( ... but Greg too : this isn't an attempt to retrofit anything to Gloranthan "reality" : to the contrary ... )
( ... and Graham, still hoping to give you that clue ... )
> Graham:
> > You appear to want to know answers from a point of view outside
> > Glorantha. That viewpoint doesn't exist. Glorantha has always been
> > developed from the inside only. We, as outsiders, may know more than
> > any Gloranthan *does* but we don't have any answers that a
> > Gloranthan *couldn't* know.
>
> Julian:
> > I'll quibble with that, although only in a minor way, because there
> > is a crucial difference between what we can know and they can : we
> > can know (or decide in our Gloranthas) an entire range of answers
> > and realities pertaining to Glorantha that no Gloranthan could
> > possibly know, it's true, but more importantly our vision of
> > Glorantha is firmly based on the written word and therefore
> > constitutes positive *knowledge*, whereas an actual Gloranthan
> > would, because of the possibility of HQ challenges et cetera, be
> > forced to base his belief system on faith, even if this is just
> > faith that his gods are actually what they present themselves to be,
> > ie "Orlanth is the King of the World" for example ; the Lunar Empire
> > is challenging this assertion...
>
> I'd quibble with calling that a quibble; more like 180 degrees
> opposite of what Graham was saying, as best as I could judge...
No.
This is a minor quibble because it concerns things that 99.99% of Gloranthans don't know and don't care about. Not to mention players ...
The trick here is that both Gloranthans' sensory perception of Glorantha, and our literary/linguistic knowledge of Glorantha are media, hence subject to the ordinary Mystery of communication, which means that both methods of knowing Glorantha lead to the same problem of the ineffable.
The difference being that our knowledge of Glorantha is *entirely* literary/linguistic, so that there is a particular class of Gloranthan facts, expressed officially using literary/linguistic methods, that we can simply accept as facts (In Our Gloranthas), because of the medium used, whereas real Gloranthans would constantly need to adjust such ideas to actual reality as known by far more direct (but far less effective) magical and natural means.
Another difference is that YGMV & YGWV.
Such cannot be suggested 100% confidently of RW.
YRWMV ? Not necessarily ...
> I think I have to disagree with you both; it's _possible_ to have,
> essentially by fiat, an outside PoV in the sense Graham seems to mean,
Exactly, although I *think* that I was suggesting it - perhaps too abstractedly ?
> and in some sense useful -- perhaps for the purposes of my game, I
> want to predetermine that yes, Orlanth really _is_ the King of the
> Middle Air (or contrariwise, that the Red Goddess is). Hopefully in
> the interests of dramatic tension, I don't share this decision with my
> players...
:-)
> Or equally, let's suppose that Greg or Mark decides to
> inform us of one or other such fact. In what sense is this more
> positive knowledge than a Gloranthans experience of this truth?
It is more positive because of our fiat.
It's quite simply because YGWV that our experience of Gloranthan truh is at such a high level : even a HQ challenge IYG would lead not to a confusion and misunderstanding of Glorantha, but to a more precise understanding.
Faith is the most difficult element here : but quite simply, we are aware of the fact that Glorantha does not exist. Actual Gloranthans are not.
...
But AFAIK this is dangerously close to a secret topic or two, so I'll shut up ...
...
> (Or
> these truths...) In one sense, it's entirely less "positive", as it's
> beyond any verification, whereas experiential knowledge has at least
> vicarious verification available to it.
I respect your opinion, but this much depends on belief more than any transcendental experience, such as your vicariousness appears to rely on.
> A further question is: are such 'facts' about the world, which by
> assumption are unverifiable within it,
YGWV .. ;-)
> a "good" thing to have? In the
> sense of "useful campaign assumption", I've already stipulated that
> they are, in some sense. But in the broader, "diagrams of the
> ineffable" sense I'd say they are not, especially wherein they're
> represented as being in any sense a "better" class of knowledge than
> the other.
All I am aying is that we share a certain class of information, unavailable to Gloranthans, but common to our conceptions of what Glorantha is.
Now, there is very little knowledge belonging to this class, but it exists, we share it, and it belongs to the class of Gloranthan Truths that we know, but Gloranthans don't.
Not GM Fiat :
Greg Issariesque Gloranthae Tribus etiam Fiant ... :-)
> To pick up on the example of HQ challenges, let's say,
> these are not flaws in one's perception of Gloranthan reality, they
> are aspects _of_ that reality;
Exactly why I am suggesting that actual Gloranthans' understanding of reality is centred on faith.
Of course this is another heretic idea of mine, but I'm fairly strongly moved to suggest, given actual Gloranthans' inability to perceive/understand any cohesive nor universal Gloranthan überReality, contrary to fantasy RPG bog-standard, that the existence of Gloranthan gods does not, as has previously been suggested, lead to any possibly universal recognition as regarding their existence, nature, names, powers, et cetera.
> a truth that omits such considerations
> is distinctly suspect, rather like classical physics kvetching about
> the 'imperfections' of quantum mechanics, if you will.
No, this is about the basic imperfections of human rationality.
Julian Lord
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