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John: > And Rosta scripsit: > > > Both Paulie and Larry are avatars of Mr Carnivore. > > I think you are forgetting that Paulie is a parrot; if he is an avatar > of Mr. Meat-eater, it is only because he is an avatar of Mr. Bird, > and Mr. Bird eats meat. (Because of the ambiguity of "carnivore", I am > going to stop using it altogether.) I was indeed forgetting that. I think I had originally understood that, but reasoned invalidly, along the following lines: A is a king of country X B is a king of countries X and Y A is conqueror of country Z True: Mr King of X is conqueror of Z I was falsely reasoning that it was also true that "The king of Y is conqueror of country Z": B is a king of X [true] The king of X is conqueror of Z [true] B is a king of Y [true] Ergo: The king of Y is conqueror of Z [false] > > certainly a subkind of Mr Carnivore, > > I meant to ask about this before. Surely subkind relationships are rather > rare: Mr. Polar Bear is subkind of Mr. Bear and of Mr. Eats-no-plants, > but Mr. Bear is not a subkind of Mr. Eats-no-plants nor vice versa. Right. (I take it that some bears eat plants?) > The more typical case will be overlap, as between Mr. Bear and Mr. > Eats-no-plants, or Mr. Bird and Mr. Blue: some individuals are avatars > of both Yes. But I think Mr US President is not a subkind of Mr White Male, even though there is no US President who is not a white male. I have tried and failed to think of cases where X is a subkind of Y, Y is a subkind of Z, but X is not a subkind of Z, and indeed would claim that this is impossible. --And.