"Any given manifestation / phenomenon _must_ be explainable by _all_
models. One model _cannot_ supersede the other."
The other two models (mystical and natural) must also satisy this criterium, though I haven't the expertise to explore them.
What this means is that if I propose, as a theist, that in a far away land where no death associated god is worshipped the incidence of death must be extremely small, you cannot counter me by saying "nonsense, death exists".
Me: Why does death exist?
You: Blah-di-blah some scientific mumbo-jumbo
Me: So what - my theistic explanation is _as_ valid as your scientific
one.
You: So if someone falls of a 10,000 foot cliff they don't die? Now
you're using your theistic explanation to over-rule my scientific one.
Me: Either they don't die because of some factor which your science is
not taking acount of, _or_ there must be some death worship going on
there somewhere. Don't forget animals can worship too.
Another example seen two ways:
The Theist says Orlanth controls storms. If Orlanth ceases to exist then there will be no more storms. If this was to happen, the Scientist would realise either that his meteorological understandings were incomplete or that meteorological conditions have now changed to make storms impossible. The Theist could cause this to happen by Heroquest, the Scientist would perceive this happening by experiment and observation.
Conversely, the Scientist could build a weather machine which indeed made meteorological conditions to make it impossible for storms to happen. The Theist would experience this as the demise and final destruction of Orlanth, and would perceive this through changes in myths.
Of course since the two systems are so intertwined they're likely to be constantly interfering with each other. The Scientists' weather machine starts to have an effect on the winds which the Theists counteract by Herquesting. The Scientists perceive their machine failing because either physical conditions are changing or their understandings are shown to be lacking. And so on.
Now consider how great it would be to have this understanding and be able to attack a problem from all fronts. This is now what I believe the God Learners could do. For example, say they wanted to wipe out Creeping Chills.
First they could attack the disease with antibiotics, or what have you. Then when they got a bit stuck they could heroquest against Malia. If they succeeded, when they got back they could carry on scientifically against a now weaker disease.
I still belive that their ultimate demise came as a result of both (theist) mis-manipulation of the hero plane and (scientist) mismanipulation of the physical world. They simulataneously wiped themselves out as a result of loosening some disease, inventing nuclear weapons, causing the closing and the syndics ban, whatever, but also as a result of finding themselves at the wrong end of loads of myths (and there must be mystical and natural disasters as well).
Well, like I said before, this is just a theory. The only person qualified to say if there is any real truth in this is Greg himself, though that doesn't stop us guessing and arguing over it.
Let me finish this with a quote from Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time":
"A theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements: it must
accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a
model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make
definite predictions about the results of future observations."
Here's a prediction:
A Scientist and a Theist meet on top of a mountain far away from any Orlanthi temples. The Scientists meteorological measurements tell him there should be a strong wind blowing here, the Theist expects there to be very little wind here. What do they experience?
My prediction is that there will be a small breeze. The Scientist will realise that there are prevailing weather conditions preventing a full gale, the Theist will find some little Orlanthi (or other windy god) worship somewhere, even if it's only a small family of intelligent bears.
Richard
Richard Develyn (http://www.skaro.demon.co.uk)
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