Of course we have.
> and then as an
> act of deliberate choice, allocate toned-down and obfuscated
> 'versions' to assorted religions and cultures.
Why do you call them toned-down and obfuscated?
> To me this risks
> not merely choosing one Gloranthan viewpoint over another, but
> diminishing _all_ of them. If we can just casually _decide_ what
> the ultimate truths are, it vastly cheapens any genuine value
> they have,
Why is a _working_ symbolic interpretation of less value than the underlying fabric?
> as especially contrasted with RW religious truth
Same thing goes there, except that our world isn't our creation, which means we cannot define the underlying fabric.
> > Who said the 'objective truth' is superior? As long as a
> > subjective version is consistent and works it's of equal
> > value.
>
> Why is an objective truth interesting at all, unless it really
> _is_ 'more true than' the subjective truths?
Because it makes life easier for the (sub-)creators.
> I would agree that
> what you're suggesting would be true of, say, the 'objective
> truth' of the God Learners; it was/is better than any given
> subjective truth in some respects, and worse than others. But
> that's because it's fundamentally neither objective, not true.
I agree, the GL model is just like the scientific model of our world: a workable, highly detailed interpretation, but not the truth to end all truths.
> If you had a genuinely objective, and genuinely true description
> of Glorantha, how could it possible _not_ be superior to the
> other truths? And accordingly, how could they not but be diminished
> thereby?
For starters, the interpretations can be more interesting. I feel rather repetitive here, sorry about that, but as long as an interpretation works, how can it in any way be inferior? Is a painting of a view inferior to the view itself?
> > The 'objective truth' is not an end, just a means
> > to make better subjective truths.
>
> My feeling is that many people see it as an end, or at least as a
> means to cookie-cutterise the assorted ends.
That is a danger of course, but hardly a reason to stop defining the underlying fabric.
> What objective
> truth might we decide to joy down about Chaos, say, or the Sun,
> that would actually help us fleshing out the different 'takes'
> (to put it mildly) that exist about those things?
If we have a definition of the Sun and a (pre-)history for a people, won't it be easier to infer how this people would react to other mythic occurrences, what interpretations they would make of it? You can draw conclusions from the previously defined reactions/interpretations alone, but it's more difficult.
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