Subject:
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What is a set, philosophically
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Thu, 9 Dec 1999 01:57:42 GMT
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Viewed:
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492 times
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I'm in the middle of a massive set rebuilding effort, something I
might post more about later as I finish it up.
One of my goals is to figure out what sets I have. This is not
quite as easy as it sounds, because I have a few tons of lego
that I picked up at garage sales and whatnot, and those have lots
of random lego which I'm working my way through, trying to break
them down into their original sets.
It seems that one could have a set in various states:
A. have the pieces, have the instructions, have the box
B. have the pieces, have the instructions, no box
C. have the pieces, no instructions, have the box
D. have the pieces, no instructions, no box
From a collector's standpoint, 'A' is certainly a set. I've never kept
boxes around because I don't have room, so I've always felt that 'B'
qualifies as having the set. Probably 'C' too.
'D' doesn't feel like having the set somewhow, but if I were to find all
the pieces to the yellow castle, pull the instructions off brickshelf,
build it, and put it on a shelf, then it would be hard to argue that I
didn't have the set.
On the other hand, I don't think I have set 6807, the supposedly rare
unnamed classic space set... but I could build three or four of them with
my spare parts just within reach. What if find the parts for it in this
pile?
And on basically the same note - to be space complete in the eyes of the
community, do I need to have all the pieces, or all the instructions and
the pieces, or (augh!) all the boxes too?
I'm certain this comes down to however I feel like defining my sets, but
I'm interested in everyone's opinion on this...
Remy Evard -- evard@mcs.anl.gov -- www.mcs.anl.gov/~evard -- 630.252.5963
Manager of Advanced Computing and Networking, MCS, Argonne National Lab
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: What is a set, philosophically
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| (...) In my, personal, opinion I own a set if I have the pieces for it, without the same pieces being used for other sets. If I have bought, say set number 1 and set number 2, and with ttheir combined pieces, then either I own set 1 and set 2 OR I (...) (24 years ago, 9-Dec-99, to lugnet.general)
| | | Re: What is a set, philosophically
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| (...) About a year or so ago I wrote a pseudo-serious, long-winded post on RTL on this very subject (for the terminally curious, I'll try and find it on DejaNews). In essence, the "setness" of a set is contained in its unique pieces, such as the (...) (24 years ago, 9-Dec-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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