Can words have power without gods?

[Fairman Rogers]

What you're doing now isn't creative writing. It's finding creative reasons not to write.

You just became my favorite person for today.

 

[WayneLigon]

This is plausible, but it isn't the magic that most of us recognize, not least because it would be dependent on physical characteristics more than intelligence, willpower, or spirituality.

If you're talking about a magic without an underlying supernatural aspect, then it probably won't resemble any classic magic. Thus, your main problem here.

Then wouldn't people eventually figure out that there was no need for the ritual of magic and simply snap their fingers with conviction?

Maybe, just like we have people that can do 16-digit math in their head in a couple seconds. They're going to be few and far between, though.

Then either one need not use specific words, or else, the immediate question is why some words have power and not others.

The same reason chemical bonds work the way they do, with some being very weak and easily broken and others being almost impossible to break: the universe just happens to work that way on a very fundamental level. It could have worked another way, but didn't for reasons. Them's the breaks.

 

[Dethklok]

Um, dude - when you read it right, that is poetry. There's a solid rhythm to it, a certain fluidity of sound - so, poetry. What's wrong with poetry?

Incantations may be poetry, but all poems are not incantations. In any event, nothing is wrong with poems as a magical aid per se, but it's the way Mystics already worked magic in the world I used; the power came from within them, but they would often use a word or poem to direct their focus. In other words, the split that the game world had between mystics and wizards doesn't make sense.

While I can understand the desire to have a bit of consistency and meaning, you can only go so far - if you go too far with logic, you're talking science, not magic. Magic must, at some point, be impervious to logic, or it becomes technology, which is not mysterious at all!

Spoken like an engineer. The science underlying the technology you regard as "not mysterious at all" confounds the most brilliant thinkers this world has ever produced. Simple inconsistencies do not create mystery, merely implausibility.

I misunderstood. I thought you were looking for ideas, not a debate. I have no interest in trying to convince you of the validity of one fictional system over another.\ (Because magic tied to gods is ALSO FICTIONAL.) That way lies madness, and I will not join you in it.

You have to accept the premise that there is a problem to be worked around before trying to work around that problem. By analogy, saying "What? You want to get out of the handcuffs without the key or cutting off your hands? Therein lies madness!" is not likely to be regarded very positively by someone stuck in a set of handcuffs. (Although in your defense, I admit that when I posted this thread, it was with every expectation that eventually I would be roundly insulted!)

Not quite. It's a matter of tenses - in the standard model, the game has gods; in the model I put forward it had gods.

Granted. The game world in question didn't have anything like that in its history.

The other thing, though, was that I was responding specifically to the case where the setting has no supernatural element at all, so whatever 'magic' is, it has to be based on something natural. Hence the nanotech devices and programming interface - you need something to
hang 'magic' on.

It's definitely a tough problem if you restrict the world to having no supernatural elements at all. The world that prompted this discussion did have supernaturalism (just not gods).

Definitely not, because that would mean that they were wrong. (Never underestimate the power of someone's belief in the fact that they are not wrong.)

OK, but over time wouldn't those who worked magic by snapping their fingers win out over those who needed lengthy incantations? And wouldn't new practitioners notice that those who were doing this were always more successful, thereby building greater conviction in finger-snapping rather than longer rituals? It is an interesting idea, and I can see magical practices being created over time by type-I errors, but wouldn't they tend towards extreme simplicity?

Magic is not plausible. If it's plausible, it's science. Magic is magic; it's supernatural. It's the impossible; it breaks the laws of physics.

Morrus, the laws of physics may be different in other worlds. Evilbob proposes a world where conviction is echoed by effect; I've heard some people even propose that the physics of our own world follow this convention.

Moreover, there is a vast body of research regarding the existence of parapsychological phenomena in our very own world, and a lively debate in the scientific community as to how this research should be interpreted. See for instance:

Bem, D. J., & Honorton, C. (1994). Does psi exist? Replicable evidence for an anomalous process of information transfer. Psychological Bulletin, 115(1), 4.


Milton, J., & Wiseman, R. (1999). Does psi exist? Lack of replication of an anomalous process of information transfer. Psychological Bulletin, 125(4), 387.


Storm, L., & Ertel, S. (2001). Does psi exist? Comments on Milton and Wiseman's (1999) meta-analysis of Ganzfield research.


Milton, J., & Wiseman, R. (2001). Does psi exist? Reply to Storm and Ertel (2001).


If you prefer to side with the skeptics on the issue of psi, you can. But I see no reason to declare, a priori, that the supernatural isn't possible, especially on grounds that it is unphysical. Quantum entanglement, waves that travel without a medium, and time dilation were all complete nonsense by classical notions of physics, but are all regularly taught in current science curricula today. Science as I know it does not offer absolute or inviolable laws.

What you're doing now isn't creative writing. It's finding creative reasons not to write.

Hm; I have trouble squaring that with the two novels and several shortstories I wrote on this world, but fine, whatever you like.

If you're talking about a magic without an underlying supernatural aspect, then it probably won't resemble any classic magic. Thus, your main problem here.

No, no. It can be supernatural.

Maybe, just like we have people that can do 16-digit math in their head in a couple seconds. They're going to be few and far between, though.

Even if they were few and far between, others could observe them doing this and then mimic them with conviction. Moreover, just as languages drift over the generations without any individuals being aware of them, so, too, would I expect the incantations of these wizards to change very slightly over time, giving rise to a plurality of rival schools and theories. After a thousand years new wizards would very quickly notice that the longer incantations produced no stronger effects than the shorter ones, but were much more difficult to learn and less effective in a pinch.

Well, two random examples of "sound magic" I can think of are yogis chanting Om to attune themselves to the frequency of the universe

Om originates from the Hindu religion, where it describes "an all-encompassing mystical entity."

Paul Muad'Dib's name being an activation word for the sonic weapons in Dune...

Fine, but I'm not really wanting ancient civilizations seeding the atmosphere with nanotechnology so my wizards can call lightning from the clouds.

 

[Fairman Rogers]

Ooookay. So Dethklok, I have a simple question:

Do you believe magic really exists?

If you don't, then your handcuff analogy (and this entire argument) makes no sense. There is no "real" way that magic works, so there is no reason one system should be any more plausible than another. No fictional system of magic has to meet a specific set of criteria to make sense. Internal consistency is all that is required.

If you do, however, then this becomes a religious debate masquerading as a discussion about fiction. And that is a whole different animal.

 

[Umbran]

Spoken like an engineer.

Close. Physicist, actually.

The science underlying the technology you regard as "not mysterious at all" confounds the most brilliant thinkers this world has ever produced.

That seems a very odd assertion. There's a whole lot of people who aren't, "the most brilliant thinkers the world has ever produced," who get along with modern science just fine.

That, however, is an aside that doesn't address the real point - there is a notable difference between "I don't understand this" or "this confounds me, personally" and "logic and reason do not apply to this". If logic and reason do apply, then it isn't magic, it is then just science we haven't figured out yet.

Simple inconsistencies do not create mystery, merely implausibility.

You're the only one who has suggested "simple inconsistencies".

Morrus, the laws of physics may be different in other worlds.

On a fictional world, sure, the laws may be different.

Evilbob proposes a world where conviction is echoed by effect; I've heard some people even propose that the physics of our own world follow this convention.

I've heard people propose that the Moon is made of green cheese, too. "People have proposed" all sorts of wacky things that don't match what actually happens.

Moreover, there is a vast body of research regarding the existence of parapsychological phenomena in our very own world, and a lively debate in the scientific community as to how this research should be interpreted. See for instance:

See that list of references that are all over a decade old as evidence of current "lively debate"?

If you prefer to side with the skeptics on the issue of psi, you can. But I see no reason to declare, a priori, that the supernatural isn't possible especially on grounds that it is unphysical. Quantum entanglement, waves that travel without a medium, and time dilation were all complete nonsense by classical notions of physics, but are all regularly taught in current science curricula today. Science as I know it does not offer absolute or inviolable laws.

Science offers inviolable laws. What it doesn't offer is a 100% guarantee that the laws as we know them are absolutely correct, as stated.

I think, though, that you ought to give folks your working definition of "supernatural". Some folks use it to mean, "phenomenon that human science has not explained" and others mean, "a manifestation or event arising from a force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature." (Note, closely, that the second doesn't say, "...beyond *current* understanding...").

What's your definition?

Hm; I have trouble squaring that with the two novels and several shortstories I wrote on this world, but fine, whatever you like.

I think he wasn't referring to past writings, but to your activity in the thread - spending time, effort, or energy in deciding why something cannot be, rather than on how it could be.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

To fit wizards with the rest of your setting, just say that they are individuals of immense personal faith. Their spells don't work because they fit some principle of the universe; they work and they work the way they do because the wizards think they will. If the wizards thought they worked a different when then they would. If they realize this, they may or may not lose their power / belief in their power depending on your preference for the setting.

 

[Dethklok]

Ooookay. So Dethklok, I have a simple question:

Do you believe magic really exists?

If you don't, then your handcuff analogy (and this entire argument) makes no sense.

I'm sorry if the analogy doesn't make sense to you, but my problem doesn't depend on whether or not magic really exists in this world (a subject on which I remain agnostic).

Physicist, actually... There's a whole lot of people who aren't, "the most brilliant thinkers the world has ever produced," who get along with modern science just fine.

Look Umbran, I get along fine with every hard scientific field I've ever met, but that doesn't mean I regard, say, the electromagnetic force as "not mysterious at all." Unlike charges attract and like charges repel according to an inverse square law; so much is clear to the typical undergraduate. But why they should interact at all is a fundamental mystery of our universe. (Even the how of their interactions remains mysterious - the exchange theory has charged particles interacting through virtual photons, but these virtual particles are unobservable.)

It's fine with me if, from your perspective, science discovered everything there is to know about electricity, and this renders your house lighting, phone, and computer totally unmysterious to you. This is a perspective common to engineers, but not to most physicists I know, and definitely not to me personally. Indeed, it appears that your attitudes regarding mystery remain as alien to me as my own sense that magical phenomena, if existing, could fall within the purview of scientific study seems alien to you.

So... thanks for your advice?

To fit wizards with the rest of your setting, just say that they are individuals of immense personal faith. Their spells don't work because they fit some principle of the universe; they work and they work the way they do because the wizards think they will. If the wizards thought they worked a different when then they would. If they realize this, they may or may not lose their power / belief in their power depending on your preference for the setting.

Right, but this is essentially evilbob's idea from earlier, and seems likely to devolve over time into very simple spells rather than complex ones.

Anyway, thanks everyone, but we've solved the problem off-list, so I don't see any reason to continue this thread. I'd share we came up with, but it doesn't seem like most people still here even acknowledge that there was a problem to begin with, so I won't waste your time.

 

[Fairman Rogers]

I'm sorry if the analogy doesn't make sense to you, but my problem doesn't depend on whether or not magic really exists in this world (a subject on which I remain agnostic).

No, it doesn't make OBJECTIVE sense. You are arguing that there is a way that magic always works (the key to the handcuffs). You are claiming it only works when it has a divine source, that "gods" are the key in terms of magic.

But magic doesn't work. It is fiction. It is made up. Your analogy is flawed because it does not describe the reality of the situation. Magic is not real in the way that handcuffs are. There is no key. You cannot have a single "right" way for magic to work, because magic is a product of imagination. There is no limit to imagination. You can't turn your subjective view of how magic works into an objective definition, because magic is not objective.

Here's a better analogy: Your entire premise that divine sources must be present for magic to work is equivalent to arguing that there must be midichlorians in order for the Force to work. Maybe that's true for George Lucas, but the Force is made up, so it can work however you want it to. There's no "must be" about it.

 

[Umbran]

Look Umbran, I get along fine with every hard scientific field I've ever met, but that doesn't mean I regard, say, the electromagnetic force as "not mysterious at all."

You were the one who claimed that modern science "...confounds the most brilliant thinkers this world has ever produced." That's a pretty strong statement, and I think you need to back it up way better than claiming that you, personally feel there's some mystery to it.

Unlike charges attract and like charges repel according to an inverse square law; so much is clear to the typical undergraduate. But why they should interact at all is a fundamental mystery of our universe. (Even the how of their interactions remains mysterious - the exchange theory has charged particles interacting through virtual photons, but these virtual particles are unobservable.)

Oh, are you the sort who feels nothing can be known if you cannot see it with the naked eye? Science these days has learned that what cannot be directly observed can be inferred from a preponderance of evidence - just because you can't see it, doesn't mean you can't work out what's going on. Slam enough pocket watches against the wall, and you can figure out how they work by looking at the pieces that fly out, so to speak.

It's fine with me if, from your perspective, science discovered everything there is to know ...

I think you're playing a bit loose with definitions. There's a difference between, "I don't know everything" and "there's a mystery", especially in the descriptive sense like, "a sense of mystery" which magic is supposed to invoke. To make it thoroughly mundane for illustrative purposes: I don't know in what aisle the new grocery store keeps plungers in. There's nothing mysterious about it, though - I have confidence that I can find them if I really need them.

Therein lies the difference between mere ignorance and mystery - in a mystery, there's a lack of confidence that anyone can, or will, find the answer. Ignorance just needs effort to clear up.

And therein lies the difference between science and magic. In science, someone actually understands how it works in entirely rational terms. With magic, you don't have that assurance. Thus, for magical rules, you expect at some point for them to be impervious to logic - that prevents anyone from understanding how the thing works in entirely rational terms, ever.