[YG Conlang Archives] > [jboske group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
xod: > 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 I didn't mean to say that we cannot model the semantics of masshood or grouphood, any more than I would want to say that cannot model the semantics of {rinka}. But I don't think either is a job for current BF-focused jboske. That is, they're not questions that need to be settled now, they would take years of philosophising to settle, and a model arrived at overhastily and then officialized would be positively detrimental. So all I want to argue at this stage is that in determining the truth of {lei broda cu brode} we need to know what broda and brode mean, and to consult our encylopedic knowledge. There is not what I would call a 'logic' of masses or groups. --And.