[Glorantha] Souls and suchlike.

Jane:
> Well, the RW definition of "soul" is more or less irrelevant here
anyway

Ahem. Except in the purely literal sense of course! It is as relevant as the RW uses of the words "Strength" and "Dexterity" are to the RPG stats of the same name. In the game, they are abstractions, represented to one extent or another by a simple mechanical model to allow us to quantify them, but essentially, the one is a direct derivation from the other.

When Greg introduced the word "soul" in a Gloranthan context, I am quite certain that it was intended in the context of the real world concept, even given that the concept is somewhat ambiguous.

> only religions say it exists at all,

Not so in fact, though secular definitions do not view the soul as immortal.

> About the one thing they have in common is using the word as a synonym
> for "spirit", which is one thing we know in Glorantha it isn't.

Whilst I agree that a direct correlation between soul and spirit is not entirely correct, I think that as a simplistic illustration, it comes a lot closer to the truth than the Microsoft Word analogy. This is partly because I mistrust reductionist analogies between computers and brains or minds in general - I think they are far more misleading than they are illuminating - but mostly because I don't think that the soul (whether in a mortal or immortal definition) is a subset of the brain. Even in a wholly mundane definition, I think that it has to encompass one's whole self, including emotions and responses that are triggered by the chemical and hormonal actions and reactions of the body, because whatever else the soul may be, I don't think that it has much to do with cognition, memory or intellect.

For what it's worth, my own view of the soul (and to be clear about my own personal context here, I am a Christian, and do believe in immortal souls), is that it is the essence of a being. Whether that is taken to mean the totality of the being, combining mind, body and spirit, or the core of one's being, the source of one's nature, personality and so on. Saying that it is the point at which body and spirit meet, or to use your own word, the "interface" of the mundane with the divine, is not a bad one in my opinion.

> Not a lot of point in looking further.

Only if we want to understand what each of us is talking about when we use words like "soul", "soul damaged" and so on.

Anyway, I think I've gone about as far as I care to for the time being.

Bestest Regards -

Malk. Received on Tue 03 Jan 2006 - 09:45:31 EET