[YG Conlang Archives] > [jboske group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >


[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]

Re: [jboske] Digest Number 217



On Fri, 8 Aug 2003, And Rosta wrote:

> xod:
> > On Fri, 8 Aug 2003, And Rosta wrote:
> >
> > > xod:
> > > > On Fri, 8 Aug 2003, And Rosta wrote:
> > > > > 3. It is arguably correct that the cardinality of the mass of all
> > > Five(s)
> > > > > is tu'o rather than pa. Since we can't conceive of what re li mu
> would
> > > > > be like, we can't know that there is exactly pa li mu.
> > > >
> > > > We know that we have one Five. And we can show that every other
> > > > Five is identical. So we've proven that there is only one Five.
> > >
> > > No we haven't. We've shown that there isn't more than Five. But that
> > > doesn't prove that it is countable, since for uncountables you can
> > > also prove that there isn't more than one of them.
> >
> > I'm sure that whatever "uncountable" you offer as an example will be
> > counted by me as unity.
>
> You yourself had proposed {lVi re brick}, "collective of two bricks",
> {lVi tu'o brick}, "mass of uncountable brick", so presumably you recognize
> the difference between brick and one brick.


But I am also willing to call all the water in the universe "One Water",
and discuss the tiny fragments that we shuffle around in cups. It's less
convienient, but accurate.



> > > > This is not trivial. The same type of proof can prove that there are
> only
> > > > two integers between 0.1 and 2.1, a case that does not result in any
> > > > answer which one is tempted to substitute tu'o.
> > >
> > > I don't dispute that there is one integer between 4.1 and 5.1. I fully
> > > accept that integers are countable. But I am disputing whether fives are
> > > countable.
> > >
> > > Likewise, I accept that people are countable, but dispute that xod is,
> > > I accept that chemical elements are countable, but dispute that oxygen
> > > is, and I accept that we can count kinds of Goo but dispute that we can
> > > count a single kind of Goo.
> >
> > There's an old joke about how programmers start counting not at 1, but at
> > 0. Apparently you start at 2. I'm not sure that the rest of us share that
> > peculiarity.
>
> I start counting at one, but only for things I'm sure can be counted. For
> that, I need to know what re broda would look like and how it differs from
> pa broda.


I am willing to state that there is one Everything, even though by
definition there cannot be more than one.



-- 
The Pentagon group believed it had a visionary strategy that would
transform Iraq into an ally of Israel, remove a potential threat to the
Persian Gulf oil trade and encircle Iran with U.S. friends and allies...