[Glorantha] Re: Theyelan Missionaries

[Trotsky]

Jane:

>> Well, sorry, not really. But this isn't the place for me to 
>> explain the
>> difference between soul and brain. If you don't understand 
>> that, then there is no point in me explaining further.
>  
>
>
>Not the same - one is part of the other, and now we know it's "soul", we can
>use the more specific term. Simple analogy: "brain" = whole PC. "Soul" =
>important bit of software running on that PC. "Brain damage" = "my PC
>doesn't work". "Soul damage"  = "Microsoft Word has been corrupted". And the
>nice missionaries supply a patch to install to fix it. That analogy won't
>stretch any further without breaking, I don't think, but it covers that far.
>
I think that Greg is using the term 'brain' here to mean, in your 
analogy, the PC hardware alone, and thus 'brain damage' to mean 
something along the lines of a surface errors on your hard disc. Plus, 
he seems to be assuming that that's what you mean too, when, in fact 
you're referring to something much broader than that. On top of all 
which is the problem that, in Glorantha, the soul doesn't necessarily 
have anything more to do with the brain than it does with, say, the 
heart, or the breath, or something like that. It is, after all, 
perfectly possible to have a Gloranthan soul without a brain of any kind 
- noncorporeal spirits being the most obvious example. So, from his 
perspective, its a bit like him saying (to stretch an analogy 
mercilessly) 'Microsoft Word is corrupt', and you saying something that 
sounds to him like 'surely that's because this DVD player over here is 
broken'.

I think this different use of terminology lies beyond a lot of the 
confusion in this thread :)

Malk:

> does anyone know if - say - Hinduism allows for
>reincarnation as a plant, amoeba or anything else without a recognisable
>brain? 
>
In Jainism, you can get reincarnated as something that isn't, in a 
modern scientific sense, alive. A candle flame, for instance (which 
would be a short reincarnation, to be sure, but there you go).

-- 
Trotsky
Gamer and Skeptic

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Trotsky's RPG website: http://www.ttrotsky.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/