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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7349818" data-attributes="member: 42582">In the real world there exist real things that are really connected by real causal processes.This morning in my bathroom something was making a dripping noise. Based on visual inspection I don't think it was a tap, so I infer that there must have been some water that had got &quot;stuck&quot; in some place (a soap holder; a plug hole) and was dripping out of there, making the noise. Clearly there was some process going on, although I don't know exactly what it was.But a fiction doesn't have an existence independent of whatever is authored in respect of it. If I read a story, and a drip is mentioned, but the author doesn't tell me where the drip came from, there is no independent and objective truth of the matter.In the real world, if I see a throng of people on the street then there is a true proposition that states the number of people in the throng. This is so whether or not I personally work out what that number is. But if a GM tells the players &quot;You see a crowd outside the palace,&quot; there is no true proposition about the number of people in that crowd. Because the crowd has no objective existence. It's just something that someone made up! Likewise, there is no answer to the question &quot;How long is the spout of the teapot in&nbsp; [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION]'s front garden that had a dragon living in it?&quot;One obvious consequence of this is that the players and GM can't guess at causation in the imaginary world of D&amp;D. Any more than I can guess how many threads of cotton there are in Sherlock Holmes' shirt. I can ask the author. I can make up my own fanfic. But there's nothing for me to guess about!The rules effect is not caused by an imaginary wizard casting an imaginary spell. It is caused by a real person - the player of said wizard (or the GM if its a NPC) making an action declaration &quot;I cast Fireball!&quot;EDIT: I just saw that [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] posted much the same not far upthread. I agree with what he said.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7349818, member: 42582"] In the real world there exist real things that are really connected by real causal processes. This morning in my bathroom something was making a dripping noise. Based on visual inspection I don't think it was a tap, so I infer that there must have been some water that had got "stuck" in some place (a soap holder; a plug hole) and was dripping out of there, making the noise. Clearly there was some process going on, although I don't know exactly what it was. But a fiction doesn't have an existence independent of whatever is authored in respect of it. If I read a story, and a drip is mentioned, but the author doesn't tell me where the drip came from, there is no independent and objective truth of the matter. In the real world, if I see a throng of people on the street then there is a true proposition that states the number of people in the throng. This is so whether or not I personally work out what that number is. But if a GM tells the players "You see a crowd outside the palace," there is [I]no true proposition about the number of people in that crowd[/I]. Because the crowd has no objective existence. It's just something that someone made up! Likewise, there is no answer to the question "How long is the spout of the teapot in [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION]'s front garden that had a dragon living in it?" One obvious consequence of this is that the players and GM can't [I]guess[/I] at causation in the imaginary world of D&D. Any more than I can guess how many threads of cotton there are in Sherlock Holmes' shirt. I can ask the author. I can make up my own fanfic. But there's nothing for me to guess about! The rules effect is not caused by an imaginary wizard casting an imaginary spell. It is caused by a real person - the player of said wizard (or the GM if its a NPC) making an action declaration "I cast Fireball!" EDIT: I just saw that [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] posted much the same not far upthread. I agree with what he said. [/QUOTE]

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