(no subject)

[ann_leckie]

rachel_swirsky has placed me under an obligation to post this.

Long ago, on a message board far away, someone posted something that nearly sent me to the emergency room with the burning of the epic stupid. It went like this: the poster was working on a novel set in a world where magic worked, instead of science.

Okay. So. When queried, the poster further explained that you know, magic worked! And not, like, machines and stuff.

In vain did one explain that machines work because the universe is fundamentally the way it is, and a universe where machines did not work would be so alien as to be, perhaps, not inhabitable by humans. Machines do not function because of some mystical "scientific" or "machine" property they possess.

And, furthermore--the thing Rachel says I ought to post--Clarke's law works in both directions.

Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Yes?

Sufficiently comprehensible magic is indistinguishable from technology. If you know magic works, and can wield it reliably, then it's susceptible to scientific investigation, and susceptible to use as technology.

Which makes a problem for fantasy, actually--if the universe is made so that magic works, then it's not magic, is it?

I would elaborate, as it is an issue I have pondered more than once, but I'm brain-ached at the moment, and must return to my perusal of The Unholy Grail: A Social Reading of Chrétien de Troyes's Conte du Graal

Comments

[mikandra.livejournal.com]

I'm probably funny, but I like fantasy books that read like SF, where magic is quantified in terms of technology of that world. The Circle of Magic series by Tamora Pierce does a fair bit of this.

[ann-leckie.livejournal.com]

That sort of fantasy can be fun, can't it. I haven't read Tamora Pierce, but I really should.

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

I always loved the Borderlands books and anthologies. Both magic and technology worked...sometimes. They were both unreliable, because of the local environment on a magic/tech border. Basically, you could never be sure which laws of physics were applicable at any given moment.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

And the implication was that Elfland was pretty alien as a consequence; perhaps as a result, humans couldn't go there at all.

[ann-leckie.livejournal.com]

I don't have a problem where things are thought through, where the author set up something that made sense beyond "magic and science are opposed and can't co-exist!"

But I wonder what changed laws of physics will stop a watch or a computer from working that won't also stop a human body from working?

[marycatelli]

It's not as though this person is unusual. I keep running across works in which magic and "science" or "technology" are somehow immisicible. With very ill-thought-out rules about how something is "science."

It's one of my pet peeves, actually.

[ann-leckie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, mine too. I don't mind it if its thought through. I don't mind any conceit, so long as its thought through.

[paulwoodlin.livejournal.com]

I actually did my graduate work on this subject. In the Middle Ages, the scholars preferred to divide knowledge into that which is known by observation and that which is known by revelation. What we call science and much of what we would call magic fell under the heading of known by observation; the scientific method may have weeded out alchemy and astrology since then, but in the Middle Ages they were taken seriously. You could say that there was a sliding scale of technology and magic, rather than a hard and fast divide, and both were considered obedient to Natural Law, which in turn was obedient to Divine Law. Human law, what we call politics, was the lowest of all, and theologians maintained that just as natural law descended from divine law, human law should be derived from natural law.

Additionally, magic was divided into three catagories: natural magic, divine magic, and demonic magic. Natural magic is close to what we could call science; the use of natural properties of plants, animals, and minerials put there by God. Since God created those objects with those properties, it was reasoned that natural magic must have been okay. Divine magic is what we call miracles. Demonic magic was any magic gained by appeal to Satan, demons, or demons posing as pagan gods, and thus bad.

Having all this running around in my head makes watching Willow do magic on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" a little more amusing then perhaps Whedon intended. Ten years ago I wrote a novel using all this, and more, as background material, but alas, the publishers gave it a pass.

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

That's a good summation and a timely reminder for me. Thanks.

[ann-leckie.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's easy for folks to talk about primitive things being "medieval" or point to the superstitious stuff, or the errors of fact that can make you laugh--but when they sat down to think things out, medieval scholars (like any bunch of scholars) didn't mess around.

You could say that there was a sliding scale of technology and magic, rather than a hard and fast divide, and both were considered obedient to Natural Law, which in turn was obedient to Divine Law.

If magic works, then it has to be like that, more or less, doesn't it.

[rachel-swirsky.livejournal.com]

This is awesome. Thanks.

[marycatelli]

Oh, yeah, and what got sliced into "magic" and what into "science" depends a lot more on subsequent events that any knowledge they had then.

Drinking willow bark tea for a headache was "magic."

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

Well, magic not working in the presence of 'cold iron' is traditional. I wonder if if could work the other way around: in the presence of magic, cold iron doesn't do whatever it's supposed to.

To be lazy ... iron (or all metals) could become subject to the standard fumble table. Too much effect, too little, wrong target, backfire. Or could melt or get hot....

In Amber gunpowder didn't work. I think in some other classic fantasy worlds internal combustion engines don't work. Steam engines not working would be nice: maybe all their energy goes into a whistling noise.

Nullifying poles and ropes and sails etc ... not sure where to draw the line there. Something to do with the user's intention? Alignment specific?

[ann-leckie.livejournal.com]

Well, magic not working in the presence of 'cold iron' is traditional.

In places, yes. And one of the ways it's been interpreted is specifically as a technological issue--that indigenous peoples (of the British Isles specifically, since that's the area I know best, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was more widespread) were invaded by metal-working tribes and overwhelmed by their technological superiority, and the memory of them being defeated by iron is coded in the fairies not liking cold iron. It's an interestingish idea, one you could get stories out of. But it still doesn't work well in the reverse, and besides, as I said in another thread, do the Sidhe not have hemoglobin?

How does one make machines not do what they do, when what they do is because of the properties of the physical world? How can steam not do what it does? Why does the chemistry of gunpowder not work but the chemistry and electrical impulses of the human body still do? Tech works because it's a manipulation of the natural world. If tech stops working (because the universe is different) two things will be true--it's not tech by definition, and the properties of the universe that, say, allow us to be alive will also no longer be true. This will also be true--"magic" that's reliable and effective will, in fact, be that universe's technology.

To be lazy ... iron (or all metals) could become subject to the standard fumble table. Too much effect, too little, wrong target, backfire. Or could melt or get hot....

That's a least a thinking through of it--the person I was engaging in conversation so long ago did not respond with "but Iron...well, someone centuries ago laid a spell that..." or whatever. The response was a very indignant insistence that obviously magic and science were opposed and anyone who said otherwise was just thinking too hard. Which, insert me headdesking.

Anyway. I could buy that some time in the distant past a god or wizard laid some world-covering spell that broke steam engines. I just can't buy that "steam engines or gunpowder don't work in worlds where magic works" especially not if the reason is "magic and science/technology are opposed!"

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

To me, one of the aspects of science is the repeatability of results (and if they're not repeatable, you've failed to record a factor). Anyone, including the dog, can operate a lightswitch. It doesn't discriminate. A 'make it light' spell might have a personal component, or need to be modified according to the phases of the moon, or work/not work/produce side-effects/work in different intensities according to the age/training/inborn skill/location of the caster. That alone, for me, is an important distinction.

Also, you can troubleshoot science - if it's supposed to work and doesn't for you, you need to examine each component to find out why you're not getting the expected result (electricity is off or the lightbulb has burnt out) whereas in many magic systems you might just have to accept that today it's not working or do something that's completely unrelated to the task you wanted to do, such as make a sacrifice to the god who grants you your powers.

[ann-leckie.livejournal.com]

This is problematic, though--once you can't repeat it reliably, then the question arises--did it really actually work? If it only works about as often as, say random chance then there's something else going on. If it's working at better than random chance, then there will be conditions under which it works and conditions under which it doesn't, which may well be observable or at least deducible with testing.

In other words, in any universe where magic works, magic is going to be observable and testable--and no more mysterious than, say, physics. At which point, it's not magic anymore.

I spit on Clark's Law

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

No, really.

Magic works through symbol and metaphor, so it can always be plausibly different from technology, at least at the fabrication stage.

Re: I spit on Clark's Law

[ann-leckie.livejournal.com]

But symbol and metaphors are tools based in writing and language--both technologies.

[nathreee.livejournal.com]

I have been thinking about this myself. I like to think of and write about magic as an emotional power, unreliable by nature. When a fire mage is angry, the room temperature rises, but his fireballs are smaller when he's just not interested and bored. One mage could be more powerful or talented than the other, which means that performing the same incantation they would not both get the same results. That would mean magic is real and it works, but it can't be called technology.

[ann-leckie.livejournal.com]

Where is the energy coming from, when a fire mage heats the room? He must engage with the laws of physics.

One mage could be more powerful or talented than the other, which means that performing the same incantation they would not both get the same results. That would mean magic is real and it works, but it can't be called technology.

I'm not sure that follows. Bows and arrows are tech, but absolutely the ability of the user strongly affects the outcome of using them. Same with chipping stone spearheads, same with cooking. We've got lots of tech now, at this point in our culture, that doesn't require much more than pushing the right button, but this is not in fact a distinguishing feature of tech.

Once you know what it is that's the basis of the abilities, the development into tech isn't far behind. Manipulation of emotions? I give you....the EmotionMatic, a set of injectable chemicals that will make the wizard happy or sad, or angry, or whatever her most powerful magic requires. Inborn, you say? Then there will be some physical difference between wizards and non wizards that I can discover. It may take time, and the discovery of DNA and all sorts of other things, but it's there, and real, and therefore, just like my ability to roll my tongue, not actually magic.

Heck, the incantations themselves are a form of tech. Language and writing are technologies. Old ones, to be sure, and ones we don't often think of as tech, but they are. Manipulating the world through speech is tech--if it works. If it doesn't then it's not real.

Coming in late, here...

[jamesenge.livejournal.com]

I think the fantasist has the right to assert or imply that the laws of physics, history, animal husbandry, vegetable wifery or whatever (as we understand them) are wrong or incomplete. And I don't think the laws of the imaginary universe need to be absolutely explained, either: there's lots that science doesn't know about are world, and it's a cinch that some of what it thinks it knows is wrong. It's more a matter of being fair with the reader: if Gandalfclone used fireballs to rescue Frodolite from the evillish Orcoids, then why can't he use fireballs to light up the lightless caves of Suspiciouslysimilartomoriaville? There should be a reason. But I don't think that the mere throwing of fireballs have to accord with our understanding of physics, or even an alternate physics.

The Zelazny book I think of in this context is _Jack of Shadows_, where there is science and magic--both methods of approaching and manipulating a fundamentally ineffable reality.

Re: Coming in late, here...

[ann-leckie.livejournal.com]

No, I agree.

My beef is with the idea that in any coherent universe where "magic works," magic is fundamentally a different thing from science or technology, such that "magic works instead of science" or "magic works but not machines."

[paulwoodlin.livejournal.com]

One thing everyone should keep in mind is that the idea of magic being separate from gods is a relatively modern one. This is why in older literature people lost their magic if they lost their purity or faith, or broke a rule of their gods, or gained magic by dealing with the gods.

I already pointed out that in the Middle Ages, if magic didn't come from God (directly as a miracle or indirectly as natural magic), it came from Satan, who was a fallen angel, after all. It became a huge issue in the Middle Ages, because people wondered, if our priest is a jerk, does that mean God ignores the rituals of communion, marriage, baptism, and funerals he performs? That would mean the parish was going to hell. So the Church ruled that what mattered to God was what was in your heart, not the heart of the priest, when it came to these semi-magical rituals.

The Church intellectuals ran into a lot of stuff they couldn't puzzle out logically but thought true, which is why revelation was as important as observation in their world view. God said so, after all. Or maybe it was the other way around.

The Church itself was considered an authority, including theologians like Augustine and Aquinas. I sometimes wonder about Aquinas' tone of thought when he wrote that there was no Biblical reason for women not to priests, so we just have to trust that the Church knows what it's doing. Was he being snide? Sincere? Sarcastic? Hairsplittingly careful? He wasn't popular in his life time, protected mostly by the reputation and influence of his more respected teacher, Albertus Magnus, so who knows?

And just because magic was hard to understand didn't negate belief in it. I read "Scientific American" and despite my college education only really understand about 75% of it, on a good day 90%, so it is not a great leap of imagination for me to imagine myself a knight who can't even read trusting a monk who can about the mysteries of religion and magic, or a monk reading the Bible and wondering, WTF?

[paulwoodlin.livejournal.com]

sorry, "women not to be priests"

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

I'm probably a voice crying in the wilderness here, but something seems a little ... unpragmatic about much of this discussion.

The un-named Ur-Poster said: "When queried, the poster further explained that you know, magic worked! And not, like, machines and stuff."

By 'machines' she's obviously not referring to inclined planes or pry-bars (unless perhaps highly-machined ones).

Though even for those, I'm sure a magical rationale could be found, in a world of kyndly enclyning.

Thank you for the inspiration

[caseylybrand.livejournal.com]

Hi, Ann. I read this entry when you first posted it back in March. I didn't comment then, but I want to tell you now that I have been inspired by this topic. Inspired to the point of novel writing.

I woke up the morning after reading this entry and thought, "Oh, here's how it could work!" And after lots of concept-refining and worldbuilding and writing, I am now about halfway through the first draft. (I was so inspired, I put aside the outlined-and-ready-to-write work I had lined up, and built a world instead.)

I haven't read all the comments here -- I'll try to at some point -- but I just wanted to say thank you. That, and I will try very hard not to bring the burning of the epic stupid.

Re: Thank you for the inspiration

[ann-leckie.livejournal.com]

Awesome!

I firmly believe that thinking the issue through--any issue, really--drives away the potential burning of the epic stupid like nothing else. Even if that thinking through comes to a conclusion different from the one I would have.

Happy noveling! :)