Yonjuro Posted December 29, 2013 Posted December 29, 2013 Too tempting.... you might want to look at your wording regarding 'something' (it doesn't fit, or equal first cause) and replace with first cause - to maintain the logic (and associated grammatical changes). This falls in line with the logic - unmovable mover and quantum physics (due to dualities). Exactly, that's the leap of faith I mentioned and it's why the Aquinas argument is bogus. In a logical argument, when you have a universal quantifier, it really means everything. If it doesn't, it ain't logic. In line one, 'everything' doesn't mean everything, it means 'everything except for this one thing that we are tacitly assuming exists and has special properties'. Like all of Aquinas' attempts to prove god it says : god exists therefore god exists. He was given an impossible task by the pope (prove that god is knowable by reason unaided by faith) so he did the best he could. Nobody should buy any of his attempts as logical arguments from first principles, because they aren't.
Kveldulf Posted December 29, 2013 Posted December 29, 2013 (edited) Too tempting.... you might want to look at your wording regarding 'something' (it doesn't fit, or equal first cause) and replace with first cause - to maintain the logic (and associated grammatical changes). This falls in line with the logic - unmovable mover and quantum physics (due to dualities). Exactly, that's the leap of faith I mentioned and it's why the Aquinas argument is bogus. In a logical argument, when you have a universal quantifier, it really means everything. If it doesn't, it ain't logic. In line one, 'everything' doesn't mean everything, it means 'everything except for this one thing that we are tacitly assuming exists and has special properties'. Like all of Aquinas' attempts to prove god it says : god exists therefore god exists. He was given an impossible task by the pope (prove that god is knowable by reason unaided by faith) so he did the best he could. Nobody should buy any of his attempts as logical arguments from first principles, because they aren't. Everything cannot be an independant cause, thats illogical. The argument distinguishes that: everything has cause, and nothing cannot have cause; nothing is not everything. Nowhere does it state The First Cause, is without cause. Rather, it qualifies it as the 'first' rather than 'effecient' cause (dependant to the first cause). It seems with your assertions though, you are super imposing a logical sequence - If you make something, were you not the cause of it? Do you become it because you made it? No, of course not. Ultimately, the effecient cause argument is merely pointing to a series of causations to an origin. Modern physics tends to concur with this line of logic: 'evolution', thermdynamics, quantum physics. Edited December 29, 2013 by Kveldulf
Lythe Vodaine Posted December 29, 2013 Posted December 29, 2013 (edited) Will I use guns in PoE? Probably not, I prefer "classic" fantasy weapons like swords, bows, magic. But on the other hand their being part of the game world doesn't bother me much either. To each their own, and just because I won't use alchemist firesticks doesn't mean others shouldn't be able to. Just my 2 copper pieces, Lythe Edited December 29, 2013 by Lythe Vodaine
PrimeJunta Posted December 29, 2013 Posted December 29, 2013 (edited) @Kveldulf, yes, Plato and Aristotle are outdated, and Aquinas was a complete dead end. For a good critique, I recommend volume I of Karl Popper's The Open Society and its Enemies. It's too long to go into in a forum post. Essentialism is dead. 1. I am pointing out a counterexample. You state as your premise that every event has an effective cause. I am pointing out an event which has no effective cause, which demonstrates that your premise is invalid. 2a and 2b: I am proposing two alternatives for your presupposition. How do you determine that yours is the correct one, as opposed to these two others? (N.b.: I do not need to demonstrate that either one of these -- or some other alternative -- is true. You, however, do need to demonstrate that your cosmic model of time with a beginning is, or your chain of logic will fail. Please do so or concede the point.) 3-5 What does thermodynamics have to do with this? 5b. I have not agreed that an origin exists, but let's, for the sake of the argument. Why can something rational not arise from something irrational? We can certainly observe order arising from chaos, such as a snowflake crystallizing out of water vapor. Seriously, Kvedulf -- the Middle Ages are over. Catch up. I recommend a heavy course of reading, starting with Schopenhauer, Husserl, and Popper. Essentialist metaphysics are dead; phenomenology and nominalism are where it's at. Edit: Bluntly put, Kvedulf: you're rationalizing an irrational belief here. It's not pretty. I have a great deal more respect for credo quia absurdum. It's intellectually honest. Edited December 29, 2013 by PrimeJunta I have a project. It's a tabletop RPG. It's free. It's a work in progress. Find it here: www.brikoleur.com
Yonjuro Posted December 29, 2013 Posted December 29, 2013 Everything cannot be an independant cause, thats illogical. I didn't say that everything is an independent cause. Line 1 in the derivation in your post was: There is an efficient cause for everything; nothing can be the efficient cause of itself. I pointed out that the argument leads to an absurdity. You then said that one particular something isn't included in the 'everything' in line 1. That is the only illogical thing anyone has said here and it points to the leap of faith being made in Aquinas' argument. There is an unstated 'something' that is being assumed. The argument then becomes 'X (which is assumed without proof) therefore X' , a bogus argument. Appealing to quantum mechanics, evolution and thermodynamics to shore up a logical fallacy is ridiculous. .. Nowhere does it state The First Cause, is without cause. ... Yeah, it does. That's a necessary conclusion of line 2. You will see that immediately if/when you learn formal logic. I'm done with this discussion. I would be happy to talk about a Farmer Giles style blunderbus and how it could be used to interupt a wizard in PoE.
PrimeJunta Posted December 29, 2013 Posted December 29, 2013 (edited) Since we're still on this tangent, here's an alternative model of the universe for you guys to consider. P1: A universe exists independently of any observers. (Premise I accept on faith.) P2: Consciousness exists as a quality of the Universe. (Premise I accept because I possess it.) 1. Sentient beings impose categories on the universe. A sentient being can draw a line around a part of the universe, associate it with other parts of the universe she has similarly delineated, and designate that part as 'a chair.' 1a. There is nothing inherent in the chair that makes it a chair. It is just a label. The same chunk of the universe could also be designated "trash" or "firewood" or "the watchtower of my pillow fortrtress." 1b. Such categories and signifiers are arbitrary. The choice of particular categories and signifiers is made for convenience only. 2. Knowledge and meaningful communication become possible when various sentient beings come to a rough agreement among themselves about which signifiers are associated with which parts of the Universe. 2a. Categories like "self" or "mind" or "rationality" or "sentient being" are also signifiers associated with chunks of the universe, nothing more. 2b. "The self" or "you" or "I" have no inherent existence, indepent of other categories. 3. The only noumenon is the Universe. 4. I can know it in only two ways: direct experience and categorization. 4a. Direct experience is not communicable. At best, I can direct someone to perform the same actions I did when experiencing something, and hope that she experiences something similar. 4b. Categorized knowledge is communicable, to an extent, using the shared system from (2). 5. Since the categories are largely arbitrary and do not reflect anything inherent in the Universe, any such knowledge I can attain is necessarily flawed: the designator is not the object. 6. Therefore, absolute truths and certain knowledge is unattainable. At best, we can have approximations of it. Sometimes good approximations. 7. Whereof you cannot speak, thereof you must be silent. Edited December 29, 2013 by PrimeJunta 1 I have a project. It's a tabletop RPG. It's free. It's a work in progress. Find it here: www.brikoleur.com
Kveldulf Posted December 29, 2013 Posted December 29, 2013 @Kveldulf, yes, Plato and Aristotle are outdated, and Aquinas was a complete dead end. For a good critique, I recommend volume I of Karl Popper's The Open Society and its Enemies. It's too long to go into in a forum post. Essentialism is dead. 1. I am pointing out a counterexample. You state as your premise that every event has an effective cause. I am pointing out an event which has no effective cause, which demonstrates that your premise is invalid. 2a and 2b: I am proposing two alternatives for your presupposition. How do you determine that yours is the correct one, as opposed to these two others? (N.b.: I do not need to demonstrate that either one of these -- or some other alternative -- is true. You, however, do need to demonstrate that your cosmic model of time with a beginning is, or your chain of logic will fail. Please do so or concede the point.) 3-5 What does thermodynamics have to do with this? 5b. I have not agreed that an origin exists, but let's, for the sake of the argument. Why can something rational not arise from something irrational? We can certainly observe order arising from chaos, such as a snowflake crystallizing out of water vapor. Seriously, Kvedulf -- the Middle Ages are over. Catch up. I recommend a heavy course of reading, starting with Schopenhauer, Husserl, and Popper. Essentialist metaphysics are dead; phenomenology and nominalism are where it's at. Edit: Bluntly put, Kvedulf: you're rationalizing an irrational belief here. It's not pretty. I have a great deal more respect for credo quia absurdum. It's intellectually honest. Well, you can call them outdated, doesn't make them so. Groups of people can label it as such.... doesn't take away from the validity: those fundamentals are still applicable. 1. Logically, you provided no example other than: there is an event that has no effective cause. You provided nothing other than a proclamation. The statement alone will show itself contradictory - to say an event had no effective cause, first requires the observer to have cause to gauge the 'no cause' of said thing; therefore giving cause to the thing that supposedly had no cause, because you observed it. The real question is where did the first cause in this situation come from? If there was no cause, then why quantify it; you cannot make the statement without logically getting into deep problems. Abstractly you can get away from this logic - as an idiom. Literally, logically you cannot. 2. I'm not sure what answer you are wanting? To what exactly? Time? The proof of a linear nature to the universe? I don't need to concede anything regarding this, because I haven't asserted anything other than it requiring faith. If you are refering to the nature of infinity vs eternity, then yes those are both distinct words to be used appropriately. If you believe the universe to have always been, then you believe that the universe is eternal, not infinite. If you believe there is a point of origin and the universe will alawys exist from that point on, then that is infinite. If you are wanting proof regarding whether or not the physical universe is finite, looks to the theory of expansion. 3. Entropy. Things have a tendency to go from a state of order to disorder (that hiearchy is congruent with effecient cause). Order precipitates chaos everytime its even talked about (im not talking about Warhammer ). 5. You stated from a premise that it comes from disorder; the scope is localized to (i wager) the event rather than all of the preceeding causations; being: content measurement, weather patterns, location, planetary magnetics (real important to weather formation) - coronal hole stream interactions at that time, cosomological interactions ...... this keeps going. The irrational cannot make something rational, otherwise it would be rational, unless, what we perceive is irrational is really rational because we lack the rationality to gauge it. You can try to inverse it, but you should end in it being rational - ie coherently true, or coherently false.... You cannot make an incoherent statement, and it be coherent. If we did that, we wouldn't being having a conversation. And one day, I wouldn't be suprised if current works get lumped in with the middle ages.... or even called the new middle ages.... age of regression.
PrimeJunta Posted December 29, 2013 Posted December 29, 2013 Well, you can call them outdated, doesn't make them so. Groups of people can label it as such.... doesn't take away from the validity: those fundamentals are still applicable. Essentialist thinking is fundamentally flawed. It is applicable to nothing. Apply it, and you end up counting angels on pinheads. Deductive reasoning is applicable to some things, but because of the inherent limitations of knowledge, it's useless without some independent way to validate the conclusions to which it leads. Without it, they're just cathedrals in the air. 1. Logically, you provided no example other than: there is an event that has no effective cause. You provided nothing other than a proclamation. The statement alone will show itself contradictory - to say an event had no effective cause, first requires the observer to have cause to gauge the 'no cause' of said thing; therefore giving cause to the thing that supposedly had no cause, because you observed it. The real question is where did the first cause in this situation come from? If there was no cause, then why quantify it; you cannot make the statement without logically getting into deep problems. Abstractly you can get away from this logic - as an idiom. Literally, logically you cannot. I just did. Quantum events are uncaused, or self-caused if you will. Or can you show otherwise? (As Yonjuro pointed out, of course, that link in your chain is already invalidated by your posited causeless First Cause.) 2. I'm not sure what answer you are wanting? To what exactly? Time? The proof of a linear nature to the universe? I don't need to concede anything regarding this, because I haven't asserted anything other than it requiring faith. If you are refering to the nature of infinity vs eternity, then yes those are both distinct words to be used appropriately. If you believe the universe to have always been, then you believe that the universe is eternal, not infinite. If you believe there is a point of origin and the universe will alawys exist from that point on, then that is infinite. If you are wanting proof regarding whether or not the physical universe is finite, looks to the theory of expansion. I take that as conceding the point: that you believe, on faith, that the Universe has a beginning. Thank you. 3. Entropy. Things have a tendency to go from a state of order to disorder (that hiearchy is congruent with effecient cause). Order precipitates chaos everytime its even talked about (im not talking about Warhammer ). In a closed system. That does not preclude order arising from disorder locally. We see that happening all the time. It just means that the total entropy in a closed system rises over time. 5. You stated from a premise that it comes from disorder; the scope is localized to (i wager) the event rather than all of the preceeding causations; being: content measurement, weather patterns, location, planetary magnetics (real important to weather formation) - coronal hole stream interactions at that time, cosomological interactions ...... this keeps going. The irrational cannot make something rational, otherwise it would be rational, unless, what we perceive is irrational is really rational because we lack the rationality to gauge it. You can try to inverse it, but you should end in it being rational - ie coherently true, or coherently false.... You cannot make an incoherent statement, and it be coherent. If we did that, we wouldn't being having a conversation. Uh... right. I didn't actually understand a word of that. And one day, I wouldn't be suprised if current works get lumped in with the middle ages.... or even called the new middle ages.... age of regression. Me neither. We have a lot to answer for. I have a project. It's a tabletop RPG. It's free. It's a work in progress. Find it here: www.brikoleur.com
Kveldulf Posted December 29, 2013 Posted December 29, 2013 (edited) Since we're still on this tangent, here's an alternative model of the universe for you guys to consider. P1: A universe exists independently of any observers. (Premise I accept on faith.) P2: Consciousness exists as a quality of the Universe. (Premise I accept because I possess it.) 1. Sentient beings impose categories on the universe. A sentient being can draw a line around a part of the universe, associate it with other parts of the universe she has similarly delineated, and designate that part as 'a chair.' 1a. There is nothing inherent in the chair that makes it a chair. It is just a label. The same chunk of the universe could also be designated "trash" or "firewood" or "the watchtower of my pillow fortrtress." 1b. Such categories and signifiers are arbitrary. The choice of particular categories and signifiers is made for convenience only. 2. Knowledge and meaningful communication become possible when various sentient beings come to a rough agreement among themselves about which signifiers are associated with which parts of the Universe. 2a. Categories like "self" or "mind" or "rationality" or "sentient being" are also signifiers associated with chunks of the universe, nothing more. 2b. "The self" or "you" or "I" have no inherent existence, indepent of other categories. 3. The only noumenon is the Universe. 4. I can know it in only two ways: direct experience and categorization. 4a. Direct experience is not communicable. At best, I can direct someone to perform the same actions I did when experiencing something, and hope that she experiences something similar. 4b. Categorized knowledge is communicable, to an extent, using the shared system from (2). 5. Since the categories are largely arbitrary and do not reflect anything inherent in the Universe, any such knowledge I can attain is necessarily flawed: the designator is not the object. 6. Therefore, absolute truths and certain knowledge is unattainable. At best, we can have approximations of it. Sometimes good approximations. 7. Whereof you cannot speak, thereof you must be silent. P1: A universe exists independently of any observers. (Premise I accept on faith.) Quantum mechanics says otherwise. See "Observer Effect" P2: Consciousness exists as a quality of the Universe. (Premise I accept because I possess it.) How do you know its from the universe? Is the universe everything? Where did it come from (really the situation at hand)? If it's always been then how can you explain the physical laws (signifiers) limiting that idea? "2a. Categories like "self" or "mind" or "rationality" or "sentient being" are also signifiers associated with chunks of the universe, nothing more." This is an absolute statement I cannot agree with, and I doubt you can confirm. "3. The only noumenon is the Universe." Carl Sagen would agree with this; it's still a statement of faith. "4. I can know it in only two ways: direct experience and categorization." Aka Empirical or Theoretical. Which both of us have been using thus far. "Therefore, absolute truths and certain knowledge is unattainable. At best, we can have approximations of it. Sometimes good approximations" Except this statement is absolute -the matter of approximation isn't probable or improbable - there would be no way to know an accurate/best approximation under this, therefore it wouldn't mean anything. Edited December 29, 2013 by Kveldulf
Kveldulf Posted December 29, 2013 Posted December 29, 2013 (edited) Well, you can call them outdated, doesn't make them so. Groups of people can label it as such.... doesn't take away from the validity: those fundamentals are still applicable. Essentialist thinking is fundamentally flawed. It is applicable to nothing. Apply it, and you end up counting angels on pinheads. Deductive reasoning is applicable to some things, but because of the inherent limitations of knowledge, it's useless without some independent way to validate the conclusions to which it leads. Without it, they're just cathedrals in the air. 1. Logically, you provided no example other than: there is an event that has no effective cause. You provided nothing other than a proclamation. The statement alone will show itself contradictory - to say an event had no effective cause, first requires the observer to have cause to gauge the 'no cause' of said thing; therefore giving cause to the thing that supposedly had no cause, because you observed it. The real question is where did the first cause in this situation come from? If there was no cause, then why quantify it; you cannot make the statement without logically getting into deep problems. Abstractly you can get away from this logic - as an idiom. Literally, logically you cannot. I just did. Quantum events are uncaused, or self-caused if you will. Or can you show otherwise? (As Yonjuro pointed out, of course, that link in your chain is already invalidated by your posited causeless First Cause.) 2. I'm not sure what answer you are wanting? To what exactly? Time? The proof of a linear nature to the universe? I don't need to concede anything regarding this, because I haven't asserted anything other than it requiring faith. If you are refering to the nature of infinity vs eternity, then yes those are both distinct words to be used appropriately. If you believe the universe to have always been, then you believe that the universe is eternal, not infinite. If you believe there is a point of origin and the universe will alawys exist from that point on, then that is infinite. If you are wanting proof regarding whether or not the physical universe is finite, looks to the theory of expansion. I take that as conceding the point: that you believe, on faith, that the Universe has a beginning. Thank you. 3. Entropy. Things have a tendency to go from a state of order to disorder (that hiearchy is congruent with effecient cause). Order precipitates chaos everytime its even talked about (im not talking about Warhammer ). In a closed system. That does not preclude order arising from disorder locally. We see that happening all the time. It just means that the total entropy in a closed system rises over time. 5. You stated from a premise that it comes from disorder; the scope is localized to (i wager) the event rather than all of the preceeding causations; being: content measurement, weather patterns, location, planetary magnetics (real important to weather formation) - coronal hole stream interactions at that time, cosomological interactions ...... this keeps going. The irrational cannot make something rational, otherwise it would be rational, unless, what we perceive is irrational is really rational because we lack the rationality to gauge it. You can try to inverse it, but you should end in it being rational - ie coherently true, or coherently false.... You cannot make an incoherent statement, and it be coherent. If we did that, we wouldn't being having a conversation. Uh... right. I didn't actually understand a word of that. And one day, I wouldn't be suprised if current works get lumped in with the middle ages.... or even called the new middle ages.... age of regression. Me neither. We have a lot to answer for. I agree to disagree - regarding your prelude 1. Observer effect 2. You're welcome 3. Closed system is subjective to the entire environment it is in - in this case, at least the universe. 5. Man I don't know what happened there (sorry, it made sense up there), re-reading it now I see I probably should have made a few paragraphs from it. What I meant to say is: a first cause either implies reason, or the irrational. Choosing which one of these is either reasonable or irrational. If there be a God, the meaning of the word has to contain an aspect that is rational and one that is unknowable - the unknowable being the perceived irrational, really being purely rational (entirely effecient), from our purview. If there be no God, there exists no reason, or higher meaning (outside of the observer). If there is no meaning, nothing is absolute; why then, do we first have to acknowledge with meaning that there is a signifier, God , to then denounce there is no God..... to then prescribe to the meaningless? It simply does not make sense. Even so, if everything is meaningless, then how is it that what Im saying is meaningful? You can try to throw around 'signifier' as a relative fix, but that doesn't take away the glaring positve in such a negative view. Edited December 29, 2013 by Kveldulf
Tamerlane Posted December 29, 2013 Posted December 29, 2013 Gonna make a party of six dudes and ladies with maximum carrying capacity, all loaded up from their fancy boots to their feathered hats with guns. Pistols and muskets and blunderbusses; as many as they can carry. I'll lose any fight that goes long enough for me to actually empty all of my weapons, but until then, the Vailian Armada will reign supreme.
PrimeJunta Posted December 29, 2013 Posted December 29, 2013 @Kveldulf, I'm going to let this drop, mostly because it's more and more off-topic here – and also you're misunderstanding what I'm stating, and I have a feeling it would be a lot of work to work through that misunderstanding, and I don't feel particularly keen to do that work. If you're really interested in this worldview, read the Popper book I recommended earlier. I have a project. It's a tabletop RPG. It's free. It's a work in progress. Find it here: www.brikoleur.com
Yonjuro Posted December 29, 2013 Posted December 29, 2013 (edited) Gonna make a party of six dudes and ladies with maximum carrying capacity, all loaded up from their fancy boots to their feathered hats with guns. Pistols and muskets and blunderbusses; as many as they can carry. I'll lose any fight that goes long enough for me to actually empty all of my weapons, but until then, the Vailian Armada will reign supreme. Hmmm - a blunderbuss is an aoe weapon, sort of like a shotgun, and it can be loaded with whatever junk you have on hand. So, for example, If you loaded it with rock salt, or maybe some noxious herbs, the burning sensation over time might be able to disrupt a party of mages for a several spell casting attempts. Farmer Giles of Ham would approve. BTW, do you think there will be bayonets? I think they originated in the 1600s or 1700s (?) so it might be tech that the PoE world wouldn't have, but it would make your all gun party viable. edit: wikipedia says the word was used in the 1500s for a large dagger but possibly not attached to a rifle until the 1600s Edited December 29, 2013 by Yonjuro
Wintersong Posted December 29, 2013 Posted December 29, 2013 Just think of guns as an alchemist's fire sticks. "All right, you primitive screw-heads, listen up! See this? This... is my boomstick! It's a twelve-gauge, double-barreled Remington. S-Mart's top of the line. You can find this in the sporting goods department. That's right, this sweet baby was made in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Retails for about $109.95. It's got a walnut stock, cobalt-blue steel, and a hair trigger. That's right... shop smart: shop S-Mart... You got that?" <--- totally fine with guns of any kind as long as are well integrated in the game universe 2
Leferd Posted December 29, 2013 Posted December 29, 2013 I'm pretty intrigued by the idea that followers of Magran - Goddess of War and Fire may have an affinity and expertise of firearms. http://eternity.gamepedia.com/Cadegund "Things are funny...are comedic, because they mix the real with the absurd." - Buzz Aldrin."P-O-T-A-T-O-E" - Dan Quayle
JFSOCC Posted January 1, 2014 Posted January 1, 2014 on the primejunta/kveldulf pissing contest... I don't mind anachronisms in fantasy fiction very much because it is a fantasy setting. We can say PoE is inspired by the early colonial era on earth, but it's important to remember that it *ISN'T* because it's a fiction and exists in a different universe. I'm actually perfectly OK with, and encourage game developers to take some risks on their game world. Yes, you can be inspired by, have the flavour of some interesting settings in our history, which admittedly is going to be the only source of inspiration, since it's the only thing we've experienced. However, many natural experiments in Cultural Anthropology are showing us that history does not unfold identically everywhere. From this I take that any setting can be wildly different from its real world counterpart. As both of you stated, it is more important whether this is believable within the game world, whether or not it is internally consistent. Provided the world offers explanation for the appearance of any technology, it has to be satisfying to fit in there. One way to deal with that is to make it as much like the real world as we know, another is to completely abandon this and go full-on fantasy. I imagine the right balance is somewhere in the middle. It's not relevant that Kveldulf had the wrong name for a time period, since it was not the name that was at the core of his argument. That said, once presented with new information, Kveldulf explained his definition of colonial era and with that tried to explain what he meant. Primejunta is correct about the details, and it's certainly important to have agreement on the meaning of the words and terms you use. This confusion is not helpful, especially since it's distracting from the argument you're trying to make. I like the concept of guns in PoE, I like their in-world explanation, I think it both respects the simulationist camp and the fantasy camp. having these guns be "early" adaptations allows them to be balanced along with your stock fantasy arsenal, without any weapon type being clearly superior to others. I hope to find quite a bit of clearly otherworldly items, organisations, concepts, ideas, along with a way to quantify and reason their existence in this setting. On the flip side, I hope to see quite a bit of familiar historically inspired organisations, people, items, concepts and ideas as well. Best of both worlds, how could that possibly fail? Remember: Argue the point, not the person. Remain polite and constructive. Friendly forums have friendly debate. There's no shame in being wrong. If you don't have something to add, don't post for the sake of it. And don't be afraid to post thoughts you are uncertain about, that's what discussion is for.---Pet threads, everyone has them. I love imagining Gods, Monsters, Factions and Weapons.
PrimeJunta Posted January 1, 2014 Posted January 1, 2014 @JFSOCC wrong pissing contest. Kveldulf was trying to prove the existence of God. Adhin was the one who thought 'colonial era' meant 18th c North America. I have a project. It's a tabletop RPG. It's free. It's a work in progress. Find it here: www.brikoleur.com
JFSOCC Posted January 1, 2014 Posted January 1, 2014 oh sorry. well my point still stands. Remember: Argue the point, not the person. Remain polite and constructive. Friendly forums have friendly debate. There's no shame in being wrong. If you don't have something to add, don't post for the sake of it. And don't be afraid to post thoughts you are uncertain about, that's what discussion is for.---Pet threads, everyone has them. I love imagining Gods, Monsters, Factions and Weapons.
PrimeJunta Posted January 1, 2014 Posted January 1, 2014 @Sharp_one yes we can. Guns in a fantasy setting with bronze-age technology would be obviously anachronistic, for example. I have a project. It's a tabletop RPG. It's free. It's a work in progress. Find it here: www.brikoleur.com
PrimeJunta Posted January 1, 2014 Posted January 1, 2014 @Sharp_one yes we can. Guns in a fantasy setting with bronze-age technology would be obviously anachronistic, for example. No, we cannot. Because in fantasy world the author as the creator chooses what technology is available at given time. So, unless the source material is contradicting itself at some point we cannot say that something in fictional universe is anachronism even if people fight with actual forged swords in a space opera. You appear to have very low standards for your fiction. I have a project. It's a tabletop RPG. It's free. It's a work in progress. Find it here: www.brikoleur.com
PrimeJunta Posted January 1, 2014 Posted January 1, 2014 There was no subject change. You appear to have very low standards for consistency in your fiction. Firearms in a bronze-age fantasy are anachronistic. There's simply no way you could have firearms with bronze-age technology. If they're present, they must come from somewhere else, e.g. left from a previous much more advanced civilization. They're still anachronistic. If you disagree, that, to me, shows that your standards for fantasy are low. It's not enough to simply declare victory to win an argument, by the way. You actually have to demonstrate your point first. I have a project. It's a tabletop RPG. It's free. It's a work in progress. Find it here: www.brikoleur.com
PrimeJunta Posted January 1, 2014 Posted January 1, 2014 If the setting is real world bronze-age than adding guns is anachronistic. If the world setting is fully fantasy, then you cannot call something an anachronism because you cannot claim you know history of this world better than it's creator. It's like saying that bumblebees are to heavy for their little wings to carry them to God. You are confusing consistency and anachronism. Also I never said that I would for example not find such setting (low tech with guns) ridiculous or would not be displeased with such setting unless it would be more fleshed how it's done. I stated simply I would not call it anachronism. You're as always trying to put something your opponent never said into his mouth. In that case, it sounds like we're quibbling over semantics. I would find 'anachronistic' an appropriate term to use if a fantasy world included a technology (e.g. firearms) without including the precursor technologies for it (e.g. metallurgy good enough to forge gun barrels). I have a project. It's a tabletop RPG. It's free. It's a work in progress. Find it here: www.brikoleur.com
PrimeJunta Posted January 1, 2014 Posted January 1, 2014 Okay, in that case I concede the point. I don't give a sh1t about semantics. I have a project. It's a tabletop RPG. It's free. It's a work in progress. Find it here: www.brikoleur.com
PrimeJunta Posted January 1, 2014 Posted January 1, 2014 Okay, in that case I concede the point. I don't give a sh1t about semantics. "-Sir, what do you consider the worst attitude nowadays unawareness or ignorance? - I don't know, I don't care" I will remember that you cannot comprehend the meaning of words for future discussions. Words only have the meaning we ascribe to them. Conversations about semantics are worthwhile only to the extent they're needed to clarify misunderstandings in a particular context. I have a project. It's a tabletop RPG. It's free. It's a work in progress. Find it here: www.brikoleur.com
PrimeJunta Posted January 1, 2014 Posted January 1, 2014 Sure, then tomorrow at the store ask for schlong when you want to buy bread. Why would I do that? It would be silly. I have a project. It's a tabletop RPG. It's free. It's a work in progress. Find it here: www.brikoleur.com
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