Magic is provably real.

[Omega124]

Magic is real.

We poseess the force to casually wipe out a city from the face of the earth, near instantaneous communication across the entire earth, the ability to fly, magic wands that cause death when you point them at someone, steel horses, ability to harness zeus's holy lightning to power our industry and entertainment, and even the beggining of automatons and artficial life.

You bring someone from ancient times to our world, and we are the magic. How could an iron age civilization possibly compare to the output we casually create every day without a second thought? We would be utterly incomphrenshible to those of before. Even our trash would be oplence to them.

Of course, the inverse is true as well; give another 2000 years and whatever the hell our children make would be magic to us. They would have scientific principles that we could never comphrehend, and they will use it in ways we could possibily never imagine. Would it be the singularity, turning human and machine into one and stretching knowledge across the cosmos? A dyson sphere to harbess the natural energy of the sun to power an artifical world where humans will experince effective immortality? Or something even completely unrelated to what I said, something so advanced that its effectively out of my own reach?

You don't have to do silly thought experiments that make no logical sense to "prove" magic. Magic is just whatever force and technology we do not compherhend. As our place on Earth and eventually the cosmos advance, we will fill our current holes, which will only bring notice for more holes where "magic" is.

 

[Lohrenswald]

Here are a couple of thought experiments which show that magic is possible under the right circumstances:

1. Assume that Adam and Eve are the only people in the world and that they know that if they have children they will be driven out of Eden and will have billions of descendants. Adam is tired of getting up every morning to go hunting. Together with Eve, he devises the following scheme: they form the firm intention that unless a wounded deer- an easy target- limps by their cave, they will have children. Adam can then put his feet up and rationally expect with near certainty that a wounded dear will soon stroll by, as the odds of this taking place are still greater than the odds of being the first two people out of billions.

2. Adam shuffles a deck of cards. Later that morning, Eve, having had no contact with the cards, decides to use her willpower to retroactively choose what card lies on top. She decides that it shall have been the queen of spades. In order to ordain this outcome, Eve and Adam form the firm intention to have a child unless the queen of spades is top. They can then be virtually certain that when they look at the first card they will indeed find the queen of spades.

In #1 it seems that Adam is actually causing the deer to walk by. In #2, the couple is performing both psychokinesis and backward causation. Both are identical in effect to sorcery, if not outright meeting the definition.

 

[Traitorfish]

Magic is real.

We poseess the force to casually wipe out a city from the face of the earth, near instantaneous communication across the entire earth, the ability to fly, magic wands that cause death when you point them at someone, steel horses, ability to harness zeus's holy lightning to power our industry and entertainment, and even the beggining of automatons and artficial life.

You bring someone from ancient times to our world, and we are the magic. How could an iron age civilization possibly compare to the output we casually create every day without a second thought? We would be utterly incomphrenshible to those of before. Even our trash would be oplence to them.

"Magic" doesn't mean "inspiring of wonder", though. Historically, magic was part of daily life. The horse-shoe over the door, milk for the fairies, kindness to money-spiders; a gateway to the extra-mundane, perhaps, but not something surprising or alien. That's a thoroughly modern identification, reflective of an era when magic retreated from daily life into the imagination.

Yes, it's quite probably that somebody from the iron age would look at our wold and see it rife with magic, for want of any better explanation. But the statement "this is magic" and "magic is this" are not identical.

 

[timtofly]

I thought magic was the control of such forces? Is magic the same as superstition?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Why pose a hypothetical with different rules of causality than we've observed? Doing so conflicts with op title.

 

[Yeekim]

Should have known better than read this nonsense.
May the OP be cursed with explosive diarrhea!

 

[Omega124]

"Magic" doesn't mean "inspiring of wonder", though. Historically, magic was part of daily life. The horse-shoe over the door, milk for the fairies, kindness to money-spiders; a gateway to the extra-mundane, perhaps, but not something surprising or alien. That's a thoroughly modern identification, reflective of an era when magic retreated from daily life into the imagination.

Fallacous. Superstitiuous relics are not any more or less valid form of magic than the concept of sorcery and witchcraft, which has existed in human folklore since folklore has existed. Recall, for example, Ancient Egypt believed in Heku, a form of magic in a form of manipulating the life essence/fundamental force known as Ka. Sumerian relics include cuniform tablets with spells written on them. The Torah includes magic, not merely of god but also of man (the Egyptian priests turning their rods into snakes, the concept of Kabbalah, etc). Greece had the concept of divination, magical words and wands, sigils for spellcasting, etc, etc. Magic peformed in ancient society is not really any different than magical traditions today, except, perhaps, the specific traditions of the magic users.

Yes, it's quite probably that somebody from the iron age would look at our wold and see it rife with magic, for want of any better explanation. But the statement "this is magic" and "magic is this" are not identical.

Yes they are. Pedantic usage of the communitive property aside which I'll spare you from, there is no end-result difference between the two sentences. The meaning of "this is magic" is that the "this" that is being compared, is in fact magic. The meaning of "magic is this" is, what I assume, is someone defining magic as. So that would require having a definition of magic.

Merriam Webster defines magic as "an extraordinary power or influence seemingly from a supernatural source". Now, unless someone has gone to science class and learned the basics of modern chemistry, physics, and mechanics, a lot of what makes our technology works is completely unobservavle to the human eye. For example, take a battery. We know batteries work due to ionization of electrochemical cells. However, there is no way someone from 2016 BC could ever observe what is going on in a battery powered device with the tools of their lifetime. Therefore, batteries would likely be a form of "magic" to them. Likewise with guns, cars, bombs, the internet, etc.

So, if the end result of "magic is this" is to say that X is magic, then what is the fuctional difference between just saying x is magic to begin with?

 

[Akka]

Magic is real.

We poseess the force to casually wipe out a city from the face of the earth, near instantaneous communication across the entire earth, the ability to fly, magic wands that cause death when you point them at someone, steel horses, ability to harness zeus's holy lightning to power our industry and entertainment, and even the beggining of automatons and artficial life.

You bring someone from ancient times to our world, and we are the magic. How could an iron age civilization possibly compare to the output we casually create every day without a second thought? We would be utterly incomphrenshible to those of before. Even our trash would be oplence to them.

Of course, the inverse is true as well; give another 2000 years and whatever the hell our children make would be magic to us. They would have scientific principles that we could never comphrehend, and they will use it in ways we could possibily never imagine. Would it be the singularity, turning human and machine into one and stretching knowledge across the cosmos? A dyson sphere to harbess the natural energy of the sun to power an artifical world where humans will experince effective immortality? Or something even completely unrelated to what I said, something so advanced that its effectively out of my own reach?

You don't have to do silly thought experiments that make no logical sense to "prove" magic. Magic is just whatever force and technology we do not compherhend. As our place on Earth and eventually the cosmos advance, we will fill our current holes, which will only bring notice for more holes where "magic" is.

That's just Clarke's Third Law, not a definition of magic

 

[Agent327]

Here are a couple of thought experiments which show that magic is possible under the right circumstances:

1. Assume that Adam and Eve are the only people in the world and that they know that if they have children they will be driven out of Eden and will have billions of descendants.

We've already entered the realm of magic (or rather fantasy) right here. Experiment concluded successfully.

(To wit: any species reduced to 2 specimens is de facto already extinct. It is estimated that at some point humans consisted of a mere 10,000 specimens. Hence our limited gene pool.)

 

[Mouthwash]

How could they know this? Nobody in the real world could ever know that so we already have to assume these people are somehow able to tell the future, or that we're dealing with the biblical Adam and Eve and that God and magic already exist anyway.

You're wrong. In the story God presumably tells them, but for the human species our observations tell us that we ought to be able to colonize the galaxy one day- and since humans have always spread and expanded, it seems natural that we would do it. So we're all in weird positions.

No because it completely undermines the premise of the thought experiment. First Mouthwash says the question doesn't rely on these being the biblical Adam and Eve or that there's anything special about them at all, but the very fact that they can know that they can create billions of people is totally at odds with that.

Haven't I just said that anything in an odd place in its reference class is in the same position?

Secondly, it invalidates the assertion that this event has a low priority of happening if they already know with 100% certainty that they can do it on a whim.

No, it doesn't in the slightest. I can't fathom the logic you're using here.

Thirdly, he seems to be talking about how this thought experiment can be used to prove the existence of magic within the real world, not the world in which the question is posed, so therefore them being in possession of some degree of ability to accurately predict the future makes the whole experiment worthless.

This doesn't seem to be a separate point. It's just the conclusion from your previous one.

Whoops you're right, it just was a wiki link anyway.

Well first of all of course, a thought experiment is not a proof, but I guess you just wanted to goad people into pointing out the flaw of your argument so congrats on that

Now for the probabilistic argument. At the center of your argument is your event X ("Adam and Eve are the first of an eventual population of billions of humans"). You have assigned a very low probability P(X) > 0 to this event, which is also part of your premise, since that is far from obvious or uncontroversial, but let's assume that's right.

Furthermore, the cause for there being an eventual population of billions of humans is that Adam and Eve have children, who will be thrown out of paradise and procreate etc. The thing is, Adam and Eve having children is a different event Y.

According to your setting, P(X | Y) = 1. In words, the probability for X given Y is 100%. If Adam and Eve have children, they will be the first of an eventual population of billions of humans. While the probability of X on its own ("all things being equal") is very low, X is not independent of Y. If Y is true, the probability of X is different (in this case, certainty).

I hope the flaw of the argument becomes obvious from here on out but let's walk through the first scenario.

"No wounded deer limps by Adam and Eve's cave" is a third event Z. Now given the context of the story we would expect P(not Z) to also be very low (though not as low as P(X)), otherwise it wouldn't be magical that they can make it happen by force of will.

According to the story, P(Y) = P(Z): Adam and Eve will have children if no wounded deer limps by their cave. As we have seen before, if Y is true, so is X, since P(X | Y) = 1. Mathematically: P(X) = P(X | Y) * P(Y) = 1 * P(Y) = P(Z).

Not coming across a conveniently wounded deer in front of their cave is very probable, and now that Adam and Eve have made the firm decision to have children in this case, so is the event that they will be the first among an eventual population of billions of humans. This isn't really surprising once you follow the chain of causality the story describes.

The argument makes the mistake of assuming that the probability of X is independent of all other events described in the story while it clearly isn't. Likewise, the argument that "P(X) is low so P(Z) must be too, ergo magic deer summoning!" ignores the causal relationship between X and Z. Given that relationship, "P(Z) is very low, so P(not Z) must be very high, so P(X) must also be very high - looks like we're humanity's genetic ancestors" is the only logical conclusion, as we have seen above. The whole argument is a textbook example of poor understanding of how probabilities work.

In conclusion, don't use probability in an argument if you stopped paying attention to maths after pre-algebra.

Believe it or not, I was in advanced math at one point. Your math is stuff I actually know, but I never learned how to apply it like this. So by your sheer intellectual fiat I'll concede that you've solved the problem.

(The solution I was looking for was that them being wrong about their ability to create billions of children is is more likely than random, unlikely things happening at their whim.)

 

[Flying Pig]

Magic is real.

We poseess the force to casually wipe out a city from the face of the earth, near instantaneous communication across the entire earth, the ability to fly, magic wands that cause death when you point them at someone, steel horses, ability to harness zeus's holy lightning to power our industry and entertainment, and even the beggining of automatons and artficial life.

You bring someone from ancient times to our world, and we are the magic. How could an iron age civilization possibly compare to the output we casually create every day without a second thought? We would be utterly incomphrenshible to those of before. Even our trash would be oplence to them.

Of course, the inverse is true as well; give another 2000 years and whatever the hell our children make would be magic to us. They would have scientific principles that we could never comphrehend, and they will use it in ways we could possibily never imagine. Would it be the singularity, turning human and machine into one and stretching knowledge across the cosmos? A dyson sphere to harbess the natural energy of the sun to power an artifical world where humans will experince effective immortality? Or something even completely unrelated to what I said, something so advanced that its effectively out of my own reach?

You don't have to do silly thought experiments that make no logical sense to "prove" magic. Magic is just whatever force and technology we do not compherhend. As our place on Earth and eventually the cosmos advance, we will fill our current holes, which will only bring notice for more holes where "magic" is.

As every Civ IV player knows, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

I think you're even closer to the point than you think. Most 'everyday' magic (setting aside the relatively recent development of magic tricks for the stage) throughout history hasn't been based on forces and technology which are considered totally beyond comprehension - it usually 'works' fairly predictably, or at least according to rules. The Ancient Greeks, for example, had a tremendous industry around healing temples, where (essentially) you would go to the temple, give an offering of some sort, partake in some ritual, sleep there overnight, and be cured of whatever ailment you came in with. This wasn't a matter of 'Apollo working for his in mysterious ways': they were quite clear (and literally set it in stone) on the exact things that you had to do in order to make the 'magic' work. The same was true of cursing other people, of sacrificing animals to bring you good luck, of seeking an oracle, and so forth. In their minds, they were taking advantage of principles of the universe as reliable as those we take advantage of in any scientifically-informed project.

You might counter that the chain of causality in their minds was fundamentally bogus, and wouldn't have worked all the time, but then that's not exclusively the preserve of magic. There's no magic involved in planting seeds and growing them - the chain of causality between planting, watering, germinating, growing and harvesting is completely valid - and yet it doesn't always work. The computer I'm writing this on is theoretically totally scientific and predictable, and yet it's fairly common that something happens on it that I don't quite understand, or didn't intend. It's quite difficult to come up with a good way of separating magic from not-magic that anyone who uses 'magic' would agree on.

 

[Leoreth]

Believe it or not, I was in advanced math at one point. Your math is stuff I actually know, but I never learned how to apply it like this. So by your sheer intellectual fiat I'll concede that you've solved the problem.

(The solution I was looking for was that them being wrong about their ability to create billions of children is is more likely than random, unlikely things happening at their whim.)

I mean in the end it is, because they have created conditions for it to be so.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

No, it doesn't in the slightest. I can't fathom the logic you're using here.

I was going to write a longer reply, but the above pretty much sums up my entire reaction to the OP so I might as well just repeat it and leave it there.

 

[Traitorfish]

Fallacous. Superstitiuous relics are not any more or less valid form of magic than the concept of sorcery and witchcraft, which has existed in human folklore since folklore has existed. Recall, for example, Ancient Egypt believed in Heku, a form of magic in a form of manipulating the life essence/fundamental force known as Ka. Sumerian relics include cuniform tablets with spells written on them. The Torah includes magic, not merely of god but also of man (the Egyptian priests turning their rods into snakes, the concept of Kabbalah, etc). Greece had the concept of divination, magical words and wands, sigils for spellcasting, etc, etc. Magic peformed in ancient society is not really any different than magical traditions today, except, perhaps, the specific traditions of the magic users.

I'm not really seeing an argument anywhere in this paragraph. You just seem to be listing things that you've heard of?

Yes they are. Pedantic usage of the communitive property aside which I'll spare you from, there is no end-result difference between the two sentences. The meaning of "this is magic" is that the "this" that is being compared, is in fact magic. The meaning of "magic is this" is, what I assume, is someone defining magic as. So that would require having a definition of magic.

Merriam Webster defines magic as "an extraordinary power or influence seemingly from a supernatural source". Now, unless someone has gone to science class and learned the basics of modern chemistry, physics, and mechanics, a lot of what makes our technology works is completely unobservavle to the human eye. For example, take a battery. We know batteries work due to ionization of electrochemical cells. However, there is no way someone from 2016 BC could ever observe what is going on in a battery powered device with the tools of their lifetime. Therefore, batteries would likely be a form of "magic" to them. Likewise with guns, cars, bombs, the internet, etc.

So, if the end result of "magic is this" is to say that X is magic, then what is the fuctional difference between just saying x is magic to begin with?

A dog is a four-legged animal. It does not follow that a four-legged animal is a dog. That's not pedantry, it's just basic logic.

Point being, simply because certain properties may lead something be identified as "magic" under the correct circumstances, it does not mean that those properties are what define "magic", only that the concept of "magic" is being used to explain those properties. In this case, because our Bronze Age tourist is using "magic" to explain technology which is, to him, baffling, does not mean that "magic" is to be defined as "that which baffles", only that he is using it bridge the gap between his bafflement and a familiar frame of reference.

 

[Omega124]

That's just Clarke's Third Law, not a definition of magic

Yes, Clarke's third law is a big inspiration for this theroy of mine. More specifically, it resulted in a thought experiment of mine in my political philosophy class in how would I respond to Socrates in the Republic. One of the core arguments I came up with is that modern technology (especially the invention of firearms and factories in particular) fundamentally changed the role and function of government. Of course, that requires explaining to Socrates what guns and powered engines do, how they work, etc. Especially chemistry and physics to me seem like magic if you dont have the tools to observe it like we do today, since they rely on molecular theroy and other things unobservable to the human eye.

If people are interested, I actually would love to make a seperate thread on what my response would be to Socrates and the Republic. I think the whole topic of political philosophy to be so engaging and fun.

As every Civ IV player knows, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

I think you're even closer to the point than you think. Most 'everyday' magic (setting aside the relatively recent development of magic tricks for the stage) throughout history hasn't been based on forces and technology which are considered totally beyond comprehension - it usually 'works' fairly predictably, or at least according to rules. The Ancient Greeks, for example, had a tremendous industry around healing temples, where (essentially) you would go to the temple, give an offering of some sort, partake in some ritual, sleep there overnight, and be cured of whatever ailment you came in with. This wasn't a matter of 'Apollo working for his in mysterious ways': they were quite clear (and literally set it in stone) on the exact things that you had to do in order to make the 'magic' work. The same was true of cursing other people, of sacrificing animals to bring you good luck, of seeking an oracle, and so forth. In their minds, they were taking advantage of principles of the universe as reliable as those we take advantage of in any scientifically-informed project.

I agree with everything you said here. You really hit what I was trying to say on the head; magic has always been trying to control some sort of "force" that is beyond conventional human understanding. It was, in effect, early humans trying to rationalize what the hell is going on beyond the scenes, what causes unobservable things to happen, and try to manipulate them if possible. Modern science is just what happened when were finally able to actually observe and understand those forces, and create models that explain how he world works. Seeing how much more advanced we are today, and the rate in which we are advancing quicker and quicker every few decades, to me, is evidence that our current models are pretty accurate. Our technology works, which means the underlying principles that facilitied their creation also works.

I'm not really seeing an argument anywhere in this paragraph. You just seem to be listing things that you've heard of?

You tried to pidgeonhole historic magic as simply being superstitious good luck charms and whatnot. I was giving examples of more organised form of magics (which feature very similar tropes to modern magic), which are far more similar to modern day concept of magic. Sorry if the intention wasn't clear.

A dog is a four-legged animal. It does not follow that a four-legged animal is a dog. That's not pedantry, it's just basic logic.

But no one is claiming that all four legged animals are dogs. In fact, if anything, you were making the claim that a dog isnt a four legged animal, and then getting confused when I show picture of dogs with four legs.

Point being, simply because certain properties may lead something be identified as "magic" under the correct circumstances, it does not mean that those properties are what define "magic", only that the concept of "magic" is being used to explain those properties. In this case, because our Bronze Age tourist is using "magic" to explain technology which is, to him, baffling, does not mean that "magic" is to be defined as "that which baffles", only that he is using it bridge the gap between his bafflement and a familiar frame of reference.

I'm sorry, but I think we are just talking over each other at this point, because I really don't think know what ultimate point against my anology you're trying to argue against anymore.

Like, honestly, my first reaction to reading this was a resounding "so what?" Let's assume you are 100% correct at face value; I still don't understand how that would make anything I said actually wrong. It's still magic to the person either way, which makes my point that technology is magic to less advanced people still correct. It just seems not only pedantic, but needlessly so since it accomplishes nothing (as I was trying to say last post).

But beyond that, you're not even right. Magic can, in fact be "that which baffles", because, as I said earlier in this post, that's actually the reason magic developed in the first place. It's a way for humans to rationalize the unobservable, in ways that they could understand it in their limited world view. What baffles them, becomes magic.

 

[Tani Coyote]

We are certainly able to do amazing things to our own bodies. We can trick ourselves into feeling nauseous if we think we are nauseous, we can stop hiccups with a thought, etc. Of course, this is most easily chalked up as less understood science, as others have discussed.

I would not rule out that it might somehow be possible to alter the world around us with our minds but... if it does happen, it's not often enough that it could really be studied, and by proxy, reliably replicated. I would not be surprised if there have in fact been miracles throughout history; there's so many potential cases that even the slimmest chance of what we might consider "magic" happening isn't unfathomable. Though, once more, it'd be so rare that we can't really get much knowledge from it.

Never mind, I'd still think the "magic" would just be a poorly understood force, e.g. psychokinesis. If your brain was somehow able to produce a type of wave, it's not unreasonable it could somehow affect the environment. It would still be scientifically explainable with the right tools, however.

Such abilities, however, are no doubt very, very rare if they do exist.

 

[daft]

It provably isn't.

 

[Lexicus]

You tried to pidgeonhole historic magic as simply being superstitious good luck charms and whatnot. I was giving examples of more organised form of magics (which feature very similar tropes to modern magic), which are far more similar to modern day concept of magic. Sorry if the intention wasn't clear.

Yes, I think you said it well with 'magic is what is unexplained.' Magic could be grandiose as well as humdrum.

Never mind, I'd still think the "magic" would just be a poorly understood force, e.g. psychokinesis. If your brain was somehow able to produce a type of wave, it's not unreasonable it could somehow affect the environment. It would still be scientifically explainable with the right tools, however.

Such abilities, however, are no doubt very, very rare if they do exist.

Which gets right at the point here. If something can be modeled with good predictive utility should it even be called magic anymore? Honestly I think possibly the best primer on this issue might be reading various articles about magic-related tropes on TV Tropes.

 

[luiz]

Adam can then put his feet up and rationally expect with near certainty that a wounded dear will soon stroll by, as the odds of this taking place are still greater than the odds of being the first two people out of billions.

How did you come to that conclusion? I'm genuinely puzzled.

A wounded deer showing up and being the first two people on Earth are independent events. As such, no matter how low the probability of being the first two people on Earth is, it has no impact whatsoever on whether or not a wounded deer will show up. So no, Adam cannot put his feet up rationally expect that a wounded deer will show up - this remains a very unlikely event.

 

[Mouthwash]

How did you come to that conclusion? I'm genuinely puzzled.

A wounded deer showing up and being the first two people on Earth are independent events. As such, no matter how low the probability of being the first two people on Earth is, it has no impact whatsoever on whether or not a wounded deer will show up. So no, Adam cannot put his feet up rationally expect that a wounded deer will show up - this remains a very unlikely event.

The point is that he's creating a situation where if one event won't happen, the other will.