Defining magic

[sunspark]

So, for those of you not aware, the HP Ideas thread recently got bogged down in a discussion of physics vs. magic, and it sparked an interesting though. Magic, according to Merriam-Webster is:

Full Definition of magic

1. a : the use of means (as charms or spells) believed to have supernatural power over natural forces
   b : magic rites or incantations
2. a : an extraordinary power or influence seemingly from a supernatural source
   b : something that seems to cast a spell : enchantment

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This seems to push magic to a status of the explanation of last resort, where other explanations can't hold water. And as far as we can tell, nothing in the real world is outside of science.

However, the real world apparently is built out of emergent properties. The closer you look at things, they seem to be made of smaller things that come in fewer categories, until you get down to the subatomic world, which can be described using a very small number of rules and entities. And there are efforts to simplify things even further, vis a vis string theory.

I think magic might be a useful term for worlds (like the Tales of MU verse) where the level of irreducible complexity is much higher. Such a world might be superficially similar to our own, but as you'd probe and poke and prod, things from our perspective that are utterly weird would start becoming apparent.

It might be because the forces themselves are aware, such as a world in Exalted where the reason that fire burns wood into ash is that the fire spirits talk to the wood spirits, and tell them to change what they fundamentally are. It might be because the world is run on a bunch of special cases, like in Tales of Mu. But regardless, trying to find universal rules that are simple is doomed to failure.

Thoughts?

 

[powerofvoid]

Sounds interesting and I hadn't thought of it that way ("irreducible complexity") before.

On the now-rare occasion that I feel the need hammer out a useful definition, I usually go with "does the person labeling have any idea how the thing works", which seems pretty similar to what you're using, but without an assumption that it's impossible to know how the thing works.

 

[runeblue360]

I think magic might be a useful term for worlds (like the Tales of MU verse) where the level of irreducible complexity is much higher. Such a world might be superficially similar to our own, but as you'd probe and poke and prod, things from our perspective that are utterly weird would start becoming apparent.

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Magic is too widely used a term to be given a specific definition that would actually take hold.

 

[Malbutorius]

The interpretation of magic I've been using is "An arbitrary yet internally consistent set of rules" generally when viewed from an outside perspective. I say outside perspective because otherwise physics would technically count as magic.

 

[Lyxi]

Physics is magic. Notice how nobody has actually managed to figure out how gravity actually works. I'm sure there are other things that we're just guessing about too, but that's the only one I can think of currently.

 

[sunspark]

Physics is magic. Notice how nobody has actually managed to figure out how gravity actually works. I'm sure there are other things that we're just guessing about too, but that's the only one I can think of currently.

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Actually they have a fairly good understanding of how gravity works. Mass and energy causes a curvature in space time through interaction with the higgs field, and then that curve causes the apparently bent paths that things take as they travel through space and time. It's not really an attractive force between massive objects, it just behaves like it.

 

[Nekraa]

Actually they have a fairly good understanding of how gravity works. Mass and energy causes a curvature in space time through interaction with the higgs field, and then that curve causes the apparently bent paths that things take as they travel through space and time. It's not really an attractive force between massive objects, it just behaves like it.

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See? Magic.

*nods sagely*

 

[Bre Karn]

From a literary standpoint I'd say that true Magic has to have mystery in it. It might have a set of known, more or less consistent rules ('do not cross the streams', 'throw salt on your warding circle before summoning a shade', etc), but the idea of 'irreductible complexity' or rather 'unapproachable (at least to humans) secrets' should be central to it.

 

[Carrnage]

Its physics but rarer.

 

[Adyen]

I think the best way to define magic is "a phenomenon that happens due to rules that are not commonly known" will fit perfectly for me.