Re: How to define "magic" (was Re: Fantasy relativity)

Shining stars

>> > 4 and 5.1st and 2nd principle of thermodynamics (1st is conservation of
>> > energy, 2nd states that enthropy (chaos) always increases, so phenomena
>> > cannot be entirely reversible).
>>IIRC,  2nd  states  that  enthropy  never  decreases,  but  there is a
>>possibility of processes in a closed system that do not increase it as
>>long as they do not interact with outside world.

> Uhh theoretically yes, but due to tunnel effect and blackbody radiation it
> is impossible to separate completely a system from the rest of the universe.

As  far  as I understand it, the tunnel effect IS magic ;) That is, it
is  single most insane and unreliable process I could recall. IIRC, it
is "Whenever there is a potential barrier of some strength, there will
be  some  (electrons) that will pass it despite they don't have enough
energy  to do it, and some that will bounced while they have more than
enough  to  pass  it"?  In  other words, some of them just "cheat" and
teleport thru it, while some others are too lazy to climb ;)

Anyway,  I  just  made  this  point  to  indicate  that  closed-system
reversible  process  is  NOT  magic  itself,  although it could not be
observed without the use of magic.

>> > We could then define as magic anything that violates these principles.

>>I think no.

>>1st:  don't  mess up "magic" and "divine". IMO, magic does not violate
>>thermodynamics principle -- it draws energy from somewhere not readily
>>obvious,  but  it  does  not create it from thin nothingness. Anything
>>that breaks these two principles requires a divine intervention.

> Am I right in guessing that you think that arcane magic draws energy/matter
> from another plane? That thought bothered me more than once. We could agree
> to call "magic" the violation of the principles in the plane, not accounting
> for extraplanar sources of energy.

No,  mostly,  I had in mind DarkSun defilers/preservers who have their
energy  source  clearly defined, and it belongs to the same plane they
are  on.  Anyway,  energy  source  could  be  whatever lies within the
casualty  [MAN, WHAT A WORD <G>] tetra-cone. I don't account for other
planes,  for  I  mean  more  of  universal  picture  than  (A)D&D, and
multiverse  could  be built without other planes or whatever they are.
Moreover,  I  don't  examine other planes in this statement at all for
two reasons:

You stated that it all relates only to PMP

and:

None  knows  what  these  other planes are; how they are; how they (or
energy  from  them)  interact  with  PMP;  do  they have the same five
principles;  do  they have energy conservation applied to every single
plane  (making  it  necessary  to  perform 1:1 energy exchange between
planes) or to multiverse as a whole; does accounting other planes just
turn  the  casualty tetra-cone into penta-cone (or sexta- or more), or
into something completely different.

>>Again,  its  just  a MO. I always strongly disliked (A)D&D system in
>>regard  to its priests, for they are just those same spellcasters as
>>mages, only with different spell repertoire.

> Yup.  I  worked out a revision of ADnD with some changes to mages, I
> was bored by that overlap twixt mages and priests.

Could  you  post  it (maybe just send it offlist to me if it is not SJ
related)?

>>2nd:  what about inter-/extra-planar phenomena? They not necessarily
>>will  all  fit  into  this  scheme. Are they all magic? Are they all
>>mundane? Or something in-between?

> As I stated before, I'm simplifing it to a single PMP.

Yes,  but  it  was  difficult to understand do you consider everything
extraplanar  as magic or not, for it could be either way any number of
reasons given above.

> We  physicists  call  it "the spherical cow postulate". You know the
> joke about an engineer, a psychanalist and a physicist who have been
> hired  to  increase the production of milk of a farm? The engineer's
> answer  is something like "gotta rationalise... automated milking...
> robotic  cleaning",  while  the  psychanalist  mutters  about "paint
> everything   green...   play  Mozart  while  the  cows  are  getting
> milked..."  and  rubbish like that. The the physicist scoffs lightly
> at  the  other  two and says "I've been calculating, starting with a
> small  approximation,  and now I've discovered the perfect method to
> increase  milk  production as much as one wants. I'm explaining. Let
> us assume a spherical cow..." .

...  and  as  far  as  I  know modern physics, he probably should have
continued  as  "...  blah  blah  blah,  proved", for most of it proves
theorems  in  this  "Let us assume <something>. Then blah, blah, blah,
proved"  way.  The  possibility that this assumption could be false is
never examined. In most cases, this <something> is assumption that the
process  in question could be integrated. I agree that for most things
one studies in the school, it looks axiomatic, but I never seen anyone
bothered to either prove it, or examine the "Else" part ;)

Good Luck
Andrew "NightBeing" Alchemist

... Mechanical engineers build weapons. Civil engineers build targets.