ann_leckie | (no subject)

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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

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When he can do it a second time and a third time. When he can do it whenever he says the right incantation.

If he can really, truly do it, he can't actually be defying the law of physics.

The laws of physics don't change, no matter how many time he can do it. You still need oxigen and a spark to create a flame, and flammable material to burn. Yet he has none of that. He just says something funny and poof, flames. Or do you think the laws of physics should change to accomodate such things?

No, I absolutely do not think the laws of physics can change to accommodate such things. That's exactly my point. That's why it remains an inescapable fact that if he can do it it's not defying the laws of physics.

If he has none of that, and yet still it works (really works, he's not a charlatan with some flash paper or something), and repeatedly, then our understanding of the laws of physics is in error. That's that.

So in stories where physics work as they do in our world, but your mage can still produce fire out of (ostensibly) nothing, then either the description of the mage's ability is in error, or the laws of physics are not, in fact, what they are in our universe. If the latter, then a huge number of problems arise.

I think I see where you're coming from.

So, if the laws of physics in that world are different from in our world, what kind of problems would arise as you say?

Consider fire--consider that we live by using oxygen to burn things, to oxidize them. How do changes in the phsyics of fire and burning affect our own bodies? They certainly would, in some way.

And then there's the question of energy. Fire from nothing, expending no energy? Wow! That's an upending of the laws of thermodynamics, isn't it? That's pretty serious business.

Back up a little, because I was never a champ in science. I'm just trying to see this on a philosphical level.

The laws of physics say the world works like this. Then there's a mage who does something that he shouldn't be able to do according to those laws. Your conlusion, the laws of physics are "wrong". You are saying then that paradox doesn't exist?

I stand by what I said before. Magic is magic because it cannot be explained. In a world where magic exists, it is superimposed upon physics, a separate system altogether that works by its own laws.

In a world where magic exists, it is superimposed upon physics, a separate system altogether that works by its own laws.

It can't. Those laws, if they are laws, and they do work, must therefore be part of the laws of physics of that universe. If they're not, then the laws of magic are not laws and magic does not work. The laws of physics are fundamental descriptions of how the universe is made, not rules that can be suspended for special occasions. If the universe is made so that magic works, then that's part of the fundamental description of the universe--hence part of the laws of physics. So, no magic is possible under your definition.

Magic is magic because it cannot be explained.

In other words, it's susceptible to Clarke's Law. If you can't explain it, it must be magic--but that would include things like television and antibiotics. It makes magic a product of ignorance, instead of a real thing that really exists.

I don't agree with either of those explanations. I don't know what else to say.

try this--the point of naming physical laws is to describe things that always work. it's not that the laws of physics are... revealed truth... they are experimentally derived. the reason we call them laws is *because* they always work. so, if they don't always work, we can't call them laws anymore. and this is entirely possible, even without magic. we could discover states in the universe that violate our current understanding of physical laws. if this occurs, then we would revise the laws, because the laws are *descriptions*.

take, i don't know, the idea of ether. many scientists at one point believed the universe was filled with an essential kind of matter called ether. no one could find it, and it didn't make sense with what people were finding. so, the scientists didn't say "our world stands in violation of the law of ether," they said "ether doesn't exist."

if magic appears to negate entropy, then it's not that "magic defies entropy," it's that entropy is not an accurate description of how things work.

But I think magic defies entropy. I think the laws of physics describe our world, in which no magic exists. And magic is something we fantasy writers imagine could exist in other worlds. But we can't quite fathom a world that has different laws of physics than our world has. So it's much easier to understand magic if it consists of a different set of rules alltogether, that's superimposed upon the laws of physics.

But if you're in a world where magic exists, and there are different laws, then magic does not defy those laws.

If physics is the description of the world, and magic is included in that description, then magic does not defy those laws, nor is it superimposed upon them. It's part of them. And hence, by your own definition, not really magic. It looks like magic from here but it's not magic there.

If magic exists and physics does not describe it or apply to it, then those physics are in error and need to be reformulated. It's not a question of it being hard to imagine a world where magic is real because it's not real here. It's a matter of it being impossible for any universe's physics (assuming they're not in error to begin with) to fail to include something that absolutely exists in that world.

It is magic because only magicians, or whatever magically inclined people are called, can do it. And no matter how many times you say it, I think the laws of magic are not part of the laws of physics, because the laws of magic do not exist in our world.

eta, let me elaborate. You said somewhere else that magic, if it is repeatable, it loses its mystery and thus stop being magic. But it can't be repeated by just anyone. It can only be repeated by magicians. Non-magicians don't understand it, thus it retains its mystery.

Of course this may vary according to world building. Some worlds say magic is inborn, some say it can be learned at universities. So in some worlds magic may be more mysterious than others. This does tie in with Clarke's law too.

Edited 2010-03-24 21:45 (UTC)

It is magic because only magicians, or whatever magically inclined people are called, can do it. And no matter how many times you say it, I think the laws of magic are not part of the laws of physics, because the laws of magic do not exist in our world.

But we're not talking about our world, are we. If magic is real in that world, then that world's physics will allow it. Mystery has nothing to do with it--whether or not anyone in that world or this one knows it, if magic is real, it is allowed by the physics of that world. And if it's allowed by the physics of that world, then it will be part of that world's science. Which means that making any sort of distinction between "magic" and "science" (or "tehcnology") in a world where magic actually works just won't hold up to scrutiny. In a world where magic works, magic is science, and is technology.

You said somewhere else that magic, if it is repeatable, it loses its mystery and thus stop being magic. But it can't be repeated by just anyone. It can only be repeated by magicians. Non-magicians don't understand it, thus it retains its mystery.

No, the "mystery" thing is just another version of the argument that if it's not understood it's magic. Mystery has nothing to do with anything.

And there are plenty of things that are only repeatable by certain practitioners--music, writing, hunting, cooking. Knitting. Does the fact that you (an undefined you, I have no idea of your knowledge of music) don't understand music theory and have never played an instrument make the Beatles magic?

It does not. Music is not magic. Knitting is not magic.

Once again, mystery is not the least bit applicable--and it's actually part of your definition, not mine. By your argument, anything "unknown" to anyone, anything any given person can't explain, is magic. If that's the case, then Clarke's law applies--"magic" is only a word for technology that a given person doesn't understand. It has nothing whatsoever to do with transcending, or breaking, or superseding or being superimposed on any universe's laws of physics.

Maybe if you used the words "laws of nature" instead of "laws of physics" this argument would go smoother. Evolution and quantum mechanics are both laws of nature, but one is biology and the other is physics. For a medieval scholar, the law of symbolism was perfectly natural ("The Waning of the Middle Ages/The Autumn of the Middle Ages" is the classic text on that subject, but has been translated more than once hence two titles)

Very sensible!

Thanks, but rereading my comment I think I should have said that the law of symbolism operated as both a divine law and a natural law, and if you count art, then as a human law as well.

I think we should agree that we disagree now.

Our world has a lot to do with it, imho. The writer is from our world and so are all the readers. But that might steer the discussion into a different direction alltogether.

Which, btw, I can always reduce my kids to giggles by intoning, ala Homer Simpson, "Lisa Simpson! In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"

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