Does more of these ones means less of those ones? In the beginning let us determine the following: we have as much space as we have and we won’t have more – we can imagine this piece of space easily: a room, a house, a concert hall... We have these ones and we have those ones. If These are of the same size as Those, or slightly smaller or unnoticeable bigger, and if together they fill up the whole space (no representative of These and of Those can sneak into this imagined room, house, concert hall...) then we can say that if there is more of These there will be less of Those, there must be less of those ones otherwise they will not fit in. So, in this very case more of these ones means less of those ones, or vice versa. The example above is a very special one. Usually These and Those are not of the same size, which makes our considerations more complicated. If these ones are much bigger than those ones, they will occupy much more space even if they are much less numerous. Which means that the smaller ones will occupy much less space although they will be much more numerous. Does this mean the more smaller ones the less bigger ones? Not necessarily. More smaller ones can mean the same number of the bigger ones – the smaller ones will be more crowded, more compressed, hence they will fill up the space more accurately, because the bigger ones are much less compressible than the small ones. This is the reason why less amount of the smaller ones not necessarily means more amount of the bigger ones, when the smaller ones make not enough free space for one bigger one. Many other options are possible, too. Of course, the number of not special cases is unimaginable – each and every one of these not special cases is a very special one. If somebody doesn’t know how to spend the rest of his or her life, he or she can try to catalogue them. However we warn everybody, this task is not easy due to incredible toilsomeness and tediousness, it also guarantees no satisfaction but can guarantee the life will be filled up to the brim leaving no room for boredom. (The latter statement is very risky. It assumes the more work the less boredom, having defined work as non-boredom, while boredom as non-work, and such definition would be an example of a perfect controversy.) We are dealing with quite different situation when these ones and those ones don’t fill the entire space. Then more of these ones can mean more of those ones, especially when they depend on each other. For example when These eat Those. When there are more eaten ones, there are more eating ones, although not always and not obviously, for when there are less eating ones they can eat more than when they are more. This is but the beginning. We have only these ones and those ones and yet we can’t cover the abundance of situations and combinations. It’s known the common sense prompts stubbornly that more of these ones means less of those ones, but the common sense is like a drunk who keeps saying he is sober, so we can’t rely on it. All the more the common sense likes to simplify too much, to transform the colourful world into the black-and-white one which should be considered a symptom of madness or at least of befuddlement... So, we have only these ones and those ones, These and Those, and so many problems, such amount of variants. We would be absolutely confused and horrified if also the other ones, and the others, and the others... It’s better not to go further. It’s better to stop theoretical considerations and let this short introduction satisfy us. It’s better to look for real examples. Book examples are the most interesting of all. It’s obvious since we are in the land of books. If we have bookshelves covering the whole wall, from left to the right and from the floor to the ceiling, and on the top shelf there are books written by the authors whose names commence with A, B and C, then if the number of the works by A is increasing, then the number of the works by C will be decreasing. The number of works by B will not change, at least for some time, but if it increases, too, then the works by C will be disappearing from the top shelf even faster. Inevitably a moment will come when the works written by the authors whose names commence with C will vanish. Then the situation will be more simple, because almost any book by A added will cause a book by B to be subtracted. The word almost is crucial, because a lot depends on how thick the book added is. If it is thin enough, then more works by A will mean still the same amount of the works by B. If a certain thickness has been exceeded, then with no doubt more works by A will mean less works by B. And one day the works by B will vanish from the top shelf, and then more books by A will mean the same amount of works by A, sometimes more, sometimes less, depending of the thickness of the books added. Frankly writing and speaking: this is not fascinating example. The situation of a text on page is far more interesting. If we regard These as blackness of text, and Those as whiteness of paper, then more these ones will mean less those ones, really. But if we regard these ones as letters and those ones as spaces between letters, then more these ones will mean more those ones (the similar situation is when we regard these ones as words and those ones as spaces between words, or lines and leadings, provided that we make spaces between words and lines – we can decide we won’t make them). Well, it looks like this example is not more interesting than the first one. So, let’s take a monitor screen instead of paper. For some time everything will go on in much the same way till we fill both the page and the screen with text and made them black. In case of paper more letters will not mean less paper, more black less white, because there will be no more paper; more letters will not mean more black since black has achieved its maximum (the problems of intensity, saturation, contrast and so on are of no importance at all, from our point of view, of course). While in case of the screen, fully packed with letters, more letters will mean more screen, or more white, because the screen is an infinite page. And what’s the conclusion? There is no conclusion. Yes. The examples given above made us draw no conclusions. New examples should be found. Better one. Or worse. We do not encourage to look for them. It’s a waste of time. Remember, the more examples we find, the less time remain. <<<