(C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

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Re: Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by dwnielsen »

Thanks for the input, jseamus. I hadn't been thinking in the animal ethology vein - might be an interesting approach to incorporate. BTW, I meant to post my question in Conlangs - mea culpa.
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Re: Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by jseamus »

Thanks for the links reizoukin!

Another question:

When developing realistic religions, what inspires you?
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Re: Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Ossicone »

jseamus wrote:When developing realistic religions, what inspires you?
I've always enjoyed reading mythologies. So I usually just try and write some kind of story that explains part of the world or some superstition.
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Re: Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Micamo »

jseamus wrote:Thanks for the links reizoukin!

Another question:

When developing realistic religions, what inspires you?
Spiritual beliefs generally arise when people attempt to ascribe teleological methods to describe natural phenomena, in other words, using the same reasoning when they try to figure out the behavior of people when they try to figure out non-people things. People set things on fire because they want them to burn. When something gets struck by lightning and catches fire, then maybe it's because the lightning wanted it to burn? Why would the lightning want it to burn? Maybe the lightning set the forest on fire so it could heat its food, like we do?

After some extrapolation, interleaving with similar beliefs, and a few doses of the telephone game, it becomes widely believed that forest fires happen when the gods/spirits want to cook their dinner. Cue images of people sitting in giant sky palaces with huge pots of stew.
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Re: Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Thakowsaizmu »

jseamus wrote: Another question:

When developing realistic religions, what inspires you?
Anatomy of the Sacred, by James C Livingston

Creation of the Sacred, Walter Burkert

As many different Scriptures as I can
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Re: Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Thakowsaizmu »

Micamo wrote:Spiritual beliefs generally arise when people attempt to ascribe teleological methods to describe natural phenomena, in other words, using the same reasoning when they try to figure out the behavior of people when they try to figure out non-people things. People set things on fire because they want them to burn. When something gets struck by lightning and catches fire, then maybe it's because the lightning wanted it to burn? Why would the lightning want it to burn? Maybe the lightning set the forest on fire so it could heat its food, like we do?

After some extrapolation, interleaving with similar beliefs, and a few doses of the telephone game, it becomes widely believed that forest fires happen when the gods/spirits want to cook their dinner. Cue images of people sitting in giant sky palaces with huge pots of stew.
That's not quite right. Understanding of the Sacred is something that is practically hard wired into us.
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Post by jseamus »

Thanks, ladies.

@Asania: I have wanted to read Anatomy of the Sacred for some time. I don't know much about it though. Does it, by any chance, have a Durkheimian view of the Sacred?
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Post by Micamo »

Thakowsaizmu wrote:That's not quite right. Understanding of the Sacred is something that is practically hard wired into us.
How so?
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Post by dwnielsen »

Well, during a thunderstorm or a flood, one may feel that something is angry and attacking or reprimanding. There is this idea that there is an economy in nature, that there are pros balanced by cons, but we may not understand the precise reasons. One notion is that those who are given the ability to preserve emotional awareness may feel something and use this less rigorous and less explicable memory structure to take action which is described in the language of actors and symbols.
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Re: Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Tanni »

jseamus wrote:Another question:

When developing realistic religions, what inspires you?
''Realistic religion'' is this possible? Religions are usually rather unrealistic.

@Micamo:
Spiritual beliefs generally arise when people attempt to ascribe teleological methods to describe natural phenomena, in other words, using the same reasoning when they try to figure out the behavior of people when they try to figure out non-people things. People set things on fire because they want them to burn. When something gets struck by lightning and catches fire, then maybe it's because the lightning wanted it to burn? Why would the lightning want it to burn? Maybe the lightning set the forest on fire so it could heat its food, like we do?

After some extrapolation, interleaving with similar beliefs, and a few doses of the telephone game, it becomes widely believed that forest fires happen when the gods/spirits want to cook their dinner. Cue images of people sitting in giant sky palaces with huge pots of stew.
He asked about religion, which is not the same as spiriutal believe.
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Re: Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Micamo »

[quote="Tanni"]''Realistic religion'' is this possible? Religions are usually rather unrealistic./quote]

I think he means religions that people might actually follow.
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Re: Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Tanni »

Micamo wrote:
Tanni wrote:''Realistic religion'' is this possible? Religions are usually rather unrealistic./quote]

I think he means religions that people might actually follow.
Satanism?
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Re: Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by reizoukin »

Tanni wrote:
Micamo wrote:
Tanni wrote:''Realistic religion'' is this possible? Religions are usually rather unrealistic./quote]

I think he means religions that people might actually follow.
Satanism?
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Re: Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by jseamus »

reizoukin likes satanism?! :-o

Seriously though, I was asking for what inspires you when you're trying to make conreligions that don't seem immediately improbable. And spirituality/superstition is somewhat covered by this as well. E.g. I want to add more variety to the religious and spiritual traditions in my Nejadish continent, and I want them to be believable (not necessarily the beliefs themselves, but the idea that someone would hold these beliefs); I also want them to be unique, not just pastiches of major RL religions.

What should I look to for inspiration?
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Re: Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

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My sectret conworld project involves information traveling backward in time, and I was wondering if there were some good resources (aimed at lay persons) on the physics of that kind of time travel? Are there any strange temporal things that information can do, but matter can't? Any help would be appreciated.
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People are fools, they'll believe anything.
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Re: Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

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jseamus wrote:My sectret conworld project involves information traveling backward in time, and I was wondering if there were some good resources (aimed at lay persons) on the physics of that kind of time travel? Are there any strange temporal things that information can do, but matter can't? Any help would be appreciated.
In our world, information going backwards in time requires matter going backwards in time.
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Re: Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by jseamus »

Micamo wrote:
jseamus wrote:My sectret conworld project involves information traveling backward in time, and I was wondering if there were some good resources (aimed at lay persons) on the physics of that kind of time travel? Are there any strange temporal things that information can do, but matter can't? Any help would be appreciated.
In our world, information going backwards in time requires matter going backwards in time.
What about some kind of quantum effect, like entanglement or something? I don't know much about this, so if that doesn't make sense, let me know?
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Re: Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by reizoukin »

jseamus wrote:reizoukin likes satanism?! :-o
No, just the smartness in the reply. =P

Honestly, I use the already-established culture, habits, stereotypes, setting, etc. and mash them together, or extrapolate. For example, I once thought up a culture which lived on the edge of the lake, and disposed of their dead by dropping the bodies into the lake with a weight to sink them. They came to the belief, over time, that their dead were then reborn as fish, and so the people refused to eat fish. When they first started dropping the bodies into the lake, they didn't have any preconceived notion about it; they simply saw the opportunity to dispose of the bodies in a handy way. Then their imagination kicked in.

So I guess what I'm saying is, give them habits and stereotypes and settings and a bit of culture, and extrapolate on THAT.
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Re: Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Micamo »

jseamus wrote:
Micamo wrote:
jseamus wrote:My sectret conworld project involves information traveling backward in time, and I was wondering if there were some good resources (aimed at lay persons) on the physics of that kind of time travel? Are there any strange temporal things that information can do, but matter can't? Any help would be appreciated.
In our world, information going backwards in time requires matter going backwards in time.
What about some kind of quantum effect, like entanglement or something? I don't know much about this, so if that doesn't make sense, let me know?
Entanglement (or any kind of information transfer) still requires the interaction between bits of physical matter.
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