Alex Ferguson:
> I think this is just playing with words, Sergio. The "higher level"
> that the Malkioni believe the mundane world "devolved" from was
> itself a Material thing, not some wholly separable thing in the
> sense of Platonic Idealism. This discussion would probably be
> a lot less painful for all concerned if we discussed Gloranthan
> philosophies in their own terms, insofar as this is possible, rather
> than "rounding off" awkward fractions to their nearest RW
> equivalent. What it comes down it is: Is it unreasonable to say
> that Malkioni are Materialists, in the sense that it is understood
> to apply to Glorantha?
Fair enough. IMO, we're realing playing with words, but in sense that we're
trying to determine their meaning.
Those words are: God, Spirit, Matter, Mystical state (?). They generate
different sets of beliefs: Theism, Shamanism, Materialism, Mysticism. From
now on I will drop out mysticism about which I don't have enough
information.
My whole question is the next: do all these people use those words in the same sense? What a sorceror calls Matter, or God, or Spirit?
For instance, an hypotesis I advanced was that Malkioni use the term God to refer to a different reality from polytheists.
I can accept a notion of Matter that is specific to Glorantha, but it must be clear what this word means in such a context. A question: do sorcerors, polytheist priests, or shamans use this word in the same sense? Do they have a common notion of matter? IMO That's the heart of the question, not whether Malkioni use logic, while other people use emotions to interact with their environement. Not that this is not important, of course.
Julian Lord:
> Well, hey !! *I* played with the phrasing of the question,
> too, when I asked it !!
Nice.
> Anyway, I asked "God Learners", not "Malkioni". So where
> does that leave you?
Exactly where I stand. AFAIK the God Learners based their experiments on what other people believed, if it worked (meaning, produced magical or physical results). "The Malkioni believed in the IG, and that the IG manifested itself in the material planes? Good, let us (the GL) use it. Does the belief correspond to a simple act of faith, or is it the observation of matter of fact? That's irrelevant". After all, the GL made all kind of experiments to create mythical entities that didn't exist (or didn't exist any more) in Glorantha.
Sergio
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