Re: sets and masses (was: Quine text)

[And Rosta <cbmvax!uunet!ucl.ac.uk!ucleaar>]

John:
> Mark Shoulson writes:
>
> > By that reasoning, {loi remna cu morsi} would work well for "Man is mortal"
> > (would {lo'e remna} be better?), and {lo'i remna noroi morsi} would work
> > for "Man is immortal" (i.e. the human race as an entity).
>
> All these are correct.  However, any set whatever can be put in the x1 place
> of "noroi morsi", because no set is ever dead, sets not being the sorts of
> things which live or die.  Therefore,
>
>         lo'i morsi cu noroi morsi
>         The-set-of dead-things are-never dead
>
> is also true.

But you could say that a set dies at such a time as it becomes empty.
This is in fact how I understood "Man is immortal". (Actually, I understood
"The type Man will always exist".)

> I think the real point of "Man is immortal" is something like:
>
>         roroiku da poi remna naku zo'u da morsi
>         At-all-times there-exists a-human such-that-it-is-false that it
 is-dead.
>

This is a valid reading, but I was hoping that the treatment of "Man is
immortal" would also cover:
   The dodo is extinct.
   The rat is widespread.

Note that in English we can say:
   The dodo, which couldn't fly, is extinct.
I think to say this in Lojban you'd have to say 'dodo' twice with a
different descriptor each time?

As "Sophy ran for an hour each day for five years" shows, the bridi itself
can be a class generic (man is immortal, ran for 5 years) or a prototype
generic (man is mortal, ran for an hour each day).

---
And