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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Boney said:
This actually reminds me of a myth of Dionysus. One of his purported origins is that he was fathered by a God called Ammon who was stepping out on his wife Rhea (!), and to prevent her from finding out about it, he hid the infant in Nysa, a place that's sometimes identified as Arabia (!). Later on the myths converge on Dionysus joining Olympus, as Ranald here does. The Taal and Rhya relationship here feels like a later bowdlerist expurgated an infidelity without doing anything about the circumstances that gave rise to it - emphasis is put on how lonely Rhya is and how far away Taal is and how long-lasting and trivial what he's doing is, then 'the Grey Wind blew' and oops, there's a baby, how mysterious, how did that happen to a neglected wife while her husband was so far away? And then the inconsistency becomes explicit when later in the myth he's outright referred to as Rhya's son.
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At first glance I thought it was a Moses-in-the-bullrushes sort of situation, and him being Rhea's son is more of a "you took care of me and that in fact means I'm your son", but yeah, Ulgu being involved inherently makes it suspicious. But because it's a myth, you can't say for sure Rhya was stepping out on Taal. It's Ulgu! It's inherently confusing and suspicious.
 
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Boney said:
The historical (lack of) understanding of PTSD is an even bigger can of worms than adrenaline, and that's without getting into 'shock' in English originally solely meaning the moment of being charged in battle. That would make it still be appropriate but in a different way than the modern understanding of the word 'shock', and now we're right back at a paragraph to replace a phrase.
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I did find this after a cursory google search, which seems to suggest some evidence that treatment for various post-battle traumas existed.

https://www.researchgate.net/public...aumatic_Stress_Disorders_in_the_Ancient_World

Of course, understanding may not be so evenly spread or even retained. But ritual seemed generally effective for trauma, at least in the past.
 
Andres said:
This ought to be of interest to the thread for obvious reasons. Also, it seems that there are two wizards named Wyssan, as Wyssan's Wildform and Wyssan's Ally are from the Lore of Beasts.
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The obvious take is that it's a name derived from Wissen ("knowledge"), which is a quite fitting for a Magister.

Of course, now I have to ask: why is Wissenburg named the way it is when Nuln is where they do all the thinking? :p
 
Mopman43 said:
Well, nothing saying that Ranald isn't still pulling off heists?

Or at least, that people still make new stories of him doing so.
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I'm not nitpicking, it's something I found funny. Canon treats Josef Bugman as a historical figure in some places and as a contemporary character in others, and so he fits right in to a list of timeless mythologized feats that could have happened yesterday or a thousand years ago.

Shard said:
I did find this after a cursory google search, which seems to suggest some evidence that treatment for various post-battle traumas existed.

https://www.researchgate.net/public...aumatic_Stress_Disorders_in_the_Ancient_World

Of course, understanding may not be so evenly spread or even retained. But ritual seemed generally effective, at least in the past.
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We cannot be pulling out research papers for a single throwaway line that only exists to establish the general vibe of Mathilde walking the ducklings through their first combat forays.

Tasoli said:
Seriously how do you even know that of the top of your head? Were you around Discordianists back in the day? :confused:
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I was Discordianists back in the day. I read it early for the funnies and moved on, but then when I was exploring philosophies I kept finding that they kept saying a thousand boring words to dance around something that the Principia nailed in a pithy one-liner. The section on psycho-metaphyics was the cornerstone for my belief in the inherent value of diverse perspectives.

The Aneristic Principle is that of APPARENT ORDER; the Eristic Principle is that of APPARENT DISORDER. Both order and disorder are man made concepts and are artificial divisions of PURE CHAOS, which is a level deeper that is the level of distinction making.

With our concept making apparatus called "mind" we look at reality through the ideas-about-reality which our cultures give us. The ideas-about- reality are mistakenly labeled "reality" and unenlightened people are forever perplexed by the fact that other people, especially other cultures, see "reality" differently. It is only the ideas-about-reality which differ. Real (capital-T True) reality is a level deeper that is the level of concept.

We look at the world through windows on which have been drawn grids (concepts). Different philosophies use different grids.

A culture is a group of people with rather similar grids. Through a window we view chaos, and relate it to the points on our grid, and thereby understand it. The ORDER is in the GRID. That is the Aneristic Principle.

Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be True. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the ANERISTIC ILLUSION. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.

DISORDER is simply unrelated information viewed through some particular grid. But, like "relation", no-relation is a concept. Male, like female, is an idea about sex. To say that male-ness is "absence of female-ness", or vice versa, is a matter of definition and metaphysically arbitrary. The artificial concept of no-relation is the ERISTIC PRINCIPLE.

The belief that "order is true" and disorder is false or somehow wrong, is the Aneristic Illusion. To say the same of disorder, is the ERISTIC ILLUSION.

The point is that (little-t) truth is a matter of definition relative to the grid one is using at the moment, and that (capital-T) Truth, metaphysical reality, is irrelevant to grids entirely. Pick a grid, and through it some chaos appears ordered and some appears disordered. Pick another grid, and the same chaos will appear differently ordered and disordered.

Reality is the original Rorschach.

Hail Eris.
 
dlwj2000 said:
that is comically wordy way to express the idea that, different philosophicals and cultures have different views on reality and there is not one true view and you can't find a true view.
Well that is simplifying a bit but still.
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You will find that it is much shorter than what must be millions of pages of collected philosophy that continue to grapple with it to this day .
 
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dlwj2000 said:
that is comically wordy way to express the idea that, different philosophicals and cultures have different views on reality and there is not one true view and you can't find a true view.
Well that is simplifying a bit but still.
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I dunno, even read the proof that 1+1=2 ?

Its even more comically long, and its something that was and is much more widely accepted.
 
I have actually, and yes I know that when you want to prove something in depth it can get lengthy, but that doesn't change that it's a comically wordy statement. Although the reason it's that long is due to just using set theory for it and also explaining every little detail on the way from point zero, something that philosophy quote did not do. If you are referring to the principle Mathematica one.
 
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Shard said:
I did find this after a cursory google search, which seems to suggest some evidence that treatment for various post-battle traumas existed.

https://www.researchgate.net/public...aumatic_Stress_Disorders_in_the_Ancient_World

Of course, understanding may not be so evenly spread or even retained. But ritual seemed generally effective for trauma, at least in the past.
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Investigating the psychological impact of pre-modern warfare and the question of whether modern medical understanding is an appropriate lens for it is, in fact, a significant current within the 'Face of Battle' school of military history. It's not a side I've delved into (have read The Face of Battle itself but it's been a while - don't remember how much there is on trauma in there, if anything significant) and I wouldn't really know where to start in terms of offering reading material, unfortunately, but I do know that the literature's out there.
 
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Boney said:
I'm not nitpicking, it's something I found funny. Canon treats Josef Bugman as a historical figure in some places and as a contemporary character in others, and so he fits right in to a list of timeless mythologized feats that could have happened yesterday or a thousand years ago.
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Dwarves do live for centuries, so maybe this is the local equivalent of finding out an old celebrity is still around doing shit?

"I prefered Bugman's early work."
 
dlwj2000 said:
that is comically wordy way to express the idea that, different philosophicals and cultures have different views on reality and there is not one true view and you can't find a true view.
Well that is simplifying a bit but still.
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dlwj2000 said:
I have actually, and yes I know that when you want to prove something in depth it can get lengthy, but that doesn't change that it's a comically wordy statement.
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Okay, so, the thing is that in a neutral context it is okay to hold that opinion about a piece of religious or philosophical writing, but this isn't a neutral context. The context is me sharing that passage as having deep personal significance to me, and responding with a shallow aesthetic criticism of that writing comes across as disrespectful or even hostile. If that's not what you intended, then this is something you should keep in mind to prevent misunderstandings. If it is, please let me know so that this interaction can proceed accordingly.
 
storryeater said:
I dunno, even read the proof that 1+1=2 ?

Its even more comically long, and its something that was and is much more widely accepted.
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"Proof of 1+1=2 is comically long" factoid actually methodological error. Proof of 1+1=2 actually 6 lines. Content on previous 378 pages of Principia Mathematica necessary for formally stating the theorem is a preamble adn should not have been counted.
 
Boney said:
Okay, so, the thing is that in a neutral context it is okay to hold that opinion about a piece of religious or philosophical writing, but this isn't a neutral context. The context is me sharing that passage as having deep personal significance to me, and responding with a shallow aesthetic criticism of that writing comes across as disrespectful or even hostile. If that's not what you intended, then this is something you should keep in mind to prevent misunderstandings. If it is, please let me know so that this interaction can proceed accordingly.
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That was not the intention behind my statement, I was just amused that, common knowledge or ideas are often expanded to the point that they can be incomprehensible at first glance. I know this is done for among other reasons to better discuss and understand the idea. I was just attempting to make a pithy joke, clearly i failed at that.
 
dlwj2000 said:
I was just attempting to make a pithy joke, clearly i failed at that
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As someone with a bit of experience in pithy jokes (and bugger all else,naturaly) I've found that addition of this dude :V serves as an adequate substitute for tone, body language and all other little clues used in face to face dialogue to distinguish between a joke and a serious statement.
 
Principia Discordia, that takes me back. I liked the book.

storryeater said:
I dunno, even read the proof that 1+1=2 ?

Its even more comically long, and its something that was and is much more widely accepted.
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If we aren't taking 1+1=2 as axiomatic, then I'd hate to see what kinds of axioms you start with that are both simpler than it and lead to a proof of it.
 
Deathbybunnies said:
I had a knee-jerk reaction to the idea that there isn't an objective truth to strive for that I'm going to ruminate on for a while, and I suspect I'll probably end up reading the Principia too. Thanks for sharing!
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I definitely believe that there is, but the idea that human minds as currently existing would be able to fully understand said truth rather than an approximation seems silly. Or as the saying goes "All models are flawed, some are useful".
 
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