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On Tue, 17 Dec 2002, And Rosta wrote: > 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. It can't be formalized, but it can be argued better than you're giving justice. "The Beatles" wrote (?) Strawberry Fields because they performed it collectively, and because John wrote as part of the team effort, even if it was only his pen and paper. Or, he wrote it, but it was their song, collectively. It's not so hard to determine emergent properties in cases like this. If you want to heckle masses, argue the case of 5 pencils sitting in a jar. There's very little emergent property there, I think, and it's probably up to the observer's opinion whether they are 5 individuals or a mass of 5 members. -- jipno se kerlo re mei re mei degji kakne