Re: Conjunction Rob Zook Mon, 12 Jan 1998 08:56:43 -0600 At 03:22 PM 1/11/98 -0600, Saul Epstein wrote: >From: Rob Zook >Date: Sunday, January 11, 1998 1:29 PM > >> Now I suppose one could think of a class as a set. In colloqual >> use, one might even use them interchangible. However, I mean class >> in it's sense of "a group whose members have certain attibutes in >> common; a catagory". So, I think of set by the more general >> mathematical definition of, "a collection of distinct elements". >> In the mathematical set, the members do not _necessarily_ have >> any similarity to one another. > >Oh! That I didn't know. I mean, how often does anyone bother to >define a set of things that have nothing in common? Not, "nothing in common", but not necessarily similar. For example, the set of all things in the trash can. Most of the things in my trash can have no similarity to each other, but they do have one thing in common - location inside the same container. >Could be all the >time, actually. I had a string of worthless math teachers early on >and never recovered. So, did I. Luckily our family friend of many years, was an excellant math teacher as well. He helped me a great deal. I gotta tell you, I'm going to homeschool my kids. I don't want to subject my kids to situation in public schools nowdays. >> A set would seem more abstract than my intent, in "Spock is a >> Vulcan". > >Well, you can probably read "class" for each of my uses of "set" >then. Ok, then you can probably read "tense/aspect/whatever" for my uses of the word tense ;> >That's what I meant. ("different relationships _between sets_") So >"Some Vulcans are male" notes an intersection of the set "Vulcans" >and the set "Male things." But that's a slightly different distinction. I mean it's one assumption, behind the phrase, but interprating it as only meaning that looses the other connotation of class - elements possessing similar qualities. >> >Then there are no entities. >> >> I don't understand, how that follows. I was trying to make a >> distinction between words for things, and das ding an sich. >> An entity is a word, which describes something at the most >> abstract level possible. And so it represents an abstraction >> we have created of some thing. A purely mental abstraction. > >What I meant to suggest was this question. What is a thing with no >qualities? It isn't. That seems like a nice strange loop too. >The names of entities are words. Words are entities, and therefore >their own names. I'm not using entity to mean the idea or the name of >something. We have other words for that. What I meant was entity refers to a object devoid of any it's possible characteristics or qualities, i,e. at the most abstracted level. >In other words, all words are entities, and therfore some entities >are words. But, just because entities all have names, doesn't mean >all entities are words. I did not imply that. I said "An entity is a word which describes something at the most abstract level possible". I guess I should have said, The word 'entity' describes some bit o' <*> at the most abstract level possible". BTW, One of the benefits of a non-ambiguous grammar is supposedly we won't have problems like this. >And in any case, while it's important to >recognize the mental and abstract nature of all this, there doesn't >seem to BE anything else to work with, which makes "mental >abstraction" an indistinct characterization. Perhaps, a little redundant, too. Although, couldn't one consider a sculpture or a painting a physical abstraction? :-) >All of which makes the distinction between some supposedly more >concrete Whorf and the "abstract" Whorf of experience useless. >Important, yes, vital even. But useless. Not, useless. People identify with their abstractions of those bits of <*> and the words describing those bits of <*>, so thouroughly, that they block out other aspects of the bits of <*>. Sometimes it's absolutely necessary, but if one has no awareness that the process occurs, one cannot control it. That is useful. Or, to put it more elegantly, "Tis an ill wind that blows no minds". >And hence my clarification that I meant acts a question mark, >not as a question. Well, I guess I did not find that very clear-ifying ;-) Rob Z. -------------------------------------------------------- Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. -- Groucho Marx