D&D General Questions Regarding the History of the Term "Psionics."

[seebs]

The focus of education has shifted, though. Nobody reads the classics in school anymore, for instance, and certainly not in Greek or Latin.

I mean, they might, but it's not clear it does them much good.

 

[generic]

I did too, a bit, in English, on my own time...
...in the 80s.

I read them in the 2000s...

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I mean, they might, but it's not clear it does them much good.

All learning is valuable. The more you have the more unexpected connections you can make, the more original ideas you come up with.

 

[LordEntrails]

All learning is valuable. The more you have the more unexpected connections you can make, the more original ideas you come up with.

Absolutely. But not all learning is equally valuable

 

[JeffB]

Psionics were also in the original D&D game, in one of its expansions (Eldritch Wizardry, I think).

This- and If you facebook- just head over to Tim Kask's page, drop him a line and ask him-he was the (for better or worse) person who brought Psionics to D&D. He has discussed many times on his YouTube show (Curmudgeon in the Cellar) but I don't believe I recall him talking about where he got the name- but it was clearly modeled on Dr. Strange comics and meant to be exceedingly rare among characters.

 

[Anoth]

I think there is greater access to knowledge than ever before. Also alot of misinformation to sift through. But pick up some of the school books from 100 years ago. There use of applied science and math at even a middle school level would blow your mind. Also the gomart near where I live is giving math tests that is basic arithmetic and people are failing it to work at a convenient store. I don’t think people today are more smart than 100 years ago of 2000 years ago. I do think their is more opportunity to gain knowledge. And more opportunities to be rewarded for being lazy.

 

[Anoth]

According to the almighty google:


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The word "psionics" first appeared in print in a novella by science fiction writer Jack Williamson — The Greatest Invention — published in Astounding Science Fiction magazine in 1951. Williamson derived it from the "psion", a fictitious "unit of mental energy" described in the same story.

 

[Tonguez]

I think the degradation of commonly spoken English is self-evident by just listening/reading to how people spoke even a hundred years ago, with people commonly using more poetic words and more eloquent sentence structures. Today's common speech, in comparison, can almost come across as simplistic grunting in a lot of cases.

I was in Tahiti once, and a English speaking friend and I were talking to a local school principal. My friend commented that the teacher used very eloquent English, where infact the words were relatively common in French and the easiest word for him to use when translating thoughts between his native French and English.

Anyway I wonder if that, or more the increase in monolingualism amongst English speakers populations has any appreciable affect on your observation. Words which English speakers consider to be erudite tend to have French, Latin or Greek (like Psi-onic) roots, and as such those with a greater understanding and fluency in those languages would tend to have greaterunderstanding and use of those ‘high register’ terms.

 

[Tonguez]

The focus of education has shifted, though. Nobody reads the classics in school anymore, for instance, and certainly not in Greek or Latin.

Or Mandarin or Sanskrit or Ge’ez

 

[seebs]

All learning is valuable. The more you have the more unexpected connections you can make, the more original ideas you come up with.

Yes. But that doesn't mean that the classics are valuable and memes aren't. It just means that they're all valuable. It is not clear to me that reading the classics would be any better than watching Star Trek for producing better-rounded people who have a broader set of things they can connect.