Quote from: Gormenghast;877825Do you apply this to all historical sources?

Yeah. Pretty much. I wouldn't have any problem at all with saying "Sir so-and-so in his diary said, "I saw Sir Francis Drake visiting with the Queen." Instead of saying "Francis Drake visited the Queen." If that's what Sir so-and-so said in his diary, why not say what he said instead of drawing a conclusion about what occurred based solely on what he said?

QuoteAll sources beyond your personal experience?

Personal experience isn't sacrosanct either.

QuoteI confess I had not noticed that you habitually write in that style. As you note, it would be very cumbersome, if technically correct.

I don't always write in that style. But I have no problem with using a more precise grammatical form. Nor would I have a problem with correcting language to be more precise.

Why do you have a concern with precise language?

QuoteAnd if you single out angelic visitations for a qualifier like this, does that not suggest that you are assuming angels do not exist?

But I don't single out angels. For example, I already noted the difference between saying someone is a murder suspect and saying they are a murderer as well as Sir so-and-so and his hypothetical diary entry about Sir Francis Drake's visit with the Queen.

You ask a lot of questions. But you don't provide any answers. Why is that?

Answers?

Did I miss questions?

I will scroll back.

I think maybe what you are asking is how I would write about historical events.

That would depend on the event in question, the sources, other evidence, the whole context.

It is not a simple question.

It would also depend on what sort of writing I was doing.

As for John Dee, I would probably write " Dee claimed he spoke with angels" rather than "Dee spoke with angels."

But there are other instances of an angel communicating with a person that I would simply describe as " the angel said...".

Sources matter, as you note.

So does our worldview, especially at the level Pundit calls paradigm.

My position seems to lie in the middle. I think Oundit is making a good point about avoiding presentism and cultural bias. Judge the past, and other cultures, by the internal standard as best we can puzzle these out. Recognize that other people who may share much of our cultural background may still be operating under different sets of beliefs about what is real and what is possible or probable (as this tangent seems to show)

But I think you are making a good point about the importance of avoiding an extreme relativism. I agree with you that all human ways of understanding reality cannot be equally invalid. Pundit lost me on that point. I may have misunderstood him.


What I am not sure about is what this tangent (to which I have contributed) really has to do with the main topic. It seems like drift. But, hey, I have helped things drift with all those questions you remarked on.

Quote from: Gormenghast;877835Answers?

Did I miss questions?

Not really. My mistake.

Quote from: Gormenghast;877837I think maybe what you are asking is how I would write about historical events.

Your position sounds closer to my view than to what Pundit seems to be saying.

QuoteBut there are other instances of an angel communicating with a person that I would simply describe as " the angel said...".

What would such an instance look like and why would you describe it that way?

QuoteMy position seems to lie in the middle. I think Oundit is making a good point about avoiding presentism and cultural bias.

As I said originally, Pundit took a good point too far.

QuoteWhat I am not sure about is what this tangent (to which I have contributed) really has to do with the main topic.

Maybe not drift so much as drilling down to the level of pedantic minutia.

Quote from: Bren;878023Not really. My mistake.

Your position sounds closer to my view than to what Pundit seems to be saying.

What would such an instance look like and why would you describe it that way?

As I said originally, Pundit took a good point too far.

Maybe not drift so much as drilling down to the level of pedantic minutia.

If the source were Holy Scripture, then naturally enough I credit it.
But the books of the Bible are not all the same genre. Literalism across the board is, I believe, a bad idea. Some books are  history, mythology, poetry, law, some allegorical visions, etc.
A couple of thousand years of scholarship have provided not only the tools but also given satisfying answers to many, many questions.

The Annunciation is a historical event, the objective reality of which I. Do not doubt.

It gets a bit murkier with some areas of Tradition, but signs and miracles may confirm or make credible other stories about a saint.

We are talking about areas of overlap in inquiry and study. Historians' tool are definitely part and parcel of this (indeed, this is the origin for some of those tools) but it isn't possible to seal history off in its own little bubble.

A historian working in other areas may need help from social or natural scientists. Archaeology can help inform the context of sources.
Etc, etc. The other humanities figure in, obviously so.
A historian working with religious matters should know some theology.

Now, you may have a different worldview that gives less (or no) credit to certain beliefs. This would be just as true in many other areas, though. A Marxian historian may see things radically different than you or I. His understanding of the world is very different.

-------

Short answer: In informal discourse, as on this gaming forum, I would definitely add ''reported'' if I thought the whole thing looked foggy or I just didn't buy it.

I think maybe all three of us (Pundit, you, and I) have been doing some sliding back and forth between a very precise and formal approach, and a looser and more personal style.
That seems quite normal for online discussion, IME.

I'm open to any questions or comments.
But let me just say I have enjoyed the tangent, I thought you both made some sound points about how to imagine the past.

Rock on.

Quote from: Bren;877809[quote[As to your final examples; I was using that language very intentionally. Because as soon as we say "John Dee SAID that he spoke with angels" we're approaching history from our own paradigm, and that affects the entire way we examine it.  It alters our perspective and acts as a barrier to our ability to get into the heads of the people and events.Surely you aren't claiming that "John Dee said that he spoke with angels" is not a true statement?

Dee did say that, did he not? (Or if he didn't say it he wrote it.) So what is the problem with language that describes what is (to the best of our knowledge) actually known?

It doesn't presume one way or another what it was that John Dee saw. Which to me is reasonable since we don't know what John Dee saw. We only know what he said he saw...or wrote about what he saw...or what someone else wrote about what they said, John Dee said, about what John Dee saw.

Your insistence on using less precise language when more precise language is available because "paradigm" is like the insistence of social justice warriors that we must accept without question reports of discrimination, misogyny, racism, etc. at face value and as facts. That we may not question the accuser because that somehow invalidates their truth, their being, or, yes, their paradigm. Which is exactly where we end up when beliefs based solely on paradigms are treated, without question, as the truth.

The thing that makes John Dee fairly unique in Renaissance history is that we don't have secondhand accounts, or even published first-hand accounts that were made for an audience. We have YEARS AND YEARS of his actual diaries, written only for his own record-keeping purposes and not meant to ever see the light of day. These record literally years of sessions that he and Edward Kelley had where they conjured up and had very lengthy conversations with a variety of angels, received all kinds of prophecies and magical instructions, including an entire system of magical operation and an entire magical language.  These are mostly written in script format, and were written while the operations were taking place.

So we don't just have heresay that John Dee talked with angels, or a book where he claimed to talk to angels for the sake of some audience, we have huge transcripts of his conversations precisely as they took place.

Quote from: RPGPundit;879013Surely you aren't claiming that "John Dee said that he spoke with angels" is not a true statement?

You are actually quoting me here at some length.

I noticed there was a typo in my quote that made it unclear where I quoted you. I've since edited my original quote to more clearly identify where I quoted you. You might want to edit what you wrote here to make clear which words are yours and which are mine.

QuoteSo we don't just have heresay that John Dee talked with angels, or a book where he claimed to talk to angels for the sake of some audience, we have huge transcripts of his conversations precisely as they took place.

I never said Dee's half of the conversation was hearsay. Though the angel half of the conversation obviously is hearsay. And for either half of the conversation we do not have independent corroboration. I discount his partner Kelly as truly independent corroboration since the two were working together.

A diary entry is still the words of the author. And the words of the author are accurately represented by saying "Dee said he spoke with angels" or by saying something like on page 497 of the seventh diary book John Dee wrote, "The angel Nalvage spoke to me and said, 'I am therefore to instruct and inform you, according to your Doctrine delivered, which is contained in 49 Tables.' "

Quote from: Gormenghast;877837But I think you are making a good point about the importance of avoiding an extreme relativism. I agree with you that all human ways of understanding reality cannot be equally invalid. Pundit lost me on that point. I may have misunderstood him.

I didn't say that. I said that all Paradigms are equally invalid.  Certainly, some paradigms allow closer ideas about certain subjects than the paradigms of other cultures or times do.  For example, our current paradigm, I'm fairly sure, allows for closer approaches to scientific truth about physical reality than the paradigms of other cultures. Not perfect, mind you, because there are of course certain 'paradigm truths' that touch on some sciences that we are all not supposed to question. And quite a lot more where there is a paradigm shift going on and thus conflict around just what is truth.

Other cultures and times' paradigms are probably a lot better than us at approaching other parts of reality: philosophical reality, for example, or moral reality, or esoteric reality. But of course, to someone who is completely brainwashed into the material-positivist meme their idea is that none of those things exist at all.  Which to me sounds as completely moronic as if someone were to say 'there's no such thing as cats'.

The point is there is NO paradigm which is an accurate presentation of Reality, unfiltered, as it actually is. Any paradigm that did that would just not be; because all a pardigm is are the cultural rules we heap onto reality that distort it in a culture-specific way.   Like pretending there is something called heterosexuality, or imagining that 'all lives matter', or 'all religions are the same', or "Romantic love is not just real it should be the only good reason for anyone to ever get married", or 'there isn't really any god, though some of us will still pretend to be religious' or 'dying is something weird and unnatural that we should all try our best to avoid for as long as possible'.

Quote from: Gormenghast;878150The Annunciation is a historical event, the objective reality of which I. Do not doubt.

You almost certainly do. You can't help it, it's not your fault, but unless you were raised in the countryside of the Philipines, the most rustic parts of Latin America, or any of a half-dozen backward African shitholes, you were brought up in a paradigm that doesn't allow you to "not doubt" an angel appearing to a girl to tell her that she's going to have a virgin birth of a half-man half-god.

And this goes to my point: the medieval person? Be it the lowliest peasant to the highest monarch?  THEY actually really truly DID NOT DOUBT it. It was as real to them as the idea of stars being other suns and having their own planets is to us.  There was no doubt because there would be no question whatsoever of doubting. It was a known default assumption of their entire culture.

THAT is the difference of paradigm between them and us. An event that to us would come out of mythology or D&D magic was absolutely real to them, and the foundation-stone of their whole culture.

Which is why only a COMPLETE MOTHERFUCKING MORON would say 'adding magic or miracles to the middle-ages would have changed their entire culture'.  Their society was ALREADY a magic & miracle based culture.


RPGPundit

Quote from: Bren;879068You are actually quoting me here at some length.

I noticed there was a typo in my quote that made it unclear where I quoted you. I've since edited my original quote to more clearly identify where I quoted you. You might want to edit what you wrote here to make clear which words are yours and which are mine.

Done.

QuoteI never said Dee's half of the conversation was hearsay. Though the angel half of the conversation obviously is hearsay. And for either half of the conversation we do not have independent corroboration. I discount his partner Kelly as truly independent corroboration since the two were working together.

A diary entry is still the words of the author. And the words of the author are accurately represented by saying "Dee said he spoke with angels" or by saying something like on page 497 of the seventh diary book John Dee wrote, "The angel Nalvage spoke to me and said, 'I am therefore to instruct and inform you, according to your Doctrine delivered, which is contained in 49 Tables.' "

Well, if nothing else I've got you actually learning about John Dee, at least.

In any case, since Dee's diaries were not for anyone else, we can scratch out Fraud. That leaves two possibilities: looking at Dee's diaries, you can only conclude that the man was just making up all those records (with Kelly assisting him in that lie), which would be a bit like if you were to write personal diaries of having had a huge argument with me online when it never actually happened, or this was an event that ACTUALLY FUCKING HAPPENED.

So if it did, that means Dee had a conversation (a bunch of conversations, for years and years, actually). His conversation was with something self-identifying as an angel (a bunch of angels, each with different appearance and personalities). This is only in question if you think that Dee was insane to the point of trying to defraud himself, writing in his diary about things that never took place.

So we have to otherwise accept that Dee DID in fact have the angelic conversations, and that who communicated to him were identified to him as angels. The only question left is what these angels might actually have been, not whether the event took place.

Dee did magick, and SHIT HAPPENED AS A RESULT.  

I know it doesn't fit your paradigm and that's really hard for you, but that pretty well proves my point. You're a walking talking example of how paradigms trap people who lack the personal consciousness to transcend them.

Regarding Dee and Kelley (scroll down):

http://www.academia.edu/441236/A_Problem_of_Authorship_John_Dee_Edward_Kelley_and_the_Angelic_Conversations_

Quote from: RPGPundit;879129Well, if nothing else I've got you actually learning about John Dee, at least.

This conversation resembles conversing with a Christian evangelist. Or Mormon.

QuoteIn any case, since Dee's diaries were not for anyone else, we can scratch out Fraud. That leaves two possibilities: looking at Dee's diaries, you can only conclude that the man was just making up all those records (with Kelly assisting him in that lie), which would be a bit like if you were to write personal diaries of having had a huge argument with me online when it never actually happened, or this was an event that ACTUALLY FUCKING HAPPENED.

And now it resembles a conversation with a Biblical literalist, Christian, evangelist. Or Mormon.

   What else could it be?

The perennial question of the true believer who can't or won't consider other explanations.Well as is always the case with these sorts of things, fraud and self-deception is one explanation that should always be considered.

QuoteThis is only in question if you think that Dee was insane to the point of trying to defraud himself, writing in his diary about things that never took place.

Self-deceit combined with fraud is common in the annals of the spiritualists. Doyle and the fairy photos being just one example.

QuoteSo we have to otherwise accept that Dee DID in fact have the angelic conversations, and that who communicated to him were identified to him as angels. The only question left is what these angels might actually have been, not whether the event took place.

We only have to accept it if we are unwilling to consider explanations or if, for other reasons, we are already predisposed, like Dee, to believe in angels and such.

QuoteDee did magick, and SHIT HAPPENED AS A RESULT.  

Because Dee said so. We must obviously believe him. Joseph Smith too, I guess.

QuoteI know it doesn't fit your paradigm and that's really hard for you, but that pretty well proves my point. You're a walking talking example of how paradigms trap people who lack the personal consciousness to transcend them.

At best, this is the self-deluded pot calling the kettle black.

Obviously a magical genius like Dee being defrauded and deluding himself doesn't fit your paradigm of how you fit into the world. Which is the reason why, according to you, you must believe it to be true. Which is why you say "Dee talked with angels." Rather than "Dee said he talked with angels" or "Dee claimed to have talked with angels." Which is what I said in the first place.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;879143Regarding Dee and Kelley (scroll down):

http://www.academia.edu/441236/A_Problem_of_Authorship_John_Dee_Edward_Kelley_and_the_Angelic_Conversations_

Oh look, somebody else has considered fraud mixed with self-deception as a possible cause that fits the available facts, quelle surprise.

Quote from: RPGPundit;879013The thing that makes John Dee fairly unique in Renaissance history is that we don't have secondhand accounts, or even published first-hand accounts that were made for an audience. We have YEARS AND YEARS of his actual diaries, written only for his own record-keeping purposes and not meant to ever see the light of day. These record literally years of sessions that he and Edward Kelley had where they conjured up and had very lengthy conversations with a variety of angels, received all kinds of prophecies and magical instructions, including an entire system of magical operation and an entire magical language.  These are mostly written in script format, and were written while the operations were taking place.

So we don't just have heresay that John Dee talked with angels, or a book where he claimed to talk to angels for the sake of some audience, we have huge transcripts of his conversations precisely as they took place.

Are you really this credulous or is it just another part of your wannabe-Hunter Thompson of the  RPG world act?

Gotta love the Pundit. He scrolls through a few Wiki articles and deems himself an authority not to be questioned.

Quote from: Matt;879155Are you really this credulous or is it just another part of your wannabe-Hunter Thompson of the  RPG world act?

Shouldn't this be in Tangency? :rolleyes: