Where is the Order of Reason?

Games Discussion Ars Magica
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Timothy:
I mean the science was influenced by superstitions in the real history. And the game is just a model of the medieval things plus a magic system based on fantasy games.

Reis Tahlen worded another point of view to the realm of the Reason so it is pointless to react with the usual arguments.
I see the Reason similar like him. The realms are simly different approach of the different kind of faiths.
Magic - mystical
Divine - religious
Infernal - sinful
Fairie - childlike
Reason - analytical

Reason is also a faith, a faith in scrunity and logic.
Faithful thinking sets back the mystical/magical things in its home. The analytical thinking is the opposite of the mystical paradigm so they can do the same. Supernatural thinking has a disadvantage when meeting with logical, analytical thinking in the latters home.

Reason would never make people religious. One cannot decide he will belive in God because beliefs are not logical things. I mean here the normal way of thinking without psychological methods.

DIREWOLF75:
The whole ArM paradigm is based in theory on the medieval paradigm. And paradigms are simply beliefs how the things work, what is important and what is deleterious. :laughing:

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Heh, HARDLY! Not when magic IS provable beyond any shadow of doubt. You´re mixing MODERN paradigm into the medieval one even worse by that kind of position.

:unamused:
Not when miracles DO happen.

No, much of it is based of one MODERN INTERPRETATION of "the medieval paradigm". Thats fine if thats whats aimed for, but the two are not the same. As i said in another thread, the thought that anyone seriously considered the world to be flat in medieval time is something that appeared in the 18th-19th century, noone but a few very esoterical philosophers argued the flat earth thesis, and they did so like the Chinese did, on a philosophical basis, not on the basis of "this is how the world is physically shaped" even if im sure some of them really also thought that(well maybe not, but who knows, there´s always a few loonies about).
Its like taking the phrase "all roads leads to Rome" and claim that people really believes it and that it IS real because they really DO use the phrase.

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DIREWOLF75:
Reason is absolutely a modern paradigm of course. That's why I said earlier it doesn't matter so much in the 13th century.
I think however this interpretation is better than the rulebook definition was. This is enough to get a model and put it into a game.

Miracles happen but the people forget these soon. This is my personal experience. A very few may became faithful of course.

The interpretation is not only modern but also very simplified. As I see players use only a few elements of the available (and just for you: belived) medieval beliefs. At first it is simply because the lack of information. E.g. the earlier editions offered some beliefs but htey disappeared from the 5th edition.
And there were beliefs which were opposed to each other. Usually one has to choose one of them.

Marko Markoko:
It's hard to belive :slight_smile: to me you have choosed to be a beliver.
Religion and faith are different things. One can have any of them separately, may have both or neither of them.
The word reason has many meanings. I tried to refer here to it as a logical, analytical approach and not simply the process of thinking or the understanding of teachings.

It would be interesting to know you if you really made yourself a belief.

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I think one should not mix "reason", which is our capacity of reasoning, and the Reason, which is just the name which was given in previous edition of Ars Magica.

The Reason is all about science, analytic method, and thesis/hypothesis. Like I said, the main difference between realms is rationalising, or "How do I see the world around me?". Thus, each realm reasons, but this reasoning has nothing to do with the Reason (with capital "r").

About the medieval paradygm: nothing is carved into stone. We believed that middle-age men were barbarians, with no hygiene, illiterate and that this period of history was a mud-hole (Why do you think we called this "the Dark Ages"? It is because renaissance historians thought that no good came from this period. What was important was Antiquity, age of light and wondrous discovery, and nothing else). The more we do ressearch about middle-age, the more we discover that a LOT of improvement were made during this period, and the life of the commoner wasn't as awful as we imagined.

This to say that I don't rely on the Medieval Paradygm as described in the book; I would hate to prevent something because of this, and some months later see one of my player coming with ressearch proving this way of seeing Middle-Age is totally inaccurate, thus completely changin my game world.

I adopted this for the "Medieval Paradygm": all physical laws, all chemical operation, all biological activities exist. The fact is that people don't notice, or don't care. One will not elaborate the theory of inerty (or is it momentum? I don't know the english word) because he sees a rock continuing its course after being pushed. It is more likely he'll say "Yeah, it rolls, great, now coming back to my duties...". There ARE people who will say: "Mmmh, this is strange, with my strenght I could only push this rock so far, but it continued his way.", but depending of his/her believes, he could probably shrug and say it's God's will, or whatever else. The minority who will try to find the exact explanation, and discover this physical law, are the people who form the Order of Reason.

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I'm sorry you consider my arguments pointless. I'd respond by saying that you don't just get to have the term "Reason" mean whatever you like it to mean and still be having a convwersation about Reason with another person. Conversation requires that signifiers not be arbitrary.

I admit to not seeing the difference between religious and mystical: the Chrisitan Church is a mystery cult after all. Also, "sinful" doesn't make any sense on its own: it's a reactive definiton.

If you scrutinize the evidence in Mythic Europe, then magic exists.

So, your Reasonable Man sees a magus cast a fireball and he does...what? If he examines it analytically, by having the magus cast it over and over again in controlled conditions, he just -keeps- seeing the fireball. Or does the fact that he has faith in an observational, analytical method somehow make him -unable- to see the fireball and -unable- to actually gather scientific evidence?

I don't undersatnd the point you are trying to make here. The Catholic Church through the game period and even today does not accept the premise that faith in God is anything other than a rational proposition based on the testimony of reliable witnesses. That is, it doesn't accept your idea that someone faith and reason are opposites. Surely that this is true is therefore part of the Mythic Paradigm: god is demonstrable.

This is not correct: that you state something in a forceful way does not make it true. 8)

Well, most of the great fathers of the church disagreed with you, here.

I'm sorry but I don't understand what you mean here.

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It was a mystery cult at one time, but personally I think that this was just people of the day trying to categorize it as something they could understand.

I would go further, and say that the Orthodox did this as well, and so did Judism and Islam. Protestants do it to

As would I. Personally, I feel that "Reason", as the term is applied in ArM3, is kind of insulting to Religion and Science. We stand on the shoulders of giants. I had an argument rescently (well, a debate really) with this one friend of mine. Hippie sort of fella, into sci-fi science and loves to bash on the ignorance of religion. Somehow he has it stuck in his head that Modern = smart and Ancient = stupid. He was laughing about how ignorant people were when they though the Northern Lights were spirits dancing in the sky. Never heard of that one, but I went with it. I asked him how does he know they are not. He wants to argue modern science and people back then were stupid. I pointed out how he has no scientific education, and is simply taking what “educated” people say and accepting it on faith.

Needless to say, there was little to no progress made in this debate.

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You don't see the sacraments as the rituals of a Mystery cult? It does kind of spoil things when the entire world actually knows what the Mysteries are, I agree.

I agree, insofar as I understand these things, but I'm not all that clear on Jewish or Islamic theology.

Much snippage...

I have seen a myth of two warring tribes of irish faeries creating the lights

I can see your point, but I'd also support his point to the degree that there's a far higher level of general knowledge among those without specialist education in the modern day. Medieval peasants weren't stupid, but they were rather like people from the third world today who lack higher education. This means they can only use their intelligence in a framework that their society creates for them, in which their basic function is to farm things.

Now, I do see that the problem, for me, would be to demonstrate that I too am not in the same sort of framework: where my basic function is to buy stuff. Unfortunately I don't think I can prove that. As a geeky vegetarian I can look at the big bits of commerical modern society that I choose not to participate in (fashion, the meat industry) and see how society uses these things to shape people's actions. Having read the works of various sociopaths, though, they seem to clearly state that many of the other things I do are based on arbitrary methods of control, and much like the medieval peasant who cannot cast aside his piety or the third world farmer who will not leave his land, so I too am unwilling to let go of my image of myself, and so I am in much the same boat as they are. The only argument I could make stick, I think, on behalf of your hippie friend is that my cage is rather cleaner and more comfortable than that of the medieval peasant, and so I enjoy my society more than he did, as do the oithers who share society with me. That is, on some level it is more fair.

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At its beginning, the goal of the Order, which doesn't even exist by this name, is to understand the world trough science. They recognize the existence of magic, and try to understand it to their beliefs.

And, to go further, the Order of Reason, the Ivory Tower, and later the Technocracy NEVER believed that magic doesn't exist; their goal was to make OTHER people believe it.

One must not imagine the first scientist act like the latest Men in Black; at the beginning, scientists who could approach magic studied it like anyhting else. They were thrilled. Then one day, a scientist rush out of his lab, and say: "Hey guys! Remember that Hermes folk who could fly? Look at what I invented!", and so they could fly too. Then they realized a machine could be used by everyone, contrary to magic which was reserved to people possessing the Gift.

At this point, I imagine that Reason created hidden fortress, like Alliances, as the Church dislikes their inventions. When the Church began to lose its power, the Reason was strong: deadly weapons, wondrous mean of transport, wonderful tools which help everyone's life. The Reason realized they could change the world, make it a paradise for everyone: heated house, rapid transport, more protection for commoner. But wait... those magi are there again? Mmmh, this could prove a problem... These guys could destroy what we worked so hard. We MUST strike before they strike, but how? Let's study some way to inder magic.

And the rest is history.

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I too loathe the Realm of Reason, for the reasons brought up - it does a disservice to both religion and reason, the use of reason in Mythic Europe should lead to something like Natural Magicians, not work against "superstitions" which are true.

Your take on Reason is interesting, though. I could see how, in a Belief Defines Reality game, you can create another possible viewpoint on the world, another Realm. However, I still don't think it would be Reason. This isn't a way to look at the world, this is a way to close your eyes to the word; and calling it Reason is downright insulting.

Regarding the whole atheism thing, I'd add my voice to the militant atheist camp in supporting Dawkins and rejecting the classification of atheism as religion. I think Timothy Ferguson explained this marvelously well.

I would say I don't always agree with Dawkins' arguments or tactics. But I do agree with his overall project (and arguments), definitely see religion and atheism as having a lot to do with Reason, and don't consider atheism to be a religion anymore than not-believing-in-Newton's-mechanics is a religion. Not every position on what the world works and what are its constituents is a religion, or ever a religous position.

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The Ivorywhat? The Technocrawhat? :stuck_out_tongue:

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[/quote]

With all due respect, that's the background of a completely different game and has nothing at all to do with Ars Magica. White Wolf might have brought the Realm of Reason into 3rd edition as a clumsy segue into Mage, but never the Order of Reason or any proto-technomancers.

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Yes!!!! Exactly!!! And apothecarians and alchemists... :smiley: :wink:

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Hrm, guys, could you take the rants to private discussion? If the thread gets closed, you'll have spoiled it for everyone else. :frowning:

Sounds like we're looking at something like a steampunk future.

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After months of dormancy my spaminater powers are once again used in the service of Mankind

https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/reason-religionand-the-absence-of-either/2805/1

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I'm not quite sure that the ties with White Wolf backgrounds have been totally severed, and for this:

In "Societates", and particularly in the Ex-Miscellanea chapter, there are two things: first, one of the Ex-Miscellanea Tradition is named "Pharmacopeians", which is the name of one of the Tradition who will join the Order of Reason, becoming later the Bio-Engineers.

Second, the founder of the Rustic Tradition (which specialize in making magic unknown to commoners) is Reismann, who is a great name in the future Order of Reason.

I'm not saying that the Order of Reason is here, the background is vague enough to allow Storytellers who dislike the Reason to simply ignore it, but I now have elements to say that Atlats hasn't discarded totally the option, and has not severed all ties with the White Wolf background.

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To the best of my knowledge, both of those are pure coincidence. We intend the background to be completely severed from the WW background, so we're likely to say things that flatly contradict it at various points.

But it's your game; if you want to maintain the link, go for it.

(Also, note that legally we have to keep the link severed.)

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As the author of the Pharmacopeian tradition, I assure you that the tradition has nothing to do with anything written by WW. I have played a WOD once, as a vampire hunter and using GURPS rules. I've never read a book from Mage or any other WOD game.

According to Wikipedia, the term "pharmacopeia" was first in print in 1561. It means a collection of recipes for apothocaries to use in creating their wares using plant, animal and mineral ingredients. It's not exactly something invented by WW. My first idea was to call them "Root-Cutters," but was convinced that it belittled the tradition, so I gave them "Pharmacopeians" as their OoH name, but kept Root-Cutters as the popular name for the tradition.

Any resemblance to any WOD "Pharmacopeians" is purely coincidental.

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Thank you very much for your answers :slight_smile:

Well, let's say that these coincidences made a storyteller happy by helping him mixing the storylines ^^

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And that's a good thing. It's nice when we accidentally make people happy; the reverse seems to happen rather too often.