Subject: RE: [lojban] Logical translation request

From: Edward Cherlin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 23:59:55 -0800

Sorry, I didn't realize that the context would not be recognized.

The sentence to be translated is an approximate quotation from Star Trek.

http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/constantine/157/tos/spock.html says

"Born 2230 on planet Vulcan. His mother, Amanda Grayson, was a human
schoolteacher from Earth, and his father, Sarek, was a diplomat from Vulcan.
As a result, he was torn between two worlds, the stern discipline of Vulcan
logic and the emotionalism of his human side. The struggle to reconcile his
two halves would torment him for much of his life."

The exact quotation, from the episode Journey To Babel, is

* "Emotional, isn't she?" -- Spock
* "She has always been so." -- Sarek
* "Indeed. Why did you marry her?" -- Spock
* "It seemed the logical thing to do at the time." -- Sarek

The anaphora thus refer to Sarek's marriage and the time when he presumably
decided to propose marriage to Amanda Grayson. He recognized that things did
not turn out as intended/expected/hoped/planned. The statement is not meant
ironically, but the speaker is aware of the irony in the situation.

It seems to me that an action cannot properly be described as logical in
itself in Lojban. We might be trying to say, "It seemed to be the best
available action according to a logical analysis of the situation." If so,
we would like a word that sums up that relationship of facts, ideas, and
chains of thought.

A Lojbanic analysis of other Vulcan utterances from the show should provide
scope for great ingenuity from this list, and also hilarity.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Friday, December 07, 2001 6:54 PM

In a message dated 12/7/2001 7:14:06 PM Central Standard Time,
[email-masked] writes:

> "At the time, it seemed the logical thing to do."

ca lenu co'e kei lenu gasnu kei pu simlu le ka lojdra

"At the time of some event, the event of being an agent seemed to have the
property of being valid" Maybe "doing something seemed valid"?

In any case, I'll focus on {lojdra} and suggest that that is almost
certainly not what is meant (I know it is what is said, more or less, in
English). This seems to be a practical more than a strictly logical matter,
even if it points to a careful consideration of the outcomes of a variety of
choices carried out by deep reasoning. The test is what result is best, not
what follows from what -- though what result is best may be decided by what
a deduction from a statement of goals. Of course, "seemed" suggests that
there was no serious argumentation, rather a rough-and-ready calculation or
maybe just intuition or even a guess -- so no logic at all in fact. "Seemed
most likely to lead to a successful outcome" is about the sense.

The two anaphora, "the time" and "it" require more context to flesh out:
"it" is likely the content of some recent sentence "Why did you ...?" and so
can be picked up with an appopriate version of prosumti for components of
earlier sentences. The same may be the case with "the time" or it may
require some specific filling in. Perhaps, {co'e} does work in context even