OD&D Evidence Chainmail Had Material from Dave Arneson

[Ovinomancer]

The other weird thing about this situation is that a large body within the church already considered the earth not to be the center of the universe and that this was nit even a new notion. It was held in contention by some in the church but there was already some centuries earlier a catholic monk of all things that had already used calculations on star charts, shadow measurements year to year, and other data to show the earth was revolving around the sun. I think he also showed that the sun likely was moving but i cant remember for sure if that was the same guy or someone later.

Btw, an example of what i was talking about when i said that scientific knowledge often gets discovered, forgotten, then rediscovered.

There's a common mistake to confuse astrology with astronomy. At that time, astronomy had some pretty huge hurdles fir heliocentricism (see my previous). However, there was great interest in predicting the paths of the planets. This fell into astology, which was full of mathematical models to do the predicting. Some of these were predicated on heliocentricism because you could make the model work that way, but this was just math and not considered a statement on reality (again, see the astronomy).

We confuse these because we know more and so it's obvious to us and, as pattern seeking people, we see a pattern after tge truth. They did not see this. It was an interesting mathematical prediction model only.

The Church encouraged such models. Galileo's model was greatly admired by many in the Church. He got into trouble by proclaiming it truth without evidence, but didn't really get into trouble until he wrote a book where the Pope was a thinly disguised character who was the moron that Galileo dunked on. Then he got house arrest in his nice villa (it was this lenient because of his many friends in the Church). Which cut him off from the parties where he was popular for his acid tongue and so was a terrible punishment. He still got at keast one more book out vua a fruend, but most don't know of it because it was a pretty fanciful theory that didn't catch on.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

The monk in question deduced this via actual proper methods. Not astrology. Im sorry i dont remeber his name but you may want to read up on him. It was not astrology at all. I think he was irish or scottish. Sorry that im fuzzy on it.

Ancient greeks also calculated a lot of things properly. Not using astrology and superstition, and by this method calculated the size of the earth (using measurements of shadows).

Thats nit astrology. Thats actually taking data and calculations and producing theories/answers with predictive power.

Astronomy goes back further than the time of galileo and kepler. Limited by instruments and other issues but present none the less.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I would appreciate you staying in the spirit of the comparison boundary I have drawn and have repeatedly alluded to and demonstrated; and in fact have described inter-contextually. IOW I am staying in the river rather than being sucked into argument about one of its minor tributaries that I did not create.

Ah. Sorry, I misunderstood. You were posting a tautalogy and I jumped in on a detail irrelevant to the tautology.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

So lets indeed get back on topic.

The notion that scholarship pursuits should ignore partisanship is valid and the most important thing recently posted.

In that spirit we shouod proceed with the investigation of op's premise and the relevant evidence.

I think we are all agreed.

 

[Ovinomancer]

So lets indeed get back on topic.

The notion that scholarship pursuits should ignore partisanship is valid and the most important thing recently posted.

In that spirit we shouod proceed with the investigation of op's premise and the relevant evidence.

I think we are all agreed.

I am not. I am not well versed in the material, but tge fact that tge principles never said anything supporting the OP, and, in fact, consistently contradict it, is a massive hurdle that the OP must address to have any validity. This is a wall built even higher due to the priciples having engaged in an adversarial legal contest on a closely related issue and their testimonies there still condradict the OP's theory.

Until this hurdle can be addressed, the OP's position is untenable. Further, the OP's preference towards conjecture rather than research isn't doing any favors.

And I have zero dog in this fight. If anything, I'm more prone towards narratives that reduce mythic thinking. But, you have to deal with all the facts, not just the subset that supports you. And there's some strong facts in contention that are unaddressed here.

 

[mwittig]

With the prevailing theory of how Gygax had gotten hold of Patt’s rules seemingly debunked, we next turn to the analysis at the top of this thread to see what it indicates. It indicates a number of things:

1) Arneson drew from Patt’s article (since Arneson included the obscure creature name “Anti-Hero” from Patt’s article)

2) Gygax drew from Patt’s article (since Gygax included the obscure creature names “Anti-Hero” and “Tree” from Patt’s article)

3) Arneson drew from Patt’s article directly, because Arneson’s material predates Gygax’s Fantasy Supplement (therefore, Arneson could not have drawn from Patt’s article via Gygax’s Fantasy Supplement)

4) Gygax drew from Patt’s article directly, because Gygax’s Fantasy Supplement includes an obscure creature name, the “Tree” creature, while Arneson’s material did not.

5) Arneson drew from Patt’s article first; Gygax then drew material from both Arneson’s material and Patt’s article directly, indicating that Gygax had both Arneson’s material and Patt’s material in front of him when he typed up the Fantasy Supplement.

[...]

It appears that Seifried told Arneson about NEWA's display, and Arneson then developed his fantasy rules for Blackmoor, drawing from Patt's article in the process. Arneson then sent Gygax his material along with a copy of Patt's rules. Gygax then drew from both Arneson material (apparently including earlier versions of the Fantasy Reference Table, the Fantasy Combat Table, and the creature descriptions), as well as Patt's article, in typing up the Fantasy Supplement. This is appears to be the reason why Gygax called the Fantasy Supplement an "afterthought" during an early interview, as its development was much quicker than if Gygax had started from scratch.

(If anyone knows where Gygax made that "afterthought" comment, a citation for it would be appreciated.)

Gary subscribed to The Courier; I used to read them when they came in.

OK, lets revise the narrative to account for this (Note that this invalidates none of the points indicated by the analysis at the top of the thread). Perhaps instead of sending Gygax a copy of Patt's article, Arneson simply told Gygax that Patt's article appeared in vol. 2 no. 7 of the Courier. But, the evidence still shows that Arneson not only drew from Patt, but that Arneson definitely sent Gygax his material (likely via a letter with some additional included material), and Gygax then drew from both Arneson's material and from Patt's.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

I am not. I am not well versed in the material, but tge fact that tge principles never said anything supporting the OP, and, in fact, consistently contradict it, is a massive hurdle that the OP must address to have any validity. This is a wall built even higher due to the priciples having engaged in an adversarial legal contest on a closely related issue and their testimonies there still condradict the OP's theory.

Until this hurdle can be addressed, the OP's position is untenable. Further, the OP's preference towards conjecture rather than research isn't doing any favors.

And I have zero dog in this fight. If anything, I'm more prone towards narratives that reduce mythic thinking. But, you have to deal with all the facts, not just the subset that supports you. And there's some strong facts in contention that are unaddressed here.

Involvement of myths or not i figured you would agree with the statement:

"The notion that scholarly pursuits should ignore partisanship is valid and the most important thing recently posted."

Since you dont allow me to clarify as that may have added confusion.

Im saying we should investigate truth without regard to partisanship.

The involvement of mythic thinking does not subvert the above statement. (Or the former one. But whatever.)

 

[Son of the Serpent]

i mean...disagreeing with that statement due to the perils of a topic polluted by mythic thinking is irrational.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

Whatever. Moving on.

 

[mwittig]

tge fact that tge principles never said anything supporting the OP, and, in fact, consistently contradict it, is a massive hurdle that the OP must address to have any validity.

Until this hurdle can be addressed, the OP's position is untenable. [...] But, you have to deal with all the facts, not just the subset that supports you. And there's some strong facts in contention that are unaddressed here.

The testimony of the people directly involved in a dispute is typically given less weight than other evidence; consider a typical criminal case, for example.