Finally... I've put all these years of thinking and reading physics books to use. I've created a very sturdy theory on explaining the existence (or non-existence) of magic into a small, 4-page 'pamphlet'.
There, I've put in enough realistic theories to explain magic, where it comes from, how it animates zombies, why it's not available on Earth, how magic enhances weapons, how it can be used in a modern world, etc, etc. Well, it's not directly mentioned, but should answer any questions if you bother to think.
So there... anyone wanna debate on any of the 'facts' in there? Any other flaws or common questions I left out? I wanna iron out any flaws before I show this to the masters of fantasy (AKA the uber-nerds who spend hundreds on rulebooks and miniatures).
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
Pete Nattress Cheesy Bits img src/uploads/sccheesegif
Registered 23/09/2002
Points 4811
11th January, 2005 at 09:49:05 -
"magic" is only magic because it defies scientific explaination. i haven't downloaded that thing, are we talking david blaine (shazzam) magic or harry potter magic?
I agree that a scientific explaination of magic is pretty much pointless. Science is limited to what can be studied with our senses - Eyes, nose, ears, taste, touch. Since we know there are forces which cannot be detected by some of our senses - like wind for example, it's obvious there are forces which can't be detected by ANY of our senses, and are therefore outside the realm of science. To say anything that exists can be examined with our limited five senses is kind of vain on our part, I would say.
Of course when it comes to wizards waving magic wands, etc, that stuff is baloney :^p
Last time I had lobster, it reminded me of biology class. Except in biology class the professor didn't make you eat the frog when you were finished.
I believe what Muz means is the same basic thing as The Force in Star Wars.
In Star Wars the idea was that people discovered this kind of energy aeons ago, but never knew how it worked. They just knew they could manipulate it.
By the time of the movies, they have done enough research to realise that The Force is somehow linked to these little parasites that live in your blood - the more you have, the stronger your connection to The Force.
Similarly, I think this is intended to be used in a story where 'magic' and science have grown together - what started off as magic is now far less mysterious, but still referred to by its archaic name.
That said, i could be wrong, cos I haven't read it yet. But If I have time, i will do.
In that document, try doing a replace on "Magic" with "Hard Work". Or given the average maturity of TDC I'm sure you'll find another hilarious verb to put in there... which makes some hilarious sentences.
it's obvious there are forces which can't be detected by ANY of our senses, and are therefore outside the realm of science.
You mean like strong/weak nuclear force? What about electromagnetism? Neutrino radiation?
Some animals have electroceptive senses. Some have magnetoception. Some can echolocate. Fish have lateral lines and some reptiles can sense IR light. That's five senses we humans don't have. Are you saying the forces they measure are outside our ability for scientific study?
Magic the Gathering is a card game made by Wizards of the Coast which includes many mnay different kinds of spells, creatures, enchantments, articfacts etc. which are brought into play using mana which can be produced by land cards or other effects specified by special cards. Some cards include: Mountain, Swamp, Shock, Leviathan, Wrath of God, Squirrel's Nest, Black Lotus...Knight of the Hokey Pokey, Bouncing Beebles, and The Cheese Stands Alone.
Magic is one of those things that are hard to debate about because there are 2 types of magic everyone knows about, as Pete said, the kind of magic that is real in the fact that your simply tricking someone with slick behind the scene acts, & magic that is hard to believe is real because it defies what science can show us, & everytime we find something that to most people would be concidered magic, we name it something to make it fallow science such as magnets. Its not nessarly what we cant sence through our original 5 senses are humans, but like Pete said, what defies what we currently believe in science.
Because it's bullshit. Physical science requires that hypotheses be made that are testable. So magnetism comes along, a hypothesis is formed that explains it in a purely realistic manner that magnetism can exist and how it works in the context of our understanding of the universe, then an experiment is designed that proves magnetism is real, that it follows particular rules supported by mathematical proof, and that it isn't explained by a cheap cop-out such as magic. Then someone runs the experiment, and if it is a success that theory is adopted, if it's a failure a new hypothesis is drawn up.
There's no need for magic. The universe is complex enough without inventing something for which there is no evidence other than a misinterpretation of a process that is perfectly understandable by rational means.
Radix, you have the distinguished title of most cynical person I have ever seen. "Magic" is balony, but saying everything can be explained by science is baloney too. If anyone disagrees with me, I'd love to see them try.
Last time I had lobster, it reminded me of biology class. Except in biology class the professor didn't make you eat the frog when you were finished.
The origin of physics... That's a cheap shot since science can't really explain where *anything* came from.
Here's the thing; anything I say science can't explain, you'll say it either didn't happen, or that there *is* a scientific explaination and we just don't know it yet. I could say how miracles happen in hospitals across the world, you'll tell me it's the placebo effect. I could bring up people that see angels or demons or aliens or whatever else, you'd tell me it's hallucinations. Now I can't say whether any of that's true or not, but the fact that it can't be explained by science doesn't automatically disprove it.
Science can *excuse* a lot of things it can't explain. That's why people like it so much.
Last time I had lobster, it reminded me of biology class. Except in biology class the professor didn't make you eat the frog when you were finished.
There's this dude, Jeazus I thin he was called, and two thousand years ago he multiplied fish and turned water into wine. Now how do you explain that?, bearing in mind you never saw it?
Sorry, I'm still pissed off about the Jerry Springer Opera thing.
Well, it's generally agreed that Aristotle was the first physicist. But I get the feeling you're trying to ask about the origin of reality. Well, there are several theories on the subject, but because physics don't apply prior to the existance of physical reality in its current form, it's untestable, at least without destroying the universe and making a new one from scratch. And I can't imagine that's something you want to happen in your next-door neighbor's back yard. But you can't claim that the inability to prove a single hypothesis from several is a flaw in scientific method if you don't have a single alternative answer. There are several scientific theories, and a whole fuckload of religions.
You know, I was expecting you to give a single phenomenon rather than something so vague.
anything I say science can't explain, you'll say it either didn't happen, or that there *is* a scientific explaination and we just don't know it yet
Naturally. Those are the only two possibilities. Of course, I can give you a scientific explanation as to why there's no theory to that at present, however you'd be very, very hard pressed to find anything that hasn't been hypothesised yet.
I could say how miracles happen in hospitals across the world, you'll tell me it's the placebo effect.
That's right. The placebo effect has been demonstrated scientifically. Take a sample group of people and tell them you have a new drug that can cure them of condition X. This is split in to two groups; the control group that gets a placebo and a test group that gets the drug. You will always see instances of improvement in the control group. This is the placebo effect.
Since we have a perfectly good rational explanation, one that also can be supported by neurochemical studies and the like, why the need to come up with a fantastical "miracle" story?
I could bring up people that see angels or demons or aliens or whatever else, you'd tell me it's hallucinations.
Ever been on a bad acid trip? I haven't, but from what I gather you'd get some neat results tabulating the number of angels and demons you see.
Given that, anything that's physically present (in this case an incarnation of an angel or demon) must either reflect or emit light, or else obscure it from another source, in order to be percieved by our eyes. Go find me a photograph of an angel or a demon. A camera works in almost an identical fasion to our eyes (despite different mechanics, of course). Indeed, anything our eyes can see a camera should be able to see better.
If you had a camera next to you and an angel appeared, wouldn't you go, "Holy shit an angel! Better take a photo!"? If not, you'll agree that it's a compulsion common to most people.
So you could argue that these appearances are not physical but enact directly with us, and so they do not exist in a physical sense and cannot therefore be photographed. However, this would require another sense, one that allows us to see such eminations. By your own admission:
Science is limited to what can be studied with our senses
So anything we can see, we can study. I guess it's just terribly inconvenient that an angel has never appeared to an atheistic professor of physics. Or anyone other than a christian for that matter.
EDIT:
In addition to the placebo effect, it should be noted that wo do in fact have a very capable immune system that has for the past few hundred million years of evolution been refining its ability to keep us alive. In the case of a viral or bacterial infection, once the correct combination of antibodies to combat the illness is achieved it's entirely possible to come back from the brink of death unless this is impeded by some collateral damage.
what about thinks like dark matter/antimatter (whatever its called) in space? what about universes and dimensions that dont have the same laws of physics we do?
im an egostic once again. i believe there could be things like that but im seeing no real evidence in either way.
ps. i hate sci-fi stuff so none of this is inspired from the likes of Star trek
Lol, you don't half come out with some crap sometimes Radix
"In addition to the placebo effect, it should be noted that wo do in fact have a very capable immune system that has for the past few hundred million years of evolution been refining its ability to keep us alive. In the case of a viral or bacterial infection, once the correct combination of antibodies to combat the illness is achieved it's entirely possible to come back from the brink of death unless this is impeded by some collateral damage."
Much of 'faith healing' is psychosimatic, I agree. But not all.
Please, explain how a man with his back broken could walk out of the hospital the very same day? I know people who used to be faith healers, and science as yet is unable to explain how these healings have worked. That doesn't mean that it will never be able to do so, but it certainly can't now.
I'm not saying all healing is divine, not by a long way. Plenty of atheists do faith healing, they just call it something different. But it's not as simple as saying 'its psychosimatic' or 'it's the immune system'.
First of all... you make a big assumption by saying only something which is physically present can exist. To do so is to assume that our dimension is the only one in existence, like listening to the radio and insisting there's only one channel because it's the only one you can hear. THen someone comes along and says another channel interfered with his and he could hear two channels at once. You insist that he was hallucinating because that's not possible.
The point I'm trying to make is that no one can possibly be egotistical enough to say we know enough about the universe to explain away any phenomenon. Let's say we know 10 percent of what there is to know - I'm being generous, especially if you think we evolved entirely by trial and error. There's still 90 percent of unknown out there that is perfectly capable of interacting with us, and it does.
Now as for other stuff like miraculous healings, I was going to start giving examples I realized how foolish that would be, since any skeptic can find ways of justifying it. Basically when dealing whena nything paranormal, the logic a skeptic uses is "they could have hallucinated it". Now, that's possible, yes, but that doesn't prove anything. If someone claimed to be a Holocost survivor and vididly described their experience, you could claim they hallucinated that, too. And you could point out how peculiar it is that only the Jews seem to remember this incident.
I'm sure you can pick that analogy apart, but what I'm saying is that just because you can find an excuse for why something happened, doesn't make it true. Passing something off as a "hallucination" is not the same as digging deeper and investigating what happened. It pushes you away from the truth, it does not bring you closer. Of course if you don't want to know the truth...
And again let me stress the limitations of science; it can't prove or disprove anything that cannot be tested in a controlled environment. And we know that things happen all the time which cannot be reproduced in a controlled environment; how about falling in love for example?
Any athiest will tell you that we invented things like God because we couldn't deal with reality. Well the truth is we idolized science because we couldn't deal with God.
Edited by the Author.
Last time I had lobster, it reminded me of biology class. Except in biology class the professor didn't make you eat the frog when you were finished.
Dustin Gunn Gnarly Tubular Way Cool Awesome Groovy Mondo
Registered 15/12/2004
Points 2659
12th January, 2005 at 11:48:19 -
I don't need to be dictated on the existance and meaning of magic by a person who can't even decide on a gender...
The following is not my precise view, but just a view.
Imagine every time someone breaks their back, there's a 1/1000 chance that it's a minor but painful injury, or that they will still be able to walk in a few hours. If a faith healer tries to heal a person with a broken back 1000 times, perhaps 999 of the 1000 times they are unsuccessful. Since that's uninteresting the word will not be passed on. Maybe once though, the probability is true, and the person is walking within an hour, and a faith healer tended to them. Interesting! The word gets passed on, and it gives the impression faith healers do indeed work.
Science is backed up with fact and figures. If a new drug is tested and it heals 50% more people, then they have numbers backing them up: Previously 500 of 1000 people healed, now 750 of 1000 people heal. Faith healers unfortunately don't provide reliable experiments in such controlled environments, AFAIK. So they lack the evidence to prove or disprove that they make any difference at all anyway. So we just don't know.
BTW Jay, the Universe is, by definition, everything.
LOL. I wonder how many of you actually read that thingy I wrote. Not really that hard to read, BTW. Just 4 pages (last time I counted). *sigh* I thought I didn't have to mention this but you could just download it by right-clicking and choosing Save as... I don't experience that remote linking problem simple because I choose not to use crappy IE .
I meant the force of magic that games use so often. Mainly based on D&D's version of magic. You know, the whole twirling hands around and mumbling stuff, making some fireball appearing out of nowhere. Sure, it's ok to keep it mystified and all, but I kinda spent a few months debating this magic stuff just to get science & magic to go together seamlessly into my 'futuristic fantasy' themed game. I thought some of you might find it useful for those who are having trouble figuring some solution to it. I know the big game guys still haven't figured it out... damn Arcanum, for their anti-Magick-Technology idea...
Like true real life science, it's based on some of my observations on stuff that occurs in games. Hell, it pisses me off to see how people could just go, "It's magic. It's got nothing to do with science". There's a scientific explanation for everything, and the reason science exists is to explain the unknown. Fact is, magic in games tend to be this 'unknown' thing, and this little 'treatise' of mine simply makes it known, without violating up the 'physics' of Magic in games.
Should've rambled on it earlier before certain nerds started to confuse it with real life & religion .
In that document, try doing a replace on "Magic" with "Hard Work"
> LMAO. Very amusing.
what about thinks like dark matter/antimatter (whatever its called) in space? what about universes and dimensions that dont have the same laws of physics we do?
> I'm assuming you're talking to me, right . Anti-matter's explained in some physics books. No need making up my own explanation. Long story short, AM's simply the thing that's the opposite of matter. Like -x and x, they make 0 when combined. I'm assuming you mean universes, not dimensions. I suppose laws of physics should be the same or similar in other universes as well, just like sentient life on another planet would be similar to us. There may be slight differences, like different elements, different forms of energy, but the basics, like gravitational force or density would still be similar.
Any athiest will tell you that we invented things like God because we couldn't deal with reality. Well the truth is we idolized science because we couldn't deal with God.
> That makes a good quote. Like all quotes, it doesn't have to be true, but sounds convincing and cool anyhow .
Edited by the Author.
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
IMHO, most of the 'science' in the world is screwed, especially on physical and mental health. Health science seems to focus waaay too much on statistics. I'm in the office of an associate professor in psychology right now, and I can assure you that mental health is especially based on statistics which tell little or nothing useful. "Drug A shows improvements with rats, so it should work with humans". And strangely enough, only now do we realise that most of the old health facts are wrong. Carbs are bad, fat isn't always bad, margerine's good, tomatoes aren't poison, etc, etc.
Point is, faith healing works just as well as most over-the-counter medicines. I know some medicines work, but I found the majority of it to be worthless. Both use the 'placebo effect' and are both almost equally useful. Perhaps this is the way that God and Scientists intended, but what I know is that it's better than nothing. There are faith healers who do work, and those are the ones who are able to use the placebo effect even better.
Oh, and BTW, statistics are screwed up. It's the only way to measure randomness, and thus, the results are randomly successful as well. If people get happier when they're richer and if nice people get happier, does that mean that nice people get richer? Probably true. If people get uglier as they grow older and richer as they grow older, does that mean that rich people are ugly? Can't believe that people have wasted billions of dollars on such 'research'.
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
Not really... I think we know quite a lot of 'what there is to know' already. Close to about 10%. It doesn't mean we can't invent something new from it. That is, if you don't count knowing how to use knowledge as knowledge...
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
Nah, I didn't read your article, Muz. Everyone was bitching about the server so I didn't bother trying.
First of all... you make a big assumption by saying only something which is physically present can exist. To do so is to assume that our dimension is the only one in existence, like listening to the radio and insisting there's only one channel because it's the only one you can hear. THen someone comes along and says another channel interfered with his and he could hear two channels at once. You insist that he was hallucinating because that's not possible.
This is a flawed analogy. That's the problem with analogies. Unless you know what you're talking about before hand, they're fucking stupid.
Both radio stations exist as radiation, detectable with the help of an apparatus, in this case the radio. The radio is limited in that it's designed to play music from a certain band and nothing else. If someone told me they heard another station, and yet previous experience suggested there was only one, rational logic would dictate that there must be a second source of radiation. So I'd draw up a hypothesis and test it with a more flexible apparatus. If that failed, then I would attempt synthethis, that is setting up another station and attempting to replicate the effect. If that failed, and mathematical evidence suggested that it was impossible, then I might suggest that the subject is undergoing aural hullucinations.
However, there's a gi-fucking-normous difference between different modulations on one medium and throwing up crap about some "magic" thing for which there is no evidence. And don't think for a second that people haven't attempted experiments in the field.
Let's say we know 10 percent of what there is to know - I'm being generous, especially if you think we evolved entirely by trial and error.
Okay, first of all, evolution is entirely divorced from this issue. Whether we were dropped here fully-made or evolved gradually doesn't make a lick of difference to how much knowledge we've accumulated about physical science. That's biology. You fucking moron. It has nothing to do with any phenomenon of magic.
Secondly, Godel's Theorum makes it impossible to have a complete mathematical understanding of all processes in absolute detail.
Thirdly, physical theory doesn't attempt to accumulate knowledge, it merely exists to explain pysical events and interactions. Such as magic. As far as a Grand Unified Theory goes, which is something which would explain and to a degree predict the interactions of all particles, we're more like 95% there. If magic is capable of interacting with the physical world, we would be able to explain it. However, there is neither a place nor a demand in current theory for anything of the like.
If someone claimed to be a Holocost survivor and vididly described their experience, you could claim they hallucinated that, too. And you could point out how peculiar it is that only the Jews seem to remember this incident.
Another bloody stupid analogy. There's corroboratory evidence for the holcaust event. There were mass graves found. Paperwork. Execution facilities. There's testimonials from hundreds of survivors that agree on details implicitly.
In contrast, there was a of books in the 60s written by a handful of individuals who claimed to have been visited by jesus, who lives on Venus.
I'm sure you can pick that analogy apart, but what I'm saying is that just because you can find an excuse for why something happened, doesn't make it true. Passing something off as a "hallucination" is not the same as digging deeper and investigating what happened. It pushes you away from the truth, it does not bring you closer. Of course if you don't want to know the truth...
I repeat: there have been numerous studies in the area attempting to prove such things. None have succeeded. What, you don't think there are religous scientists? How about you go and do some research before you start spouting this crap.
And we know that things happen all the time which cannot be reproduced in a controlled environment; how about falling in love for example?
Testing in a controlled environment is merely a matter of designing a suitable experiment. Anything can be tested in a controlled situation. It's not a matter of locking something in a clean white room, it's a matter of taking account of all the variables.
As for love, it's been fully explained through neurochemical processes and the like. There's plenty of documentation. Look it up.
Any athiest will tell you that we invented things like God because we couldn't deal with reality. Well the truth is we idolized science because we couldn't deal with God.
Which god would that be, hmm?
this magic thing is somehow merging into the fantasy world of the bible, lemme jump into say that religion was something invented years and years ago to explain things that science just couldnt prove when we didnt have the technology... well now we do so my final point is here: religion is bullshit
Okay, this is getting ridiculous. An analogy isn't intended to prove or disprove anything, but to open one's mind to a different way of thinking. I made the mistake of thinking I was conversing with open minded people; my apologies. I won't be discussing this issue any further.
Edited by the Author.
Last time I had lobster, it reminded me of biology class. Except in biology class the professor didn't make you eat the frog when you were finished.
Everyone knows Jesus was the greatest magican ever. His tricks fooled tons of people. I mean, this whole 'christian' thing started ever since then! If I turn water into wine, maybe people will worship me!
Fine Garbage since 2003.
CURRENT PROJECT:
-Paying off a massive amount of debt in college loans.
-Working in television.
Muz, I haven't found a chance to read your thesis yet due to bandwidth issues, but I intend to as I am interested to see your perspective. First off, I'd like to point out how the religion bashing will do little other than to start trouble. A little respect for others would be greatly appreciated. Now back to the issue; If you look up the definition of Magic, or the greek magikos, it is a believed supernatural ability without explaination or description. To try and explain something that by definition is without explanation is a massive dichotomy making all of this a mute point. Just a thought.
Dines: I'm plenty open minded. I'm not claiming that unusual things don't happen from time to time (current quantum theory allows for an elephant to instantly materialize in front of you for no reason, it's just that the probability of it happening is miniscule), just that they are all explainable scientifically without resorting to "um... well... magic did it."
Bandwidth issues? Just right-click and Save As... oldest trick in the freeware community. It's only 11 KB (zipped as it is). Front page uses more bandwidth .
I simply used 'Magic' in the term it's normally used in game. If you want a definition (how I hate terms and definitions), it would be more of 'supernatural activity involving non-conventional conversions of energy' according to this little file. Or '5th-dimensional conversion of energy'.
Basically, it kinda explains how an elephant can instantly materialize (magic: summoning), or how someone could toss a fireball from his fingertips (magic: evocation), or how someone could read someone else's mind (magic: divination). I got tired of bringing examples after the undead bit, but if you modify the basic rules that I mentioned there, it should be able to explain everything.
Hmm.. maybe I should add about 10 pages of examples to fatten that thing up .
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
That's great, Muz!
I was actually thinking about something similar myself, and my theory would be something like the forces of nature would be some kind of illusion. In actuall case the universe is controlled by actions and consequenses. When performing an action, one or more consequenses will follow, which will lead to more actions etc.
Example:
Action: Dropping a pen
Consequense: It falls to the ground
But every consequense isn't allways directly dependant to the action causing it. Those consequenses is known as the actions "dim" function, or magic.
Example:
Action: Dropping a pen while holding your breathe in a pentagram painted in green, whit and purple when the planets is in a certain position relative to each others.
Consequense: The pen will stay in the air for five minutes, then it will explode.
Of course, sometimes you can perform a spell without your knowledge, but in that case the dim function is often lightyears away. Maybe by uttering this sentence loud, you turn an asteroid in andromeda into a baloon.
In the story I might use this element in, this is a a great leap towards discovering the meaning of life (if there is one) since we can control our own actions. If the universe was just filled with rocks and dust, they would have no choice but to obey the forces of nature, and maybe perform a random spell now and then.
But your theory is much better. More detailed and make much more sense.
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. But If I have time, i will do.
Edited by the Author.
