Board Thread:The Last Sovereign Discussion/@comment-25941257-20170825174215/@comment-31763506-20170919083244

I'm not sure we're actually disagreeing here.

I'm not suggesting SL's Word of God on a topic is potentially wrong, I'm saying that since TLS is a fictional universe with "rules" that are to some degree arbitrary, it isn't actually possible to go at the TLS universe with reductionistic science and come up with a set of self-consistent natural laws of magic that will explain all observed in-game phenomena.

For example:

Succubus biology. How does heredity get passed along from the semen of multiple other species when applied to any part of their bodies instead of just their uteruses? Is there DNA? How does it get from the sperm of the male partner to the uterus of the succubus from, for example, her skin? Are there unfertilized ova embedded in the skin or is there some way the sperm are able to travel through the epidermis, subcutaneous fat, into the blood stream and thence to the reproductive system? If so, how in the world did either evolve? Why are there no other closely related species that have the comparative advantage of internal gestation without the need to bother with penetrative fertilization, which takes up energy? It seems like natural selection would favor a species that could have one dominant male fertilize a dozen females via mass bukkake? If some god did it, why does natural selection apparently occur on monsters per what Robin says regarding the blight cave in the eastern desert? (While we're on the subject, how do several monsters from apparently unrelated lines of descent acquire the same unusual poison from living in proximity to each other?)

As soon as you say, "well, it's magic...", you've conceded the point. You can't get to a set of rational, self-consistent rules for how a fictional universe where magic exists.

It's only in that limited sense that I'm suggesting that "rule" is too strong a word for what governs the game world, and it's basically a Wittgensteinian game of definition tag that's separating our positions. In the normal colloquial sense that "rule" means "guideline", it's clear that SL's rules are the law of the game world. But in the more scientific sense that a rule is universal and inviolate even in principle, it isn't, because if you try to apply a rule consistently, you'll almost certainly eventually run into a contradiction with another one of the arbitrary rules.

OK, and having just written an essay on the philosophy os science as applicable to bukkake as a means of reproduction, I think I may need to something better with my time...