Re: More reality

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_cs.ucc.ie>
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 00:35:09 +0100 (BST)


Mikko Rintasaari:
> :> Glorantha is a magical world, where raw willpower and observer effect
> :> shape reality much more readily than in our own Terra.
> :Alex
> :That's a very odd statement for someone who believes in an 'objective
> :Glorantha' to make. That sounds more like the sort of straw man
> :people who want to rubbish anything smacking of a multiplicity
> :of truths say...
>
> It's a bit out of context there. Mostly I meant that the metaphysics of
> Glorantha are even more interesting than in our universe.

I'm sorry if I snipped over much, but it would be an odd statement in most contexts! But I can't agree about the metaphysics of Glorantha; they'd surely be less interesting than ours, but most measures of their richness and variety. Though I'm trying to preserve what I may, from too much One True Worldism which I think could not but diminish it greatly. At the limit, it would make Glorantha all physics, and no metaphysics at all.

> I do like to know what chaos is, yes, and where it comes from, what causes
> it and so forth. I don't like the view that it's all cultural, and if the
> Orlanthi (Praxians, etc.) just stopped believing in it, the broos and such
> would cease to exist.

Which would be whose view? Not mine, please be clear about that.

> But I'm sure I don't have to point out the problems that arise from the
> subjectivist, ignore-the-problem, approach.

I'm afraid you do, since that's the way I run things, and to date it's not been a problem. If there are huge pitfalls awaiting me, please warn me in time!

> I don't think the theist's understanding of the world is necessarily any
> better than the animists, or vice versa. The core reality of Glorantha is
> something none of the characters could comprehend, or at least make any
> use of.

But that's precisely what I'm arguing. It's also precisely what I'm saying about _different_ theist viewpoints: they're all right, or at the least, each contain different portions of the truth, in ways that cannot be readily rationalised against each other. If you can accept this is true of a mystic and a theist, why is it any harder to accept of an Elmali and a Yelm cultist, whose POVs are _much_ much closer and more compatible.

> Infact it greatly pisses me off that most of the Glorantha authors seem to
> have the view that the Malkioni are gaining ground from the Orlanthi and
> pretty much everybody else. I see no reason for this to happen, but
> apparently the authors think that the Malkioni culture (oppressive and
> hierarchial) always wins out over the orlanthi one. I just don't see the
> orlanthi wanting to give up their freedom and their gods and becoming
> westeners.

Seconded. It's probably masochism on Greg's part, as I think he dislikes the Malkioni even more than most of us do. After all, he was fairly heavily bruised by Catholicism, whereas say me, I can only claim to have been at worst mildly grazed by Calvinism. (Recovering nicely, thanks.)

> :If what you're advocating is in effect, "iron out the bumps to
> :make things more consistent", arguably it's easier in some sense,
> :but certainly its a whole lot less interesting as a game-world.
>
> There is a patter to Glorantha already. One can try to dig out the model
> of reality with the most coherense and least contradictions. It's a
> shitload of work though, and I wish Greg wouldn't make it his lifes work
> to make us stumble in the dark.

i.e. you want more pattern, and fewer bumps. Since I maintain that Greg is explaining Glorantha as best as he can, I think this could only be carried out by self-conscious misrepresentation. (Like the misapplied worship rules, insofar as he stand behind those. Last time I looked it was more like, off to one side slightly, though sadly not quite running away from them at high speed...)

Cheers,
Alex.


End of The Glorantha Digest V8 #62


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