tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Dec 11 09:04:11 1995
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Re: hello.
- From: "Mark E. Shoulson" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: hello.
- Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 12:04:07 -0500
- In-reply-to: <[email protected]> (message from Adam Walker onFri, 8 Dec 1995 12:30:34 -0800)
>Date: Fri, 8 Dec 1995 12:30:34 -0800
>From: Adam Walker <[email protected]>
>Well, according to several of the novels _Spock's World_ and
>_Strangers from the Sky_ among them, I believe, the word "logic" is
>itself a rather poor translation for the Vulcan concept c'thia which
>could be better translated as reality-truth (or reality/truth. I
>forget how they punctuated it.) So why not try teHbogh -- that which
>is true? It might not work for the human concept, but sholud serve
>for the Vulcan idea if there are no grammatical boo-boos in that
>construction.
teHbogh *what*? I know we can leave off implied subjects or objects of a
relative clause, but I don't like leaving off *both*. There has to be
SOMETHING of a head-noun. "teHbogh vay'" or "teHwI'" (true-thing). But if
you want "that which is true", there's also the noun "vIt".
Of course, all this glosses over the fact that logic needn't have anything
to do with truth. After all, we know that there are things which are true
but cannot be proven with logic (see Goedel, Tarski, and a bunch of cheesy
Old Series Trek episodes). And logic can easily be misused to "prove"
things that aren't true.
I'm not sure there's a need for "logic" as a word, necessarily. And
certainly not necessarily as a noun. We're coming back to the same old
problem of trying to translate a word/concept in isolation. Consider how
"logic" might be used in a sentence. Maybe a verb for "derive", or even
something as simple as a slightly broader reading of "tlha'"/follow or
"poQ"/require. "Logic dictates that we do this" == "the facts we know [and
our thought-processes] require that we do this." "This follows logically
from that" "That causes/requires this"/"this follows that", etc.
~mark