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* One series, 'AVERAGE', yields a *representative* and *imaginary* member of lV'i, derived by averaging and squinting.
This includes Mode X and, from what you say, Prototype X. This is indeed imaginary perforce.
* The other series, 'UNIQUE', simply presupposes that lV'i is singleton.
... yeah, but what is it? Obviously not derived by squinting, because you admit now squinting isn't it. Obviously not a defining exemplar, because that's protypicality. It's not the mass, it's not the group. So if I go to your next message...
I am talking about a particular concept I am trying to pin down, not about what "lo'e" should mean] *must* be a single individual, and be seen as the one individual that satisfies the description. So what does "loi'e ropno gugde" mean? Well, one way to derive its meaning is indeed through squinting. But -- though for this particular example it's a bit of a stretch -- I could conceivably see European Country as a single individual (just like I see John Cowan) that is actually manifest and nonimaginary. I would find it present when I look at France, when I look at Hungary, and so forth.
... hang on. Is this Carlson's Kind, then? As in, European Country is to Hungary as John is to John-here-and-now? (In both cases, the individual/avatar realises the more general entity.)
It could be cool, if so. But if so, this entity must be kept hermetically distinct from both Prototype and Mode. It is not derived by squinting or prototyping.
It is the Any-X, but with a crucial difference that it is generic. The Kind of Lion is a reference to the species, and anything said of it must be true of the species, not of any number of individuals or avatars. So it is nonsense to say "This Kind of Lion is sitting on the lawn"; you can only say "This Kind of Lion sits on lawns". (Something Lojban can't handle well, because it was designed by people who... oh, never mind.) Similarly, you cannot capture the Kind of Lion --- you only capture avatars --- and I regard Jorge's attempts to say you can as sabotage...
... although Carlson admits "he owns that kind of lion", and interprets it by massification: if you own at least one realisation of the kind of lion, you own the kind of lion.
So what, is the kind of lion a mass after all? Dammit to hell, now I'm confused again. I still don't know what the hell this Unique thing is. If I can't understand it, how do you expect Lojbanists in general to?
There has been disagreement about different sorts of Average or
representativeness -- mean, median, mode, prototypicality. I don't
think there should be different gadri for different sorts of
Average, nor {pe} phrases to specify. Rather, the gadri should
simply presuppose that the referent is arrived at by some process
of averaging and squinting such that the outcome is representative
of the set in some relevant way. If one wants to be more precise
about the exact kind of averaging involved, then one can use
a lujvo whose x2 is lo'i or le'i; the x1 gives the product of
the averaging.
Obviously you're rejecting my proposal, and I am defensive about it. But why? If squinting is an interrogable process, and prototyping is something you individually carry in with you (particularly if, as I suspect, there is variation in prototypes), shouldn't you be able to interrogate how the Average was formed from the population *always*? Presuppose without being able to make explicit? That is not the Lojban way. And deferring it to a lujvo is not good enough: you're saying that the presuppositions of lo'e are not to be interrogable, as long as you use lo'e and not the lujvo.
I would like to make two further proposals (I want them to be taken jointly, not separately): * cmavo for Average are lo'e & le'e * cmavo for Unique are loi'e & lei'e and are made official.
Look, I think you should get your official cmavo (but the onus is on you to be a lot clearer on what this unique thing is and what it buys us.) If it's a Kind or something like that, I want it kept away from lo'e, because lo'e is by Founder intent a prototype, and this ain't no prototype, because it isn't necessarily even imaginary.
I do think this is nothing to do with Jorge's lo'e, and I think you now agree, because Jorge's lo'e (anything that fits into lx.broda(x) ) is a space-limited individual, and your singulation looks to me not to be space-limited.
Are we further along? Perhaps. But we sure as hell aren't there yet. -- **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** * Dr Nick Nicholas, French & Italian Studies nickn@hidden.email * University of Melbourne, Australia http://www.opoudjis.net * "Eschewing obfuscatory verbosity of locutional rendering, the * circumscriptional appelations are excised." --- W. Mann & S. Thompson, * _Rhetorical Structure Theory: A Theory of Text Organisation_, 1987. * **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** ****