find a different
name for the single bird. (We already have a name for the single
Nick: "Nick".)
--And.