It *was* magic until the all-powerful Lucas introduced a biological explanation, but can it be argued that the biological entities practice magic on behalf of their host?
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posted
Is this a bad thing? It has the advantage of imposing some kind of constraint on the writer; it means your characters can explore the ideas you've set up in a consistent way (for example, Bujold's Chalion series does this really well, although the miracles there aren't strictly magic); and I don't see where you lose any sense of wonder just because you have some ground rules.
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posted
All magic has some kind of ground rules attached. It seems quite impossible to even imagine a world in which this would not be so.
Posts: 1412 | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
Nighthawk--pre Episode 1, most fans loved "The Force."
Post Episode 1 and the Milochloridians fans were confused, upset, or let down.
KoM--Magic has many parts that make it useful in a story besides the simple Dues Ex Machina role it plays to often.
One of them, and I believe the may one, is in answering the questions of morality and the "Why." Magic insures that rules are followed, people get their just deserts, and prophecy is fulfilled. Science answers the How.
So you walk into a room. There is a simple ritual that you perform, and if done right the room lights up.
In science, the ritual is turning on the light switch. There is no judgement on why, how, or with what that you turn that switch on.
In magic, the ritual may be the same moving of a switch, but much more goes into it, for you must appease the appropriate gods, have a heart full of virtue, not skimp on the sacrifice.
I know. Its just me. Its my pet peeve and I can't explain it well yet, but I want Magic in my MAGIC, Mystery in my MAGIC, Destiny in my MAGIC--not just a new form a science.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
I thought the quote was the reverse: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" Looking it up, it appears to be quoted to Arthur C. Clark.
Anyway...
When I consider this quote, I always think of it in the context of a real-world thought experiment for this.
Say, going back in time to different eras with different technologies.
Maybe going back to the time of Christ with a handgun or a high powered flashlight.
I'd be curious to see what the reactions to these technologies would be, and what the differences are.
I'd imagine that the reactions, and to what degree they are superstitious based would depend on three things:
1) How the techology is presented/explained. 2) The nature of the society. 3) The nature of the technology.
If I presented the gun by wrapping it in ceremonial dressings, chanted a bit, and then spoke of how I was going to invoke Satan to make your internal organs burst open, then pulled the gun and shot someone, there isn't anyone who saw it that would doubt me.
However, if I were to pull it out plain, explain how it is a device which works similarly to a bow and arrow and simply seems different because it shoots a projectile faster than the eye can see it, then I demonstrate how a projectile travels from the nose of the gun to its intended target, then I doubt anyone is going to think it is magic.
It comes down to showmanship, basically.
Which might be the whole point. If the author of a fiction has a scientific basis behind his magic, I doubt it would bother you, Dan, unless the author actually revealed his hand.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Xavier: I thought the quote was the reverse: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" Looking it up, it appears to be quoted to Arthur C. Clark.
Anyway...
When I consider this quote, I always think of it in the context of a real-world thought experiment for this.
Say, going back in time to different eras with different technologies.
Maybe going back to the time of Christ with a handgun or a high powered flashlight.
I'd be curious to see what the reactions to these technologies would be, and what the differences are.
I'd imagine that the reactions, and to what degree they are superstitious based would depend on three things:
1) How the techology is presented/explained. 2) The nature of the society. 3) The nature of the technology.
If I presented the gun by wrapping it in ceremonial dressings, chanted a bit, and then spoke of how I was going to invoke Satan to make your internal organs burst open, then pulled the gun and shot someone, there isn't anyone who saw it that would doubt me.
However, if I were to pull it out plain, explain how it is a device which works similarly to a bow and arrow and simply seems different because it shoots a projectile faster than the eye can see it, then I demonstrate how a projectile travels from the nose of the gun to its intended target, then I doubt anyone is going to think it is magic.
It comes down to showmanship, basically.
Which might be the whole point. If the author of a fiction has a scientific basis behind his magic, I doubt it would bother you, Dan, unless the author actually revealed his hand.
I like this post.
A purely chaotic form of Magic that constantly changed and at best had only temporary rules would make for a boring and uninteresting story. How could anybody come to grips with it? How would it not accidentally destroy everything?
Conversely a story about a new scientific discovery that made absolutely no sense and by the end of the story still made no sense would also make for a stupid story.
Perhaps one day, all that was magical will have a scientific explanation, and will no longer worry about the "How?" and every situation will have a simple and obvious solution, the challenge will be if we are willing to go along with it.
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posted
Actually, a story about constantly changing magic might be quite interesting. Of course, it would have to change within certain limits, otherwise youd get 'scratching your nose invokes the magic that destroys the world'. But such a magic would put a premium on experimenting over experience; on thinking-on-your-feet over formalisation.
Come to think of it, you could look at Niven's "The Magic Goes Away" stories as being in this mold, though there the change is predictable: Magic is constantly getting weaker.
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posted
This reminds me of Stranger in a Strange Land, where Valentine Michael Smith explains his "miracles" as merely scientific extensions of his mental capabilities not understandable to most humans, because they do not have the right way of thinking.
Posts: 2705 | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
I kinda understand the sentiment of wanting magic to be "magical", but as a literary device it has to have some rules, otherwise you end up with "anything that doesn't make sense, a wizard did it."
There was a series of books back in the '80s by Lyndon Hardy that made the "rules of magic" an interesting plot device, particularly (at least to me) with the rule introduced in the second book whereby you could change the other rules.
Posts: 196 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
Ahh, but you folks are taking everything from a modern scientific frame of reference. What did our forefathers make of the world before the Greeks and Newton and the Renaisance etc... before enlightenment and logic were formulated.
Magic was everything, and yet magic had no rules.
Did they wonder what made Hade's Helmet make you invisible, or what made the waters of the Lethe make you forget? Did we wonder what was so special of the Bhodi Tree, or why the Four Leaf clover brought luck? How could we have a world where Lebrachauns gold was hidden at the end of the rainbow, and yet the rainbow was the bridge to Valhalla? How could dancing make rain in the deserts of Mohave, and bring you closer to God/Allah in the Deserts of Arabia?
In fact, the more those of scientific bent spent in trying to harmonize and manipulate those magical properties, the wierder and stranger they and their properties became.
The historical magicians were those who tried to isolate and manipulate "Magical" properties the way physicists and chemists were doing with mundane forces.
Each magic is complete in itself, but overall, there is no rational laws of science that have to apply. If there were, these would be them: 1) Matter can be created and destroyed. 2) Every action has a moral reaction, occasionally completely out of proportion to the offence, or action taken. 3) Magic happens most in the areas grey areas between definitions. (doorways, cross roads, bridges) Such places have the properties of both, or neither, and being undefined can be anything. The corralary, the more you define and classify things the more (if smaller) undefined areas you create to allow magic to happen. 4) Magic is hidden. What are the three greatest magic events that happen in todays world? Conception, Love, and Death. Defining the moment where each occurs is impossible. You laugh at that, but when are you concieved? Not at the peak of sexual bliss, but in the quiet minutes afterword, when he is trying to sleep and she is trying to cuddle and the various parts of the anatomy start to wiggle together. Yet at one moment, what exact second, YOu went from being bits of them? That magic spark happens quietly in the dark. When did you fall in love? Most often you realize that you are in love, but at what moment, what glance, what second did it happen? And death. When is a body a body and a person a person? Is it when the heart stops? When the brain stops? When does the soul leave the body? As I asked about when it enters the body and when it meets its mate, such great magical events go by unseen.
Fairy dust is invisible my friends.
But I have digressed to long, and given away to many of my story ideas here.
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I read that series and it stuck with me. One of the things that it ends up talking about, unless my mind is thinking of another series, is the writer/creator of worlds, who is upset that the course universes created by the bad artists were being accepted by the "Masters" but her work, with its intricate design and beauty, was being destroyed as too bland. Then the hero gave the "Masters" some glasses and their vision was improved.
The more I remember that series, the more I laugh at the satire with which it attacked the more succesful writers.
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posted
The mitichondrian think didn't "ruin" the Force for me. I always took it to mean that a high mitichondrian level indicated that someone could feel and utilize the Force in a more controlled manner, not that they somehow explained it's very existence.
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posted
A magician is like an engineer, not like a scientist. He applies a set of beliefs about how the world works, but he does not necessarily use any method to derive those beliefs. (Often they just come from a big magic book!)
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Brian J. Hill: The mitichondrian think didn't "ruin" the Force for me. I always took it to mean that a high mitichondrian level indicated that someone could feel and utilize the Force in a more controlled manner, not that they somehow explained it's very existence.
I did the same thing. That's not how it was presented, IMO, but it's the way I chose to interpret it.
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: A magician is like an engineer, not like a scientist. He applies a set of beliefs about how the world works, but he does not necessarily use any method to derive those beliefs. (Often they just come from a big magic book!)
Wouldnt the Magic Book be an example of a documented scientific approach to magic, as it informs the user just what is required to reproduce the same magical effects in an experiment?
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posted
What Dan Raven said, up front. Magic that works by technical rules doesn't feel very magical to me.
And the flashlight back in pre-modern times would be a good example, and was used in The Flying Sorcerers by Niven & Gerrold. From the perspective of the spacefaring scientist, the flashlight was science. From the sorcerer's perspective, well, when he heard that the battery died, he was angry that nobody told him there was a living creature inside the device, and now he was responsible for working it to death -- and didn't know how to appease its spirit.
That is, the sorcerer saw the flashlight as an agent, something that could have desires and take action (including levying curses on whoever mistreated it), and its method of action was unknown and not particularly knowable. For the scientist, the flashlight was just a thing. It wouldn't be just flashlights. Magic stories can have tree-people in them, including the ones in your front yard right now. In science, they're just things.
posted
I immediately thought of the Master of the Five Magics series that Palliard mentioned. Speaking for myself, of course, the rules of magic in that series only made it a more interesting story and did nothing to diminish the wonder involved in the magic. Hardy might not be the most skilled writer in the world, but his books were certainly most enjoyable. And unusual. Then again, I'm one of those antisocial science major types. (I'm being ironical here, just so you know.)
Dan, I would venture to guess that any analogy between the creator of worlds and the author of the book was completely unintended.
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Oh, and guys, it's "midichlorians". Which don't bother me in the slightest. It's not as though there is any attempt to explain how these subcellular entities actually allow their owner to use the force. All that changed is they cooked up a way to measure potential strength. It's still magic as far as I'm concerned.
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There was a book I read years ago--pure brain candy with no redeeming value, except the joke, "In my world I am a Unix wizard." Followed by shocking disbelief from the female/love interest in the group. "A Eunich's wizard? The things men give up for power. Tis a shame." Still, not the first man to be shot down due to his computer geek reputation.
Anyway, this book revolved around the mighty evil wizard protecting the secret to his power by use of a mystic code word. The hero created a gollum who's sole ability was to very quickly recite any combination of syllables, which it did for several weeks until it stumbled across the code word, the defenses went down, and the evil was destroyed.
They hacked an evil magic via a lame computer virus. When they did that I screamed, and a little bit of the pixie in me shriveled up and died.
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quote:There was a book I read years ago--pure brain candy with no redeeming value, except the joke, "In my world I am a Unix wizard." Followed by shocking disbelief from the female/love interest in the group. "A Eunich's wizard? The things men give up for power. Tis a shame."
I think I've read that. What book was that?
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Here I thought we were talking about Order of the Stick. V shares your complaints, Dan.
quote: ...any sufficiently advanced - and in particular, reliable - magic would be indistinguishable from technology...
Personally, I loved the Mercedes Lackey story where elves in the modern world were looking for a way to disguise their magical horses as race cars so they could compete. They got an engineer to give them enough fancy gobblety-gook to explain how the new non-ferrous engine system should work so they could get it past the officials. After all, advanced enough technology looks like magic.
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Which don't bother me in the slightest. It's not as though there is any attempt to explain how these subcellular entities actually allow their owner to use the force. All that changed is they cooked up a way to measure potential strength. It's still magic as far as I'm concerned.
