Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Lonely Tylenol" data-source="post: 2266137" data-attributes="member: 18549">I'd argue that these aren't magic.&nbsp; They're science.&nbsp; If magic followed rules and was reproducable by anyone, it's not magic anymore.&nbsp; To a certain extent Harry Potter makes a nod in this direction--not everyone is a wizard, after all.&nbsp; But magic has traditionally divorced itself from mundane science by having two major features: It focuses on personal strength of will rather than simply knowing how to wave your hands and what words to say, and it follows rules of common sense, rather than reason.&nbsp; In science, all effects follow logically from their causes, and the connection is drawn by reference to mechanistic laws.&nbsp; In magic, effects follow causes by way of common sense, so you end up with rules such as &quot;like affects like&quot;.I think that it's fairly definitive of magic that it's not supposed to be something that just anyone can do, and that it &quot;breaks the rules&quot;.&nbsp; It seems to follow its own logic, but that can be altered by someone who masters it.&nbsp; I think perhaps that's one of the reasons that Harry Potter seems somewhat uninteresting to me, and why I'm not fond of Vancian magic.&nbsp; It's too...all worked out ahead of time.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lonely Tylenol, post: 2266137, member: 18549"] I'd argue that these aren't magic. They're science. If magic followed rules and was reproducable by anyone, it's not magic anymore. To a certain extent Harry Potter makes a nod in this direction--not everyone is a wizard, after all. But magic has traditionally divorced itself from mundane science by having two major features: It focuses on personal strength of will rather than simply knowing how to wave your hands and what words to say, and it follows rules of common sense, rather than reason. In science, all effects follow logically from their causes, and the connection is drawn by reference to mechanistic laws. In magic, effects follow causes by way of common sense, so you end up with rules such as "like affects like". I think that it's fairly definitive of magic that it's not supposed to be something that just anyone can do, and that it "breaks the rules". It seems to follow its own logic, but that can be altered by someone who masters it. I think perhaps that's one of the reasons that Harry Potter seems somewhat uninteresting to me, and why I'm not fond of Vancian magic. It's too...all worked out ahead of time. [/QUOTE]

Verification