No Subject

["Arthur W. Protin Jr." (GC-ACCURATE) <cbmvax!uunet!PICA.ARMY.MIL!protin>]

Folks,
    I find this debate between Eric and Lojbab to be a partial proof
of Eric's position.  I find too much of what is said to be confused.
Lojbab refers to my posting (which (I was pleasantly surprised to find)
won the praise of Jimc as clarifying), and yet fails to use the
distinctions that (I feel, at least) would help in discussing this
matter. Lojbab says:

> I also dare say that no human can drop out of loi remna, the mass of
> all human society.

This is exactly the usage that I reject.  No human can drop out of the
mass of all humanity, but any human can leave any society.  The mass of
all human society is the set of societies, and if you define a society
to exist with only one member then any human who leaves a society
froms a trivial society of one.  If the definition of society requires
more than one human, then Lojbab's statement is false!

    Based on the Enlish translation of Hilter's own work, "Mein Kampf",
Hilter either lied about his reasoning or reasoned erroniously!  I can
only accept Lojbab's comment
> I of course feel that decision was erroneous, but his conclusions
> do logically follow from his assumptions.
as a political maneuver to try to move the discussion to less emotional
examples.  The statement, however, may fail in that purpose because of
its lack of technical merit.

The ever repeated example of cells in the body is the most perfect
example of what is NOT "massification".  The body is not the mass of
its cells, but an organism built of its cells.  No cell understands
the actions of the body.  No cell is necessary to the body.  No cell's
condition, of itself, is important to the body.  The body routinely
destroys cells and replaces them.  Cells may leave the body and become
free agents.  Cells may leave the body and form a new body.  This is
but a small partial list of the distinctions between the component
cells and the body.
    This distinction if not a matter of size or diversity, but
represents an entirely different level of organization.  "Massification"
                                          ____________
represents no complexity of organization.  "Massification" is the
simple agregate.  The distinction is between a bowl of "Alphabits"
and the words of this posting.  It is most definitely not true that:
> The complexity of the mass is a [function] of its size and diversity
> of components.

    A contracting firm is not an example of "massification"!!!  It is
an example of an "artificial" organism.

    To offer up both the contracting firm and snow as examples of
"massification", is to introduce the kind of confusion that leads
to invalid results.



  I HOPE THAT THIS DISTINCTION HAS NOT ALREADY BEEN LOST FROM LOJBAN


    Such a loss would surely ruin the language!


    thank you all,
    Art Protin


Arthur Protin <protin@pica.army.mil>
These are my personal views and do not reflect those of my boss
or this installation.