[Glorantha] Re: [HeroQuest-RPG] Theyalan Missionaries

[Jane Williams]

> > ... 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".

Malk:
 
> Jane, is that *really* an illustration of how you see the relationship
> between the brain and the soul?  I'd have tremendous difficulty with it
> even were you describing a "mind" instead of a "soul", and that would
> certainly fit the analogy more closely.

I've never bothered trying it put it into words before, since the Gloranthan
definition of "soul" only exists from the context of "what you use to
interface with the theistic otherworld" in any case, but yes, as loose
analogies go, it seems about right. Definitely non-physical, anyway.
Definitely a part of the whole think/percieve process. (checking dictionary
definition for "mind": "thought, perception, emotion, will, memory, and
imagination". Yeah. All that lot.) No known ties between this bit of the
process and any specific physical organ much less part of an organ - yes, I
know, Orlanthi say it's a "breath", which isn't even a part of them as an
individual! but since they're only one religion and it's a concept held in
common by theism as a whole, that can be discounted. So it's a collection of
mental abilities, rather like word-use is a collection of mental abilities.
Both are parts of the "mind".

> In Glorantha, and possibly even some RW religions, I'm not even sure
> that a brain is a prerequisite for having a soul. 

Well, the RW definition of "soul" is more or less irrelevant here anyway -
only religions say it exists at all, none of them have a precise definition,
and the vague ones they have all disagree. About the one thing they have in
common is using the word as a synonym for "spirit", which is one thing we
know in Glorantha it isn't. Not a lot of point in looking further.

Ghosts and so on are where the analogy starts to fall down, since the
average PC still requires physical hardware to run the software - I suppose
you could start to talk about emulators, but that would probably be worse
yet.