The Godlearners

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From: Bryan J. Maloney (jacobus@sonata.cc.purdue.edu)
Date: Thu 05 May 1994 - 09:38:12 EEST 

	I would classify the GLs as SCIENTISTIC rather than scientific in 
	their thinking. They were deductionists rather than inductionists, 
	and, practiced a pseudo-science because they never appreciated or 
	tested the limits of Falsification.  (Of course, since my model of

SPOT ON! Give that man the anatomically correct Vanna White doll! As a working scientist, I get so damned irked when people point to the Godlearners as being "scientific" in their approach to the world. They were technocratic, they were scientistic, but they were certainly not scientific. To quote an English biochemist: "I got into science because I wanted to discover absolute truth, to seek perfect knowledge, and to determine the underlying system of reality. This is like becoming an Archbishop to meet girls."

It is UNCERTAINTY that drives science. It is technocracy that posits that our current knowledge can "solve everything". The Godlearners had an _a priori_ "system" and they tried to shove all Glorantha into it. For real scientists, all systems are provisional and temporary. The systems used thirty years ago are not today. The scientific truth of today will be regarded as quaint tomorrow. 

	I believe the GLs were more like Christian theologians than 
	inductivist empiricists: theologians compiling and comparing their 
	sometimes contradictory proof texts, arriving at some kind of 
	untestable synthesis, and then suddenly being confronted with the 
	wider discourses of other world religious systems. We all know 
	what a crock the GL cult write ups are.

	Of course, I accept that on the literary level (see above) the GLs are 
	an ironic sendup/criticism of modernist empirical thinking and its 
	dangers.

Except that the Godlearners were NOT empirical thinkers, they were Platonic realists, which is about as far away from empiricism as you can get. 

	Perhaps most tellingly, I think Greg's attitude to the GLs comes 
	pretty directly from Joseph Campbell, and is intended as a lesson in 
	what happens if you try to manipulate myths scientistically rather 
	than from an involved  cultural perspective. (Prospective 
	Heroquesters take note! - "no questing without respect and 
	humility".) To quote Big Jo:

This is interesting, since I consider Joseph Campbell to be the prototypic Godlearner with his "all heroes are one" and like crap.

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