From: Alex Ferguson (abf@cs.ucc.ie)
Date: Fri 06 Oct 2000 - 15:00:06 EEST
Nils, and me:
> > I don't see why. I'm playing an Elmali, or a sorceror, or a mystic
> > who knows that the sun is just a series of provisional manifestations
> > of a higher reality; you're the GM, clutching a copy of Glorantha:
> > the Ultimate Reality (see earlier post for product code), which tells
> > you that my character's beliefs are at best inferior to those of a
> > Yelm worshipper, and at worst complete nonsense.
> Speaking of straw men, this is definitely one.
No it's not; I asked Mikko what the objective nature of the sun was,
and he said (with provisos as to the difficulty of the question,
certainly) it was the Yelmic one. Now, if the subjective Yelmic
truth, and the objective truth are identical (give or take), explain to
me how different subjective truths _aren't_ inferior, in a
straightforward logical sense? To wit, doesn't this mean that an
Elmali is at best "less correct", and at worst completely off his head?
If it's not, I'm either misunderstanding Mikko, or grasping the full
consequences of his argument correctly, so clarifications welcome.
> As demonstrated
> elsewhere in these therads, it seems difficult to convey
> the various messages, but I think it's been fairly explicitly
> stated that differernt "subjective" are not inferior, neither
> compared to each other nor to an "objective" and definitely
> not nonsensical, if they work.
OK, it's been stated, but I don't really understand it. (Or if
my understanding is correct, I entirely disagree with it.) And I'm
not at all clear that other "objectivists" agree with you -- I think
many people in that camp seem to think that Glorantha is just plain
ol' "too inconsistent" on its face, and would rather it was simpler,
with the different "subjective" viewpoints being differing "spins"
on a reasonably readily known objective "reality", in a straightforward
way.
I still don't see how one can determine objective truth, other than
in terms of its relationship to subjective truths, unless you're
going to never speak of the two as ever relating to the same thing.
And I especially can't be gripped by the importance of having
objective Gloranthan truth, when you Nils, surely one of the most
articulate defenders of that proposition, a Gloranthan (sub-)creator
of no small talent, and not someone I'd normally think of as wanting to
diminish Glorantha's rich tapestry, can't tell me one. (At
least where the subjective truths differ markedly, which is the
"interesting" (in the Chinese sense, perhaps) case...)
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