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Erasmus adage for the month of May:
Ipse dixit
He said it himself
You’ve probably heard this Latin phrase used before; we have Erasmus to thank for popularizing it. This is an ancient form of ‘appeal to authority’, a rhetorical method in which the speaker, rather than offering cogent reasoning to support their claims, declares that the truth comes from the authority himself. For example, in Roman times many adherents to the Pythagorean school of thought would dismiss counterarguments with the this adage (‘he’ in this case meant Pythagoreaus himself). Since the master said it, there’s nothing to discuss. The adage can also be used ironically. Suppose that one of the more ferocious Christians justifies some evil action (say, invading another country) with an extended sophistry from the Bible. It might be appropriate to respond by saying “I’m sure God said it himself”.
Recent additions:
May 16th: speculations on the origin of past tense
May 11th: Wendy can’t be made to grab the sword: an issue in interactive storytelling.
May 7th: the time management methods I use to get things done
May 6th: can we infuse morality into games?
May 3rd: a major revision to my old essay, The Education of a Game Designer
May 2nd: I need two programmers to write a little program for iOS and Android. It’s for meteor astronomy: the Perseids this August!
April 30th: book review: The Storytelling Animal, about the role that stories play inside our minds
April 18th: two new videos of lectures I have given: Teeside and Phoenix
April 18th: Otto Skorzeny, a remarkably audacious German officer during World War II.
April 13th: book review: The Ascent of Money, by Niall Ferguson, a history of the monetary system
April 3rd: Screwed by United Airlines (stranded at SFO for three days for ‘bad weather’ during beautiful weather)
March 25th: the big picture of Balance of the Planet
March 23rd: a useful concept for game design: Causal Immediacy
March 22nd: another person from history: Gavrilo Princip, responsible for the deaths of perhaps 70 million people.
March 20th: I have FINALLY gotten the central balance point working in Balance of the Planet
March 19th: a third ancient essay: Where’s the Creativity?
March 17th: another ancient essay: Dumb Code Versus Smart Code
March 16th: an old essay from 1984, on integrity.
March 15th: Ulrich von Hutten, another interesting person from history
March 12th: and another (zzzzz!)
March 7th: another design diary (Yawn!)
March 5th: sunlight, snow, and a twig
My change log, showing what has been added since when.