Re: Materialism

From: Simon Hibbs <simonh_at_msi-uk.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 17:32:10 +0100


Sergio :

>Peter:
>> I have at all times maintained that the spirit world is merely a
>> different form of matter according to the materialists.
>
>So, we agree on this. Notice that other people writing about this on GD

>seemed not to agree with this. And I was addressing their comments
also.
>What I also assume is that it's not only the VIEW of the sorceror that
says
>that the mundane, the spiritual and the divine are the matter of
Glorantha;
>this is objectively and factualy true.

Argh!!!!.......... *Froth* ............. Piffle!

So you are saying that Malkioni who believe in a material cosmos are correct, and Mystics who believe that physical creation is a transient illusion are wrong. Hmmm. Don't you just pity those idiot mystics.

I'm afraid it does seem to me that your view of the nature of glorantha is just a tteny bit contaminated with your own personal philosophy.

If mystics are wrong about the world and how it works, why does their magic work?

On another leve, if you're running the game doesn't this piss on the fun in playing anything other than Mlakioni, now that we know that in your glorantha all the rest are gullible idiots.

>I'm not arguing from the roolz. I'm basing what I say in my sources on
>Glorantha. They say that shamans can do magic by interacting with
>spirits or by themselves. And they say that sorcerors can do the same.
Of >course, the way they use their personal magical forces, or the way they >interact with spirits are completely different. My sources on sorcery and >shamanism in Glorantha are wrong? Please, direct me to other sources >that can change my view of the whole matter.

Sorcerers _can_ interact with spirits to do magic if they choose, but they largely do not because they consider it to be trafficking with demons. Sorcerous magic itself does not inherently involve interaction with spirits. Shamanic magic _all_ involves interaction with spirits.

>And I keep saying this definition is wrong. The usage of impersonal
laws
>such as syllogism and deduction has nothing to do with the materialist
/
>non-materialist debate.

?

>What would make them materialists is the aplication
>of those laws to purely material entities (in the sense above).

But you agree that they believe that all entities in glorantha are material. You even say you agree with them.

>What makes someone materialist is not the way he thinks but which are
>the objects of his thinking.

Presumably in the same way that what someone believes about JC has nothing to do with whether they are christian or not. Sheesh.

>We can use those laws to think about non-material things.

Except of course that materialists think that everything is material.

>My point was that if I'm right and the IG is transcendent, we cannot
>consider those that believe in him materialists.

So, to summaries, what people believe has nothing to do with how we categorise their beliefs. In fact their actual beliefs shoudl be irrelevent to our categorisation of them. Is that right?

Simon Hibbs


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