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<blockquote data-quote="Dethklok" data-source="post: 6262913" data-attributes="member: 6746469">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).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 &quot;not mysterious at all.&quot; 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?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.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Dethklok, post: 6262913, member: 6746469"] 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). 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 [i]why[/i] they should interact at all is a fundamental mystery of our universe. (Even the [i]how[/i] 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? 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. [/QUOTE]

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