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General Tabletop Discussion
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Understanding History: Why Serious Scholarship of D&D Matters
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<blockquote data-quote="Clint_L" data-source="post: 9072548" data-attributes="member: 7035894"><p>Another excellent read. I have yet to read the Appelcline books because they have yet to be released on Kindle, but I look forward to them.</p><p></p><p>I teach Theory of Knowledge, and the premise of the course is that <em>it's okay to be wrong</em>. Being open to being wrong allows us to move our knowledge forward. Accordingly, we always start the course with a month-long unit on sense perceptions and memory, so that students learn that even their most intuitive beliefs are inherently fallible. Indeed, we teach them that the purpose of their sense perceptions is not to reveal reality as it is, which is unknowable. Our sensory apparatus, impressive as they are, are capable of sampling a vanishingly small amount of what is out there and instead supply just enough information for your brain to create a manageable interface that allows you to survive and, hopefully, reproduce.</p><p></p><p>Memory works on similar lines - it's not about accuracy, it's about evolutionary utility. It's about maintaining a cohesive narrative that allows you to navigate the world successfully, and it didn't evolve to deal with anything like the high information environment that we have created. We put way too much faith in our sense perception and memory in contexts for which they were not designed. So we show students how easily memories can be manipulated, how unreliable eye-witness testimony is, and so on.</p><p></p><p>Thus, one thing that I sometimes find frustrating on this discussion forum is how much weight is put onto personal anecdotes. My personal experience of an event is probably not accurate, possibly in important ways, probably not indicative of a wider trend, and interpreted through an array of biases that I am probably ignoring.</p><p></p><p>Scholarship about D&D matters because it offers a way to test our memories, assumptions, and biases. It helps keep us honest. It gives us a deeper understanding of what is going on than if we just rely on our own, all too fallible interpretation of reality.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Clint_L, post: 9072548, member: 7035894"] Another excellent read. I have yet to read the Appelcline books because they have yet to be released on Kindle, but I look forward to them. I teach Theory of Knowledge, and the premise of the course is that [I]it's okay to be wrong[/I]. Being open to being wrong allows us to move our knowledge forward. Accordingly, we always start the course with a month-long unit on sense perceptions and memory, so that students learn that even their most intuitive beliefs are inherently fallible. Indeed, we teach them that the purpose of their sense perceptions is not to reveal reality as it is, which is unknowable. Our sensory apparatus, impressive as they are, are capable of sampling a vanishingly small amount of what is out there and instead supply just enough information for your brain to create a manageable interface that allows you to survive and, hopefully, reproduce. Memory works on similar lines - it's not about accuracy, it's about evolutionary utility. It's about maintaining a cohesive narrative that allows you to navigate the world successfully, and it didn't evolve to deal with anything like the high information environment that we have created. We put way too much faith in our sense perception and memory in contexts for which they were not designed. So we show students how easily memories can be manipulated, how unreliable eye-witness testimony is, and so on. Thus, one thing that I sometimes find frustrating on this discussion forum is how much weight is put onto personal anecdotes. My personal experience of an event is probably not accurate, possibly in important ways, probably not indicative of a wider trend, and interpreted through an array of biases that I am probably ignoring. Scholarship about D&D matters because it offers a way to test our memories, assumptions, and biases. It helps keep us honest. It gives us a deeper understanding of what is going on than if we just rely on our own, all too fallible interpretation of reality. [/QUOTE]
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