Not entirely sure I'd agree. Both cultures see the reductionist as the ideal, and both have myths that this was so in the past. But they both also have myths as to how it was broken. This is most clear in the Mostali myths of chaos breaking the world machine. This seems to be a tacit acknowledgement that the current reality is not so reductionist.
> > Science has a very real meaning
> > (which I'm sure Alex and many others are aware of...) and it isn't
something
> > that is practiced anywhere in Glorantha, to the best of my knowledge.
>
> By what reasonable definition are Leonardo and the God Learners
> not scientists? (Granted we don't know enough about their methods
> for this to be much more than speculation, but...)
>
I've always seen Leonardo as a tinkerer and inventor more than a scientist, at least in the strict sense of the term. As for the God Learners, well, as you say, we don't really know. It is possible the Great Secret (TM) is in fact some scientific model of the other worlds - a Gloranthan general relativity, if you like. However that does seem rather boring.
I drifted into this particular thread from a starting point of arguing with those trying to use real world scientific ideas to prove points in Glorantha. I really like the idea of Glorantha being a world where the underlying assumptions of RW science aren't true, and therefore any attempt to understand Glorantha using these tools is destined to failure. (This makes the God Learners a wonderful bit of evidence for my thesis...) Reasoning about a world where the trancendental is needed for all but a superficial understanding is, to me, part of the fun.
As always, YGMV.
Cheers,
Graham
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