I apologise for contributing to this vile thread.
But Mr Develyn's theories *do* need much flaming.
Richard Develyn:
>Anyway, it was these replies which led to the predictions which some
>people have found objectionable. But please remember, it was all derived=
>from the postulate that there is no absolute truth, and I have never
>strayed from that belief.
ie "there is no absolute truth" is absolutely true? A logical absurdity. =
There _are_ absolute truths, IMHO, and this is one of them ... (Hah! Disprove that!)
BTW: "La verit=E9 est une certaine forme de pertinence =E9nonciative."
O. Soutet, Linguistics Professor at the Sorbonne
And I have NO IDEA how this could be translated into english ...
Simon Hibbs:
(answering richard.develyn)
>SNIP>
>
>What you are trying to do is come up with a 'unified field theory' for
>glorantha, while being completely ignorant of 'newtonian mechanics',
>'the galilean transformations', or 'the lorenz transformations' of
>glorantha, let alone 'quantum mechanics' (ie the secret of the god
>learners).
Bullseye! Develyn goes *spectacularly* wrong here!
In his defence, though, my own understanding of Glorantha grew from =
a very similar mistake. (Learning is being wrong to start with, =
and it might be our _duty_ to give Richard the best of chances to =
see his mistakes by introducing him to the wonderful world of =
dialectics ... PreachPreachPreach to the converted ... ) =
Also, to no small extent, gods _are_ made of worship, =
and this is borne out by the fact that heroquesters can make, change and undo gods, difficult as it may be.
Maybe the reason that Richard's theories are so annoying is that =
he seems to have most of the pieces of the puzzle, but instead of =
ending up with a pretty picture of Glorantha, he's cut them all =
up into nasty little squares and organised them into =
hideous, soul-less little rows.
(BTW: One True Glorantha IMHO means [Phenomena are Real] ) (NOT the GLS, Mr Develyn, despite the three words, but a BANALITY)
My contribution: (small, and then I'll shut up)
One thing I've understood about RW faith is that belief in Science
isn't completely distinguishable from religious faith, unless your
POV is that of an actual specialist.
Wouldn't Gloranthan non-scientists who lived in a scientific =
culture have a similar misinformed faith in the Power of Science? And wouldn't this belief system generate hero plane phenomena? (whether spontaneously or by heroquesting ... )
So the strongest point in Mr Develyn's argument depends on the existence in Glorantha of communities ruled by scientists. I cannot think of a single instance of such.
If and when such communities could be shown as existing, then =
Mr Develyn's theories might become partially defensible.
Nineteenth century Glorantha, maybe?
Peter Metcalfe:
>Occam's razor says the theory which requires the
>least amount of assumptions should be used.
OK, but be careful not to confuse syllogism and truth... Occam's razor yields acceptable rhetoric; NOT the description of reality. Use carefully, =
lest you find yourself in Develynland ...
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