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The mountain of observational evidence is that they don't exist. We can therefor induce that they don't. The standard is seeing it, not not seeing it.



Science doesn't work like that. Rote Aristotelean logic disallows science to move forward. That's why the world abandoned its use for science hundreds of years ago.

The standard is "show me the goods and I'll change my theorem." Not "prove to me they don't exist." The latter is impossible to do and actually held up science for a long, long time.



That's why it's called "faith."

It's a separate issue. Don't bring it into this discussion, please. I have my own reasons for believing in Him and I would even add that they're inductive. But that whole can of worms is separate from how things work here on Earth.



No, sorry. You didn't. You just said in the same paragraph that fantasy doesn't have to be realistic but can still be real. It's a contradiction. And it's right at the core of what has been making me crazy around here.

You can treat fantasy as real only to a point. Then you just have the bite the bullet and say "yeah, the world doesn't work this way and this stuff doesn't exist, but this fake thing I'm imagining will because it's fun." Otherwise, you have to adhere to science and that is clearly not what fantasy does.

Berz.

Relevant reply also in existence thread.

Berz.

Erm....it works well with dogs and plants?

Perhaps crossbreeding within a species is something to think about. Or, if you put it another way, crossbreeding within families of species. For example, as said above regarding dogs, you can cross one breed of dog with another. So, what about humanoids? I'd say elves creating offspring with humans is plausible and it's already been written about before. That idea works for me. Even dwarves and humans maybe? Humanoid with humanoid pretty much works for me.

The same goes for different breeds of dragon, as well as creatures such as certain types of demons.

Drizzt, with all due respect, religion has a vital part to play in all of this. As I said in "What makes it fantasy?" to Berz, I'm using it as a reference point and as a theory. I am not discussing who believes what and why, and whether any of us are right or wrong in what we believe. I am talking about religion in the sense of "if this is the truth, how does it fit in?" just as much as you can talk about theories that DON'T relate to religion. I think it's fair to say that both religious and non-religious concepts can have their place here.

Regarding two beings existing inside the same body, it sounds farfetched to begin with, but if you chose to explore the possibilities then perhaps we can find a way for it to be plausible. The idea has been done before, but I'm not sure how such beings could be formed as a single race because effectively you have two races in one.

It's been done in Grandia II (available on the Dreamcast and PS2). Elena gets infected with the Wings of Valmar, which already has a physical host that's been sealed away. That physical host is Millenia. She lives inside Elena and swaps her body with her own whenever she feels like it. When Elena is present, Millenia is inside her, and when Millenia is present, Elena is inside her. It's confusing, I don't know HOW it would work, but it's an interesting concept nonetheless.

To me, it's much more believable for another entity to exist in a person spiritually, and when they want to take over, they're able to use the other person's physical body like a puppet. That's been done before as well. I've only seen a small portion of Valkyrie Profile II: Silmeria, but it happens in that. I've also done it in my world as well.

I do treat it as theory and reference.
Perhaps I have a way of writing that has the potential to make it look otherwise, I don't know. In my mind, I'm using it as a reference/theory and not asking anyone to believe it. I say "if this is true, then..." in a roundabout way.

And, if I did that, I must have misinterpreted somehow.

The trouble is, Hypno, is that without believability you have no clarity. Whether something can or cannot exist isn't an issue. Something needs to be believable in any world whether it's realistic or surreal in order for people to relate to it and take a significant interest.

A tick? As in, the bug? Ew...
That does sound like a ridiculous idea.

Now, Thundercats...
THEY ARE SO COOL!

Anyway...

Perhaps Bethesda got the idea for the Khajiit from Thundercats? If anyone doesn't know what the Khajiit are, they're people who look like lions who also have tails.

Argonians are the same sort of thing but they're lizard people.

If this is what lizards and lions are going to look like a few millennia from now, I'll faint, wake up, see these things again, and then faint again. I can't see them as crossbreeds to be perfectly honest, but more their own species. That's why I talked about fainting if that's how evolution works. I don't believe we evolved from monkeys. I believe God looked at monkeys and thought "I can improve". Otherwise, if we evolved from monkeys there would be no more monkeys.

Anyway! If evolution did work that way, I would expect to see lions and lizards growing upright like us and walking on two legs, able to speak in fluent English, Spanish, Romanian, Russian, or any other language in the world.

Moving swiftly on...

Thundercats...crossbreeds? Perhaps. Argonians and Khajiit I see more as their own species. How I've just drawn that conclusion....I don't know. Don't ask.