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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pedantic" data-source="post: 8828913" data-attributes="member: 6690965">I'm not really sure that understanding of "magic" has any relationship to what we're discussing here, nor do I necessarily grant the premise. There are many historical my traditions of practical magic that just happened not to be true, or were concerned primarily with things outside observable reality. Best medical practices involved the chanting of specific spells, offering the correct sacrifices to propitiate the correct spirits and so on.The idea of "mystery" outside of actual practitioners hiding their techniques, I think is largely a projection backwards, with a modern lens.More to the point though, I don't see why magical traditions that demonstrably don't create exceptions to physical reality should have much influence on those that do. If cause and effect draw close enough that we can see the relationship between a magical gesture and a person flying, we're not dealing with a mystery cult that swears they can tell you the 6 spells to pass through the afterlife judgement unscathed, and the same norms do not apply.Science-fiction is a different genre, that proposed forward extrapolation from known facts, and usually a brushed metal aesthetic. It's dismissive to suggests worldbuilding with underlying principles is somehow not the province of the genre we're discussing. Hard fantasy is hardly a new genre, and it differs significantly in the personal relationship to reality altering power than sci-fi. Science fiction emphasizes the industrial and social context of such abilities: you might tinker with a hyper drive, but you bought one, and many more are made in factories. Magic emphasizes the personal relationship to changing reality: the magical bandages you bought were invested with power by a person using a method they individually understand.There's overlap, you can have your action inventors in sci-fi and your rune circle production lines in fantasy, but the default orientation of the relationship between individual/society runs the opposite way.</blockquote>

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