Re: Truth

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_cs.ucc.ie>
Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 18:30:20 +0100 (BST)


Nils Weinander:
> That said, I think it's worthwhile to discuss the "reality",
> because it's easier to deduce different cultures slant on
> things if we have an opinion on "reality" than it is if we
> have to reverse-engineer everything everytime. (I know Alex
> will disagree about this, it's a recurring theme...)

OK then, if I really must, I will. ;-)

My real objection to theories about the objective nature of Gloranthan reality isn't that they're objective, but that they're almost certainly wrong (and thus not half so objective as they're cracked up to be -- rather they're subjective, but the viewpoint of the subject has been muddled past the point of utility). The 'problem' is clearly a good deal richer than all the means customarily used to try and characterise it.

Thus I'd rather have several inconsistent 'theories' that work well within their own 'domains', rather than one that doesn't really quite work anywhere. (Scientific parallels are surely obvious, for those of that bent.) If one starts down the path of assuming that what can be inferred about the 'true nature' of things from fragmentary subjective evidence, and the even weaker form of things created primarily as game artefects, can be cobbled together by an ad hoc process of reductionism and whole-cloth invention, and rise to the level of 'objective truth' which is itself superior to the understandings of the original, explicitly subjective material, then it seems to me one is on very shaky ground indeed. I won't belabour the comparison that's normally made at this point.

To construct "scientific myth" is neither good science, nor good myth, for my money. I'm not sure on which grounds attempts at such bother me the more.

Cheers,
Alex.


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