magic, morality, and mechanization
Eric Ammadon
>Peter Knutsen
>> all
>> having to do with Shadow as a naturally occuring phemonenon, without any
>> moral angle to it (Shadow Magic is no more evil than Light Magic is
>> good, although readers/players sometimes assume this).
>
>Since shadow magic conceals, and light magic reveals, Light *should*
>be good, and shadow magic *should* be evil.
>
>Morally neutral magic is a bit pointless - it might as well be
>technology.
You know the old saw about magic being indistinguishable from
sufficiently advanced technology.
Since rasc has been so "quiet" lately, with its thumbful of messages
being lost in spam, people beating themselves on the head with
nanowrimo, holdiay preparations and whatever, perhaps a discussion of
the relevance of morality to magic would be an acceptable means of
preventing the remaining few from needing to set our hair afire to
avoid death by boredom.
It isn't clear to me why magic should be any more strongly tied to
morality than science. Perhaps that indicates a deficiency of
morality in the scientific arena?
Perhaps one definition of magic would be that it is advanced
technology that cannot be mechanized, something computers and other
machines cannot do because it requires a certain capability or
viewpoint (or morality?) only available to humans. Quark-charming or
whatever.
But to be (apparently) somewhat unconventional, it's my opinion that
the reliance by fantasy-story magicians upon wands, amulets, and other
*mechanical*trinkets* leaves me somewhat less interested than I might
otherwise be.
If a magician's magical powers disappear with the loss of a mechanism,
he ain't much of a magician, he's just some lame who found a chunk of
anti-kryptonite and became a superman by sole merit of its posession.
--
arggh, is it priate day again?
R.L.
Yes, magic can be alignment-specific; techonology isn't, sfawk.
I have no problem with wands, amulets, etc. If magic is basicly 'mind over
matter', then it makes sense that some specially 'magnetized' material item
would be the handle, the interface.
R.L.
Eric Ammadon
"Alignment-specific" is a new term for me. Is it something I ought to
know already, or did you just invent it?
>I have no problem with wands, amulets, etc. If magic is basicly 'mind over
>matter', then it makes sense that some specially 'magnetized' material item
>would be the handle, the interface.
Maybe my comment was too harsh. I don't have a problem with
magnifying devices, or devices that are learning-aids. But they ought
to have come from somewhere. If some powerful mage created such a
device, the magic of it came from his/her ability. I guess what I'm
trying to get at is that if a wand's power didn't originate from the
powers of some human, it's just technology. Granted an individual may
develop great skill at shooting a gun, but without the gun the skill
is useless, and the gun is just technology, it ain't magic. Take the
wand away from a great mage and you haven't truly decreased his powers
unless he's allowed himself to become dependent on it. Take the
amulet from an apprentice mage and you've decreased his/her powers but
talent may grow to overcome that. Give a child a gun, and you have an
untrained undisciplined hazard; it seems that magic should require a
bit more than a gun.
Michelle Bottorff
> >Since shadow magic conceals, and light magic reveals, Light *should*
> >be good, and shadow magic *should* be evil.
> >
> >Morally neutral magic is a bit pointless - it might as well be
> >technology.
>
> You know the old saw about magic being indistinguishable from
> sufficiently advanced technology.
>
> Since rasc has been so "quiet" lately, with its thumbful of messages
> being lost in spam, people beating themselves on the head with
> nanowrimo,
Not me. I am always in the middle of a novel in November, and I have
never seen the point in setting aside what I'm working on at perfectly
reasonable pace that seems to work well for me, in order to rush through
the start of something else.
> It isn't clear to me why magic should be any more strongly tied to
> morality than science.
I think I prefer it not to be. Morality is about choices. Magic
doesn't make choices -- people do.
Patricia Wrede talks about 'Magic as Metaphor' and that one kind of
loses me too.
As far as I'm concerned magic is an imaginary technology. One that uses
natural laws that happen to not actually exist in our universe.
For me the fun thing about fantasy worlds with magic is not that I get
to work directly with metaphors, but that I'm allowed to build a new set
of natural laws to play with.
--
Michelle Bottorff -> Chelle B. -> Shelby
L. Shelby, Writer http://www.lshelby.com/
Livejournal http://lavenderbard.livejournal.com/
rec.arts.sf.composition FAQ http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html
Eric Ammadon
>Eric Ammadon <n...@spam.thankee> wrote:
>
>> >Since shadow magic conceals, and light magic reveals, Light *should*
>> >be good, and shadow magic *should* be evil.
>> >
>> >Morally neutral magic is a bit pointless - it might as well be
>> >technology.
>>
>> You know the old saw about magic being indistinguishable from
>> sufficiently advanced technology.
>>
>> Since rasc has been so "quiet" lately, with its thumbful of messages
>> being lost in spam, people beating themselves on the head with
>> nanowrimo,
>
>Not me. I am always in the middle of a novel in November,
It's a seasonal thing for you? You start at specific times instead of
when the previous novel is complete? Some people seem to always be in
the middle of a novel at any given time, but "in November" makes it
seem... I dunno, regimented?
>> It isn't clear to me why magic should be any more strongly tied to
>> morality than science.
>
>I think I prefer it not to be. Morality is about choices. Magic
>doesn't make choices -- people do.
I agree on the morality issue.
>As far as I'm concerned magic is an imaginary technology. One that uses
>natural laws that happen to not actually exist in our universe.
I also agree as far as that goes, but I think "magic" implies that
some people can do it and some can't, otherwise it's just alien-tech.
JF
> Not me. I am always in the middle of a novel in November, and I have
> never seen the point in setting aside what I'm working on at perfectly
> reasonable pace that seems to work well for me, in order to rush through
> the start of something else.
Useful to kick-start a stalled brain, though. So this woman in a
cave said to me 'the people of the semi-darkness are mine'. In
pursuit of her meaning I am now looking at the civilisation which
built the oldest stone temples in the world, the start of the
Copper Age, Cervantes and Shakespeare, the Queen of the Two
Rivers and the origins of Hecate. And Virginia Woolf.
It may well be that my Nano attempt will end up as a few thousand
words. But it will still be a success if I get that far.
> As far as I'm concerned magic is an imaginary technology. One that uses
> natural laws that happen to not actually exist in our universe.
I just use our current laws -- the flexible laws within our heads.
Re: shortage of posts. It's because most of the interesting
people have wandered off. It's thee and me, and even I'm a bit dull.
JF
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>
>> Peter Knutsen
>>> all
>>> having to do with Shadow as a naturally occuring phemonenon, without any
>>> moral angle to it (Shadow Magic is no more evil than Light Magic is
>>> good, although readers/players sometimes assume this).
>> Since shadow magic conceals, and light magic reveals, Light *should*
>> be good, and shadow magic *should* be evil.
>>
>> Morally neutral magic is a bit pointless - it might as well be
>> technology.
>
> You know the old saw about magic being indistinguishable from
> sufficiently advanced technology.
>
> Since rasc has been so "quiet" lately, with its thumbful of messages
> being lost in spam, people beating themselves on the head with
> nanowrimo, holdiay preparations and whatever, perhaps a discussion of
> the relevance of morality to magic would be an acceptable means of
> preventing the remaining few from needing to set our hair afire to
> avoid death by boredom.
>
>
> It isn't clear to me why magic should be any more strongly tied to
> morality than science.
In the usual way magic is portrayed, it's an intensely personal power.
Not everyone can do magic, even if they're smart enough to understand
it. As such, the use of magic is tied directly to individual human
choices. Its manifestation will reflect their persona in some way,
whether in its actual features, or at least in the uses to which it is
tailored.
Thus, in such settings, magic is clearly tied to morality in that it
can only be used by human choice, and individual magic is hard, if not
impossible, to transfer. If it's misused, it's because the person whose
magic it is has chosen to misuse it.
If there are further meta/nonphysical aspects to the world, the
connection between magic and morality may be even more direct and obvious.
You can, of course, create versions of magic that don't have this
feature, but they're less common
Contrary to your thesis, most fantasy-novel magicians don't RELY on
"mechanical" trinkets (in fact, it's extremely unusual for them to have
any mechanical trinkets at all). They may use a staff or wand as a focus
or a channel, but the magic is theirs. They may have rings or amulets --
but these are just containers into which they have placed their magic.
Gandalf doesn't need a staff for his power -- it's personal. (although
there is a symbolism to their mission that allows a wizard who's strayed
too far from their assigned path to be rendered much less powerful by
the ritual breaking of the staff; this is VERY MUCH a moral dimension,
however). Harry Potter and the wizards of his universe do not NEED Wands
to cast magic (we see Harry actually do a few magical feats without it),
though the Wands are generally excellent foci. Allanon, of the Shannara
books, has no need for a staff or wand or any trinkets at all. None of
Barbara Hambly's mages needed staves to do their work, although a
properly made magical aid didn't hurt.
I'm actually hard-put to think of a universe where you can't do magic
at all without some particular trinket.
Note that in some universes, these amulets, rings, etc., can be
transferred to other people, in others, they cannot.
Even the few in which I've seen "mechanical" magic usually have the
mechanism itself be non-magical, but imbued with some characteristic or
characteristics through the (again, very personal) power of the magician
-- the most common characteristics are the ones that are very difficult
to do with ordinary mechanical devices, especially in the generally
medieval-to-Renaissance technology level of most fantasies, such as
self-movement at reasonable speed and reliability, sensing and
decisionmaking capabilities, etc.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
It originated in roleplaying games, specifically Dungeons and Dragons,
where the moral compass was effectively literal and had two axes: Lawful
-- Chaotic and Good -- Evil. So you had alignments that ranged from
Lawful Good to Chaotic Evil and everything in between -- Neutral Good,
Chaotic Good, True Neutral, Lawful Evil, etc. It has since been used in
many other RPGs (and discarded by others as a childish and clumsy
mechanic, but that's a whole different can of worms) and in some
computer RPGs as well.
>
>
>> I have no problem with wands, amulets, etc. If magic is basicly 'mind over
>> matter', then it makes sense that some specially 'magnetized' material item
>> would be the handle, the interface.
>
> Maybe my comment was too harsh. I don't have a problem with
> magnifying devices, or devices that are learning-aids. But they ought
> to have come from somewhere. If some powerful mage created such a
> device, the magic of it came from his/her ability. I guess what I'm
> trying to get at is that if a wand's power didn't originate from the
> powers of some human, it's just technology.
This is generally the case in most magical realms. The power of the
magical device comes from a mage, not from some gadget.
Eric Ammadon
Ah, thanks. I lost interest in video gaming at the Mario Bros level
mostly because I have more interesting things to do with computers,
but partly because I'm a spaz.
>>> I have no problem with wands, amulets, etc. If magic is basicly 'mind over
>>> matter', then it makes sense that some specially 'magnetized' material item
>>> would be the handle, the interface.
>>
>> Maybe my comment was too harsh. I don't have a problem with
>> magnifying devices, or devices that are learning-aids. But they ought
>> to have come from somewhere. If some powerful mage created such a
>> device, the magic of it came from his/her ability. I guess what I'm
>> trying to get at is that if a wand's power didn't originate from the
>> powers of some human, it's just technology.
>
> This is generally the case in most magical realms. The power of the
>magical device comes from a mage, not from some gadget.
Gadgets are so... promiscuous is perhaps the word, you just can't
trust the things to be faithful to their owner, leave one unattended
for an eyeblink and there it is whapping you on behalf of someone
else.
Eric Ammadon
>Eric Ammadon wrote:
>> It isn't clear to me why magic should be any more strongly tied to
>> morality than science.
>
> In the usual way magic is portrayed, it's an intensely personal power.
>Not everyone can do magic, even if they're smart enough to understand
>it. As such, the use of magic is tied directly to individual human
>choices. Its manifestation will reflect their persona in some way,
>whether in its actual features, or at least in the uses to which it is
>tailored.
I understand that viewpoint, but I'd say it's the individual
practitioner who's demonstrating good or evil and that the magic
itself would be morality-neutral.
Well, except things like necromancy I reckon. But developing skill in
necromancy or its like seems to point to a certain warpage in the
practioner.
As personal preference goes, I prefer magical systems that are
self-enforcing, where the practioner who uses magic for evil purposes
at a minimum suffers some type of backlash.
Peter Knutsen
> You know the old saw about magic being indistinguishable from
> sufficiently advanced technology.
> It isn't clear to me why magic should be any more strongly tied to
> morality than science. Perhaps that indicates a deficiency of
> morality in the scientific arena?
Some of the magic in my �rth setting *is* moral. Often it is then
religious in nature. A lot of magic also isn't, however.
> Perhaps one definition of magic would be that it is advanced
> technology that cannot be mechanized, something computers and other
> machines cannot do because it requires a certain capability or
> viewpoint (or morality?) only available to humans. Quark-charming or
> whatever.
Yes, if magic becomes too reliable and too widely used, it starts to
resemble technology so much that it's no longer magical.
> But to be (apparently) somewhat unconventional, it's my opinion that
> the reliance by fantasy-story magicians upon wands, amulets, and other
> *mechanical*trinkets* leaves me somewhat less interested than I might
> otherwise be.
Magic has to be limited in one way or another, so that characters who
can use magic don't become omnipotent.
Most writers, worldbuilders, and so forth, fail to build sufficiently
good magic systems, and so resort cheap solutions, such as a particular
kind of item being required to work magic at all: With that item, the
wizard is all-powerful, but if you can steal it from him, he becomes
impotent.
I take a rather more detailed and flavourful approach to magic in the
�rth setting. Anyone using spell-magic *benefits* from a spellcasting
Focus, most often one he has made himself, and tailored to his
particular magical interests (e.g. Johan's primary interest in Illusion
Magic, and secondarily in Light Magic, Shadow Magic (sadly, lost) and
the sense-enhancing aspect of Body Magic), but they can still cast
spells without their Focus items. Just not as easily, not as quickly,
not as safely.
> If a magician's magical powers disappear with the loss of a mechanism,
> he ain't much of a magician, he's just some lame who found a chunk of
> anti-kryptonite and became a superman by sole merit of its posession.
I agree that it is then a very un-sophisicated kind of magic system. If
the writer had given more thought to the mater, he or she would have
been able to come up with something much better.
--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org
Peter Knutsen
> I think I prefer it not to be. Morality is about choices. Magic
> doesn't make choices -- people do.
>
> Patricia Wrede talks about 'Magic as Metaphor' and that one kind of
> loses me too.
I don't get it either. Magic isn't a metaphor, it's actual metaphysical
laws that the characters in the setting can understand, at least some of
them and at least fairly well, and make use of.
> As far as I'm concerned magic is an imaginary technology. One that uses
> natural laws that happen to not actually exist in our universe.
Yes.
I often run into people who assume that if a setting's laws of nature
doesn't match those of our world, then it can only be because there are
no laws, and the author can cause anything to happen any time.
Sadly, I suspect that they learned that attitude from reading crappy
fantasy stories.
> For me the fun thing about fantasy worlds with magic is not that I get
> to work directly with metaphors, but that I'm allowed to build a new set
> of natural laws to play with.
Exactly.
--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org
Jon Schild
Like Math? Some can do it, come can't. But it isn't human or alien
tech, it is all mental. Like Magic.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
Alignment originated in REAL RPGs, not video, though.
>
> Gadgets are so... promiscuous is perhaps the word, you just can't
> trust the things to be faithful to their owner, leave one unattended
> for an eyeblink and there it is whapping you on behalf of someone
> else.
Not always. Especially higher-tech ones. I point that out in the
forthcoming Threshold, in which a character gets a hold of someone
else's gun and finds it won't work for him.
Magical gadgets can be very personalized.
Jon Schild
> Michelle Bottorff wrote:
>> I think I prefer it not to be. Morality is about choices. Magic
>> doesn't make choices -- people do.
>>
>> Patricia Wrede talks about 'Magic as Metaphor' and that one kind of
>> loses me too.
>
> I don't get it either. Magic isn't a metaphor, it's actual metaphysical
> laws that the characters in the setting can understand, at least some of
> them and at least fairly well, and make use of.
>
>> As far as I'm concerned magic is an imaginary technology. One that uses
>> natural laws that happen to not actually exist in our universe.
>
> Yes.
>
> I often run into people who assume that if a setting's laws of nature
> doesn't match those of our world, then it can only be because there are
> no laws, and the author can cause anything to happen any time.
>
> Sadly, I suspect that they learned that attitude from reading crappy
> fantasy stories.
AMEN! You hit it exactly. Unfortunately, it seems like the crappy
fantasy is expanding by leaps and bounds while the good fantasy is
fading into the sunset.
Peter Knutsen
> Not always. Especially higher-tech ones. I point that out in the
> forthcoming Threshold, in which a character gets a hold of someone
> else's gun and finds it won't work for him.
>
> Magical gadgets can be very personalized.
In �rth they can't, because the benefit in power one gets, by Enchanting
an item, is balanced by the risk that someone else might steal the item
and use it against one, e.g. as with Sauron's ring.
--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org
Peter Knutsen
> Eric Ammadon wrote:
>> I also agree as far as that goes, but I think "magic" implies that
>> some people can do it and some can't, otherwise it's just alien-tech.
>
> Like Math? Some can do it, come can't. But it isn't human or alien
> tech, it is all mental. Like Magic.
In my �rth setting, everyone can learn magic, the same way everyone can
learn physics.
The end result is a setting rich in magic, compared to most fantasy
settings, yet far from the extreme level of something like "Magic Inc."
or "Operation Chaos".
--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org
Peter Knutsen
> I understand that viewpoint, but I'd say it's the individual
> practitioner who's demonstrating good or evil and that the magic
> itself would be morality-neutral.
>
> Well, except things like necromancy I reckon. But developing skill in
> necromancy or its like seems to point to a certain warpage in the
> practioner.
My WIP has a non-anti-social necromancer, as a secondary character. He
has even gone to some length, after descending to lichhood, to de-flesh
himself so that there won't be any unpleasant smell to bother his
still-living friends and relatives. (I'm not sure whether he used a
magical or mundane de-fleshing method, but so far I haven't been able to
come up with a mundane one that won't risk making his bones very
brittle, which he'd be rather anxious to avoid.)
I'd call him "good", except the terms "good" and "evil" tend to be
irrelevant in the �rth setting.
--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org
Gerry Quinn
sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com says...
> This is generally the case in most magical realms. The power of the
> magical device comes from a mage, not from some gadget.
In Vance, enslaved magical beings are usually the main source of a
magician's power.
Amulets and such do exist; in some cases they appear to imprison such
beings, but in other cases there is no indication of it.
- Gerry Quinn
Remus Shepherd
> Michelle Bottorff wrote:
> > Patricia Wrede talks about 'Magic as Metaphor' and that one kind of
> > loses me too.
> I don't get it either. Magic isn't a metaphor, it's actual metaphysical
> laws that the characters in the setting can understand, at least some of
> them and at least fairly well, and make use of.
> > As far as I'm concerned magic is an imaginary technology. One that uses
> > natural laws that happen to not actually exist in our universe.
> Yes.
Hmmn. I disagree. Yes, having magic work via fixed, arbitrary rules
turns it into a technology, but to me that turns a story into a form of bad
science fiction. Magic should be unknowable, but it should follow rules
that the reader understands subconsciously. Never state the rules -- have
the reader already know what they are.
The best way to do that is to have magic follow one of the metaphysical
principles that all human beings understand. So you might have types of
magic as metaphors for good and evil, or you might break magic up into the
four classic elemental spheres, or you might follow a set of rules borrowed
from well-known theology. This makes it easy to inject morality into magic,
as there are no clear-cut rules for moral behavior yet everyone thinks that
they know it when they see it. But the link between morality and magic isn't
necessary. It's just convenient.
I like magic to be mysterious yet familiar. Not rote and recipe. Maybe
that's why I haven't liked many of the modern fantasy stories I've read.
... ...
Remus Shepherd <re...@panix.com>
Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/remus_shepherd/
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
Well, Sauron's Ring was very much personalized -- and while it was
possible you might be able to use it against him, in general it would
wear you down, turn you to a wraith, and possibly draw you to him in the
end.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> Peter Knutsen <pe...@sagatafl.invalid> wrote:
>> Michelle Bottorff wrote:
>>> Patricia Wrede talks about 'Magic as Metaphor' and that one kind of
>>> loses me too.
>
>> I don't get it either. Magic isn't a metaphor, it's actual metaphysical
>> laws that the characters in the setting can understand, at least some of
>> them and at least fairly well, and make use of.
>
>>> As far as I'm concerned magic is an imaginary technology. One that uses
>>> natural laws that happen to not actually exist in our universe.
>
>> Yes.
>
> Hmmn. I disagree. Yes, having magic work via fixed, arbitrary rules
> turns it into a technology, but to me that turns a story into a form of bad
> science fiction. Magic should be unknowable, but it should follow rules
> that the reader understands subconsciously. Never state the rules -- have
> the reader already know what they are.
(A) this makes no sense. If it's unknowable, the reader can't know
rules, even subconsciously.
(B) If it has no rules which can, eventually, be derived, it's neither
going to be teachable, nor reproducible.
Magic with no rules breaks my WSOD.
Will in New Haven
> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>
> >Eric Ammadon wrote:
> >> It isn't clear to me why magic should be any more strongly tied to
> >> morality than science.
>
> > In the usual way magic is portrayed, it's an intensely personal power.
> >Not everyone can do magic, even if they're smart enough to understand
> >it. As such, the use of magic is tied directly to individual human
> >choices. Its manifestation will reflect their persona in some way,
> >whether in its actual features, or at least in the uses to which it is
> >tailored.
>
> I understand that viewpoint, but I'd say it's the individual
> practitioner who's demonstrating good or evil and that the magic
> itself would be morality-neutral.
>
> Well, except things like necromancy I reckon. But developing skill in
> necromancy or its like seems to point to a certain warpage in the
> practioner.
"I thought you _liked_ Boris. Aren't you _glad_ I have brought him
back to life? You're an ungrateful wretch and I won't do you any
favors again anytime soon."
--
Will in New Haven
Remus Shepherd
> Remus Shepherd wrote:
> > Hmmn. I disagree. Yes, having magic work via fixed, arbitrary rules
> > turns it into a technology, but to me that turns a story into a form of bad
> > science fiction. Magic should be unknowable, but it should follow rules
> > that the reader understands subconsciously. Never state the rules -- have
> > the reader already know what they are.
> (A) this makes no sense. If it's unknowable, the reader can't know
> rules, even subconsciously.
> (B) If it has no rules which can, eventually, be derived, it's
> neither going to be teachable,
What makes a great work of art? You can talk about composition, shading,
subject matter, and all of that. But eventually it's going to come down to
some unexplainable vision originating with the artist. He can't relay to you
exactly how he did it -- the artwork itself is his best attempt to relay it
at all.
Magic, in my opinion, should be art, not science. Art has rules that we
do not understand and has effects on people that we cannot explain. But
because we have an instinctive understanding of how it works, we can use it.
(And that's because it's really our own minds that we cannot explain, but
we have an intuitive understanding of how *they* work.)
> nor reproducible.
Magic doesn't have to be reproducible. In fact, often it should not be.
> Magic with no rules breaks my WSOD.
And magic with well-understood rules is a genre I hate to read. Poor
authors, they just can't please everybody, can they? :)
Peter Knutsen
>> In �rth they can't, because the benefit in power one gets, by
>> Enchanting an item, is balanced by the risk that someone else might
>> steal the item and use it against one, e.g. as with Sauron's ring.
>
> Well, Sauron's Ring was very much personalized -- and while it was
> possible you might be able to use it against him, in general it would
> wear you down, turn you to a wraith, and possibly draw you to him in the
> end.
Sure, but Sauron was crapping his pants, for fear of Gandalf or Elrond,
or someone similar, doing it, anyway.
--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>> Remus Shepherd wrote:
>>> Hmmn. I disagree. Yes, having magic work via fixed, arbitrary rules
>>> turns it into a technology, but to me that turns a story into a form of bad
>>> science fiction. Magic should be unknowable, but it should follow rules
>>> that the reader understands subconsciously. Never state the rules -- have
>>> the reader already know what they are.
>
>> (A) this makes no sense. If it's unknowable, the reader can't know
>> rules, even subconsciously.
>
>> (B) If it has no rules which can, eventually, be derived, it's
>> neither going to be teachable,
>
> What makes a great work of art? You can talk about composition, shading,
> subject matter, and all of that. But eventually it's going to come down to
> some unexplainable vision originating with the artist. He can't relay to you
> exactly how he did it -- the artwork itself is his best attempt to relay it
> at all.
Art, however, AS A PHYSICAL PHENOMENON, is understood, easily
reproducible, according to very much known laws.
Whether you think a particular work IS art is another matter.
Magic is usually producing PHYSICAL effects. If all your magic is, oh,
emotional effects and coincidence, maybe, but then you can't tell a
wizard from a charlatan -- if there is any difference at all.
If magic produces physical effects and does so reliably enough that it
can be used usefully, it *does* follow rules, and those rules *can* be
derived eventually. Perhaps not by the people using them, any more than
people using Greek Fire in ancient times understood the chemistry
involved, but they did know that there were rules to how it worked, and
they could pretty reliably get the effect they wanted.
>
> Magic, in my opinion, should be art, not science. Art has rules that we
> do not understand and has effects on people that we cannot explain.
Actually, we have learned quite a number of rules that tell us what
approaches "work" in various types of art -- what proportions tend to be
perceived as more pleasing, etc.
>> nor reproducible.
>
> Magic doesn't have to be reproducible. In fact, often it should not be.
Why, and how, would anyone try to study magic? How could you become a
wizard if one day you could create a fireball and blow away your
enemies, and the next day you weren't able to light a cigarette -- or
worse, what you THOUGHT would be a fireball turned out to be a healing
spell?
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
That's sort of the equivalent of having a personalized weapon, but
knowing there's some hackers out there with Leet Skillz that can crack
your security.
David Friedman
Eric Ammadon <n...@spam.thankee> wrote:
> As personal preference goes, I prefer magical systems that are
> self-enforcing, where the practioner who uses magic for evil purposes
> at a minimum suffers some type of backlash.
>
I think one needs to distinguish between "evil magic" and "magic used
for evil purposes." A deal with the Devil is usually thought of as evil
magic, likely to corrupt the user--even if it is being used for good or
neutral purposes, and similarly with the idea of "black magic." On the
other hand, magic that is morally neutral might, just like a morally
neutral knife, be used to commit an evil act, such as murder.
In _Salamander_, there is no suggestion of evil magic in the first
sense. On the other hand, there are the "bounds," traditional limits on
how it is proper to use magic. Compulsion spells, love potions and the
like are under most circumstances considered as a violation of the
bounds, hence under the traditional self-regulating system of magery
(gradually being replaced at this point with a system enforced by royal
authority) the use of such spells is grounds for being banned from the
use of magery and killed by any mage thereafter who observes the
offender using magery.
--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of
_Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World_,
Cambridge University Press.
David Friedman
"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
> Magic should be unknowable, but it should follow rules
> > that the reader understands subconsciously. Never state the rules -- have
> > the reader already know what they are.
>
> (A) this makes no sense. If it's unknowable, the reader can't know
> rules, even subconsciously.
>
> (B) If it has no rules which can, eventually, be derived, it's neither
> going to be teachable, nor reproducible.
I don't think this is correct in general. Consider, as a counterexample,
language.
A native speaker of a language has learned a very complicated set of
rules, can follow them, can detect violations. But in most cases he
doesn't know the rules�could not explain why one way of saying things is
right, another is wrong. The same is true for most good writers or
speakers. One can be able to write an effective paragraph, or a good
sonnet, but have no idea how one would program a computer to do the same
thing, hence no clear idea of what the process is that you are
competently using to create.
It's true that, at least in the former case, there are rules which can
be derived--but the fact that it is possible for a linguist to figure
out the rules isn't essential in order for a speaker to learn them.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> In article <hdhdec$53q$2...@news.eternal-september.org>,
> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>
>> Magic should be unknowable, but it should follow rules
>>> that the reader understands subconsciously. Never state the rules -- have
>>> the reader already know what they are.
>> (A) this makes no sense. If it's unknowable, the reader can't know
>> rules, even subconsciously.
>>
>> (B) If it has no rules which can, eventually, be derived, it's neither
>> going to be teachable, nor reproducible.
>
> I don't think this is correct in general. Consider, as a counterexample,
> language.
>
> A native speaker of a language has learned a very complicated set of
> rules, can follow them, can detect violations. But in most cases he
> speakers. One can be able to write an effective paragraph, or a good
> sonnet, but have no idea how one would program a computer to do the same
> thing, hence no clear idea of what the process is that you are
> competently using to create.
>
> It's true that, at least in the former case, there are rules which can
> be derived--but the fact that it is possible for a linguist to figure
> out the rules isn't essential in order for a speaker to learn them.
>
It is however essential for there to BE rules in order for language to
be usable.
David Friedman
Remus Shepherd <re...@panix.com> wrote:
> > Magic with no rules breaks my WSOD.
>
> And magic with well-understood rules is a genre I hate to read. Poor
> authors, they just can't please everybody, can they? :)
What about magic where there are presumably underlying rules, but they
aren't well understood by the people using them--like the case of a
native speaker of a language?
The magic in _Salamander_ is in transition. Fifty years earlier, it was
a craft, based on a science that nobody understood. At this point, the
best theorists understand a good deal of the science, although not all
of it, but most practitioners don't.
One thing that may be coming up in _Eirick_, the sequel I'm now working
on (and, unlike a month ago, that's now a true statement, even though I
haven't gotten a lot farther) is the conflict between two "schools" of
magery. The Dorayans are the people who first worked out enough about
magery, a very long time ago, to make it a usable craft--and took
advantage of that to build an empire. Esland, which broke free from that
empire a few centuries back, after the relevant knowledge had spread
enough to considerably diminish the Dorayan advantage, is where the new
breakthrough in magical theory happened.
So in a conflict between Dorayan and Eslish mages, which is happening in
_Eirick_, the former have the advantage of an older and more elaborate
tradition of the craft--a richer and more sophisticated body of spells.
The latter have the advantage of a theoretical structure that allows
them to better understand magery, and (among other things) design new
spells.
The Dorayans also have another advantage, as it happens. They've been
breeding for magery for centuries, and as a result have more, and on
average stronger, mages.
David Friedman
Eric Ammadon <n...@spam.thankee> wrote:
> I guess what I'm
> trying to get at is that if a wand's power didn't originate from the
> powers of some human, it's just technology. Granted an individual may
> develop great skill at shooting a gun, but without the gun the skill
> is useless, and the gun is just technology, it ain't magic. Take the
> wand away from a great mage and you haven't truly decreased his powers
> unless he's allowed himself to become dependent on it. Take the
> amulet from an apprentice mage and you've decreased his/her powers but
> talent may grow to overcome that. Give a child a gun, and you have an
> untrained undisciplined hazard; it seems that magic should require a
> bit more than a gun.
Its power might come from some natural source.
Central to _Salamander_ is--the Salamander. It's the (unique) fire
elemental on which all fire magic, indeed all fire, is in some sense
based. Magical theory suggests that the sun ought to have burned out
long ago, and the conjectural explanation of why it hasn't is that it is
being fed power from the Salamander.
The Salamander certainly did not originate from the powers of a human.
But a sufficiently competent, powerful, and courageous mage can--one
did--somehow come to an "understanding" with the Salamander. My scare
quotes are because the Salamander is something between a conscious being
and a force of nature, so the description of the relationship is
necessarily a simplification. The result is that the mage has access to
the Salamander's fire--which is, in principle, infinite in quantity,
although there are limits to how much the mage can channel.
Creating the relationship is likely to get you killed, and using it is
also risky, depending on the mage's will power being sufficient to
resist the temptation of increasing pleasure from the flow of
fire--which at a sufficiently high level will kill him.
I think that feels like magic, not like technology.
Suzanne Blom
"David Friedman" <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote in message
news:ddfr-841E63.1...@newsfarm.phx.highwinds-media.com...
> In article <hdhdec$53q$2...@news.eternal-september.org>,
> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>
>> Magic should be unknowable, but it should follow rules
>> > that the reader understands subconsciously. Never state the rules --
>> > have
>> > the reader already know what they are.
>>
>> (A) this makes no sense. If it's unknowable, the reader can't know
>> rules, even subconsciously.
>>
>> (B) If it has no rules which can, eventually, be derived, it's neither
>> going to be teachable, nor reproducible.
>
> I don't think this is correct in general. Consider, as a counterexample,
> language.
>
> A native speaker of a language has learned a very complicated set of
> rules, can follow them, can detect violations. But in most cases he
> speakers. One can be able to write an effective paragraph, or a good
> sonnet, but have no idea how one would program a computer to do the same
> thing, hence no clear idea of what the process is that you are
> competently using to create.
>
> It's true that, at least in the former case, there are rules which can
> be derived--but the fact that it is possible for a linguist to figure
> out the rules isn't essential in order for a speaker to learn them.
>
worse than a story that doesn't.
Further, what people think about the rules is often wrong. Somebody who is
highly proficient in the language can nonetheless make statements that they
believe that are not so.
Dorothy J Heydt
Exception, of course, being Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy stories.
--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at hotmail dot com
Should you wish to email me, you'd better use the hotmail edress.
Kithrup is getting too damn much spam, even with the sysop's filters.
Eric Ammadon
Huh. I don't think I ever played one of those that was upfront. This
modern stuff makes my head hurt when I think about it. I'm afraid I
don't understand what a "real rpg" is and why anyone would want to
play one.
I did play a role game where I pretended to give a crap what my
employer wanted, maybe that's a "real rpg". What about seduction, is
that a "real rpg"?
Heh, looking back now, I'm not sure why I wanted to bother playing
either of those games. Mario Bros was at least straightforwardly
boring.
>> Gadgets are so... promiscuous is perhaps the word, you just can't
>> trust the things to be faithful to their owner, leave one unattended
>> for an eyeblink and there it is whapping you on behalf of someone
>> else.
>
> Not always. Especially higher-tech ones. I point that out in the
>forthcoming Threshold, in which a character gets a hold of someone
>else's gun and finds it won't work for him.
It should administer an electric shock when anyone but its owner
touches it, and increase the voltage over a few moments to the lethal
level if the usurper doesn't drop it. Assuming it isn't just a
paintball toy, in that case it should explode paint all over the
place. I won't describe the proper behaviour of a lady's vibrator in
such a case. <g>
Eric Ammadon
For me any math beyond differential equations is magic (because I must
take someone else's explanation of why it's correct), and diff-eq is
right on the borderline (magic usually fakeable by rote). But math
doesn't interact with the "real" world *by*itself*, *directly*, like
magic does, it needs to be applied through other means. Damn, that's
a badly written paragraph I just typed, fortunately it isn't vital
that anyone be able to decipher it. <g>
Eric Ammadon
>Jon Schild wrote:
>> Eric Ammadon wrote:
>>> I also agree as far as that goes, but I think "magic" implies that
>>> some people can do it and some can't, otherwise it's just alien-tech.
>>
>> Like Math? Some can do it, come can't. But it isn't human or alien
>> tech, it is all mental. Like Magic.
>
>In my �rth setting, everyone can learn magic, the same way everyone can
>learn physics.
Yeah, Peter, I'm gonna need you to come over some time and teach my
wife some physics, 'kay? I want to watch that. I'd also like to see
you teach our pet bear to do the hula.
Eric Ammadon
> Magic with no rules breaks my WSOD.
You might need a cast for a spell.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
Ever play pretend games as a kid? Where you were Superman, or a
fireman, or a lion, or some character from TV? A real RPG basically does
that, except there's rules to prevent the kid's classic argument of "I
gotcha!" "No ya din't!" "Did too!"
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>
>> Magic with no rules breaks my WSOD.
>
> You might need a cast for a spell.
>
An all-star cast?
Eric Ammadon
Maybe. Or maybe magic requires the practitioner to sense the current
state of the world and know what to do in order to influence it in the
desired way.
> Perhaps not by the people using them, any more than
>people using Greek Fire in ancient times understood the chemistry
>involved, but they did know that there were rules to how it worked, and
>they could pretty reliably get the effect they wanted.
>
>>
>> Magic, in my opinion, should be art, not science. Art has rules that we
>> do not understand and has effects on people that we cannot explain.
>
> Actually, we have learned quite a number of rules that tell us what
>approaches "work" in various types of art -- what proportions tend to be
>perceived as more pleasing, etc.
The world is not entirely 3x4.
>>> nor reproducible.
>>
>> Magic doesn't have to be reproducible. In fact, often it should not be.
>
> Why, and how, would anyone try to study magic? How could you become a
>wizard if one day you could create a fireball and blow away your
>enemies, and the next day you weren't able to light a cigarette -- or
>worse, what you THOUGHT would be a fireball turned out to be a healing
>spell?
That would be an example of the "inept magician", who can be quite a
loveable character; not an entirely bad thing in a fantasy novel I'd
think.
But perhaps by studying a lot of books about states and their
transitions one could learn to sense the current state and cause the
desired transition. (That seems to have been at least one of the
ideas behind the I-Ching, though after so long a time it's difficult
to guess what the ancients really thought they were doing.)
Eric Ammadon
>In article <hdhg47$917$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
> Remus Shepherd <re...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>> > Magic with no rules breaks my WSOD.
>>
>> And magic with well-understood rules is a genre I hate to read. Poor
>> authors, they just can't please everybody, can they? :)
>
>What about magic where there are presumably underlying rules, but they
>aren't well understood by the people using them--like the case of a
>native speaker of a language?
The native speaker of a language, it seems to me, would understand the
rules quite well, though not *formally*. Perhaps it is at the point
where magic becomes formalized that it becomes technology, I'm not
sure.
>The magic in _Salamander_ is in transition. Fifty years earlier, it was
>a craft, based on a science that nobody understood.
Erm... if nobody understood it, how could it be a "science"?
> At this point, the
>best theorists understand a good deal of the science, although not all
>of it, but most practitioners don't.
>
>One thing that may be coming up in _Eirick_, the sequel I'm now working
>on (and, unlike a month ago, that's now a true statement, even though I
>haven't gotten a lot farther)
Good on you for making that transition.
> is the conflict between two "schools" of
>magery. The Dorayans are the people who first worked out enough about
>magery, a very long time ago, to make it a usable craft--and took
>advantage of that to build an empire. Esland, which broke free from that
>empire a few centuries back, after the relevant knowledge had spread
>enough to considerably diminish the Dorayan advantage, is where the new
>breakthrough in magical theory happened.
Was it really a breakthrough in "magical theory" or was it a
breakthrough in the ability to formalize what had previously been
understood without formal systematization?
>So in a conflict between Dorayan and Eslish mages, which is happening in
>_Eirick_, the former have the advantage of an older and more elaborate
>tradition of the craft--a richer and more sophisticated body of spells.
>The latter have the advantage of a theoretical structure that allows
>them to better understand magery, and (among other things) design new
>spells.
>
>The Dorayans also have another advantage, as it happens. They've been
>breeding for magery for centuries, and as a result have more, and on
>average stronger, mages.
It seems like "breeding for magery" would be a fully automatic process
requiring no outside intervention. <g>
Eric Ammadon
>David Friedman wrote:
>> In article <hdhdec$53q$2...@news.eternal-september.org>,
>> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Magic should be unknowable, but it should follow rules
>>>> that the reader understands subconsciously. Never state the rules -- have
>>>> the reader already know what they are.
>>> (A) this makes no sense. If it's unknowable, the reader can't know
>>> rules, even subconsciously.
>>>
>>> (B) If it has no rules which can, eventually, be derived, it's neither
>>> going to be teachable, nor reproducible.
>>
>> I don't think this is correct in general. Consider, as a counterexample,
>> language.
>>
>> A native speaker of a language has learned a very complicated set of
>> rules, can follow them, can detect violations. But in most cases he
>> doesn't know the rules�could not explain why one way of saying things is
>> right, another is wrong. The same is true for most good writers or
>> speakers. One can be able to write an effective paragraph, or a good
>> sonnet, but have no idea how one would program a computer to do the same
>> thing, hence no clear idea of what the process is that you are
>> competently using to create.
>>
>> It's true that, at least in the former case, there are rules which can
>> be derived--but the fact that it is possible for a linguist to figure
>> out the rules isn't essential in order for a speaker to learn them.
>>
>
> It is however essential for there to BE rules in order for language to
>be usable.
I wish I could remember the name of that old Star Trek episode where
they ran into a planet where people communicated by stating the name
of an incident that was an analog representing their thought. It was
something like "Foofoo at Blahblah". I'm not sure their language had
rules. Or if it could truly be considered a "language" by we on this
planet who have many intent-oriented verbal mechanisms.
Eric Ammadon
>On Nov 12, 9:11�am, Eric Ammadon <n...@spam.thankee> wrote:
>> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>
>> >Eric Ammadon wrote:
>> >> It isn't clear to me why magic should be any more strongly tied to
>> >> morality than science. �
>>
>> > � �In the usual way magic is portrayed, it's an intensely personal power.
>> >Not everyone can do magic, even if they're smart enough to understand
>> >it. As such, the use of magic is tied directly to individual human
>> >choices. Its manifestation will reflect their persona in some way,
>> >whether in its actual features, or at least in the uses to which it is
>> >tailored.
>>
>> I understand that viewpoint, but I'd say it's the individual
>> practitioner who's demonstrating good or evil and that the magic
>> itself would be morality-neutral.
>>
>> Well, except things like necromancy I reckon. �But developing skill in
>> necromancy or its like seems to point to a certain warpage in the
>> practioner.
>
>"I thought you _liked_ Boris. Aren't you _glad_ I have brought him
>back to life? You're an ungrateful wretch and I won't do you any
>favors again anytime soon."
"I have always liked Boris, but I find that since his return he
stinks."
Eric Ammadon
>In article <qi5of5la59ipvtll0...@4ax.com>,
> Eric Ammadon <n...@spam.thankee> wrote:
>
>> As personal preference goes, I prefer magical systems that are
>> self-enforcing, where the practioner who uses magic for evil purposes
>> at a minimum suffers some type of backlash.
>>
>
>I think one needs to distinguish between "evil magic" and "magic used
>for evil purposes." A deal with the Devil is usually thought of as evil
>magic, likely to corrupt the user--even if it is being used for good or
>neutral purposes, and similarly with the idea of "black magic." On the
>other hand, magic that is morally neutral might, just like a morally
>neutral knife, be used to commit an evil act, such as murder.
I agree that there seems to be a distinction.
>In _Salamander_, there is no suggestion of evil magic in the first
>sense. On the other hand, there are the "bounds," traditional limits on
>how it is proper to use magic. Compulsion spells, love potions and the
>like are under most circumstances considered as a violation of the
>bounds, hence under the traditional self-regulating system of magery
>(gradually being replaced at this point with a system enforced by royal
>authority) the use of such spells is grounds for being banned from the
>use of magery and killed by any mage thereafter who observes the
>offender using magery.
Using a compulsion spell is nearly as offensive as attacking a fellow
vampire in his earth.
Eric Ammadon
>Eric Ammadon wrote:
>> You know the old saw about magic being indistinguishable from
>> sufficiently advanced technology.
>[...]
>> It isn't clear to me why magic should be any more strongly tied to
>> morality than science. Perhaps that indicates a deficiency of
>> morality in the scientific arena?
>
>Some of the magic in my �rth setting *is* moral. Often it is then
>religious in nature. A lot of magic also isn't, however.
I will not *not* *NOT* ask what "morality" means. <g>
Will in New Haven
I thought the episode was just titled "Darmok." They spoke, as you
say, by analogy to incidents in their history. "Shaka, when the walls
fell" was one. There may have been "prom night, when I threw up on
Alice," but I think I made that one up. It was one of the best Next
Generation episodes, in my opinion. Also in my opinion, I thought the
best episodes of the old show were better but the average episode of
TNG was better than the average old show.
Alma Hromic Deckert
<sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>Eric Ammadon wrote:
>> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Magic with no rules breaks my WSOD.
>>
>> You might need a cast for a spell.
>>
>
> An all-star cast?
You might just want to get plastered...
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>
>> David Friedman wrote:
>>> In article <hdhdec$53q$2...@news.eternal-september.org>,
>>> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Magic should be unknowable, but it should follow rules
>>>>> that the reader understands subconsciously. Never state the rules -- have
>>>>> the reader already know what they are.
>>>> (A) this makes no sense. If it's unknowable, the reader can't know
>>>> rules, even subconsciously.
>>>>
>>>> (B) If it has no rules which can, eventually, be derived, it's neither
>>>> going to be teachable, nor reproducible.
>>> I don't think this is correct in general. Consider, as a counterexample,
>>> language.
>>>
>>> A native speaker of a language has learned a very complicated set of
>>> rules, can follow them, can detect violations. But in most cases he
>>> speakers. One can be able to write an effective paragraph, or a good
>>> sonnet, but have no idea how one would program a computer to do the same
>>> thing, hence no clear idea of what the process is that you are
>>> competently using to create.
>>>
>>> It's true that, at least in the former case, there are rules which can
>>> be derived--but the fact that it is possible for a linguist to figure
>>> out the rules isn't essential in order for a speaker to learn them.
>>>
>> It is however essential for there to BE rules in order for language to
>> be usable.
>
> I wish I could remember the name of that old Star Trek episode where
> they ran into a planet where people communicated by stating the name
> of an incident that was an analog representing their thought. It was
> something like "Foofoo at Blahblah". I'm not sure their language had
> rules. Or if it could truly be considered a "language" by we on this
> planet who have many intent-oriented verbal mechanisms.
>
Dormok. One of the stupidest episodes ever, and given what Trek got up
to, that's saying a lot.
Such a language depends on there BEING another way to say that thing --
something from which you can BUILD your references.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
I had to brace myself for that comment.
Alma Hromic Deckert
<sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>Alma Hromic Deckert wrote:
>> On Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:24:48 -0500, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
>> <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Eric Ammadon wrote:
>>>> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Magic with no rules breaks my WSOD.
>>>> You might need a cast for a spell.
>>>>
>>> An all-star cast?
>>
>> You might just want to get plastered...
>
> I had to brace myself for that comment.
Eh. Might as well go for broke. It might fracture the thread
irreparably but then again it might just also help it gain some
traction...
A.
Dorothy J Heydt
That's because the third season of TOS dragged the average SO
*FAR* down.
Remus Shepherd
> Remus Shepherd wrote:
> > What makes a great work of art? You can talk about composition, shading,
> > subject matter, and all of that. But eventually it's going to come down to
> > some unexplainable vision originating with the artist. He can't relay to you
> > exactly how he did it -- the artwork itself is his best attempt to relay it
> > at all.
> Art, however, AS A PHYSICAL PHENOMENON, is understood, easily
> reproducible, according to very much known laws.
That's what makes magic magic. It's a subjective, mysterious thing that
creates physical effects.
If it's a well-understood, deterministic phenomenon then it's just another
kind of science. I like known science enough to not want to see an author
inventing a new science out of nothing.
> If magic produces physical effects and does so reliably enough that
> it can be used usefully,
The magic I am talking about does not obey the 'reliable' clause up there.
> > Magic, in my opinion, should be art, not science. Art has rules that we
> > do not understand and has effects on people that we cannot explain.
> Actually, we have learned quite a number of rules that tell us what
> approaches "work" in various types of art -- what proportions tend to be
> perceived as more pleasing, etc.
It was the best analogy I could come up with on short notice. :)
*Everything* we have in our universe is explainable. There aren't any
ineffable forces in the real world for me to point to as a better example.
Subjective human experiences are the closest thing to magic -- and I think
there's a reason for that. We are, after all, trying to evoke a
subjective response in our readers.
But you bring up a good point. We know some of the rules of art well
enough that anybody can create something that's at least basically pleasing.
The analogy with magic would be the hedge spell, or the cantrip. There may
be simple tricks that are reliable enough that anyone can do them, without
understanding how it works or why. High magic, however, is like high art --
it takes a master's effort, it is not reliably successful, and when it
fails it can fail spectacularly.
> > Magic doesn't have to be reproducible. In fact, often it should not be.
> Why, and how, would anyone try to study magic?
Three reasons.
One, you might not know any better. Lots of story potential there.
Example: Mickey Mouse in Fantasia.
Two, you might not care. Maybe you think that you can master it, or you
know there's going to be a price but you're willing to pay anything to get
what you want. In the real world, economics is not well understood, but that
doesn't stop people from being greedy or deluded enough to try and master it.
Examples: The early part of Full Metal Alchemist (yes, their 'magic' had
rules, but they didn't understand those rules properly, and their alchemy was
dangerously unstable.) Faust. Elric of Melnibone (or, better yet, the rest
of the Melniboneans -- Elric had something like a conscience.)
Three, you might not have a choice. If you have the Gift, then the magic
is within you, and you either need to master it or you will die. Examples:
Gandalf (he was Ainur, so magic was part of who he was, he had no choice but
to use it). Merlin, same thing. Harry Potter. Everyone in Xanth.
The question of why anyone would use a dangerous, unreliable source
of power should be at the core of any story about magic, IMHO. Putting
magic in a story as part of the backdrop for an unrelated tale is another
thing I don't like to see...but that's a different rant. :)
... ...
Remus Shepherd <re...@panix.com>
Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/remus_shepherd/
Dorothy J Heydt
No, he wasn't an Ainu -- specifically, he was not a Vala, those
Ainur who descended into Arda on its creation -- he was a Maia.
James A. Donald
wrote:
> It isn't clear to me why magic should be any more strongly tied to
> morality than science. Perhaps that indicates a deficiency of
> morality in the scientific arena?
Notoriously, the universe does not care. This is extremely
depressing.
Because the universe does not care, science does not care, hence the
repugnance of both left and right for Darwinism. Because science does
not care, technology does not care, hence the widespread repugnance
for technology, hence faith in a certain off topic political issue
that is now causing much passion in congress and has often caused too
much passion in this newsgroup, and faith in organic foods.
The evil sorcerer uses dark magic, and summons minions that are
creatures of darkness. The stormtroopers of the evil empire, however,
use blasters that don't use dark plasma.
Brenda Clough
> "R.L." <see...@no-spams.coms> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:07:34 -0700, Eric Ammadon wrote:
>>
>>> James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Peter Knutsen
>>>>> all
>>>>> having to do with Shadow as a naturally occuring phemonenon, without any
>>>>> moral angle to it (Shadow Magic is no more evil than Light Magic is
>>>>> good, although readers/players sometimes assume this).
>>>> Since shadow magic conceals, and light magic reveals, Light *should*
>>>> be good, and shadow magic *should* be evil.
>>>>
>>>> Morally neutral magic is a bit pointless - it might as well be
>>>> technology.
>>> sufficiently advanced technology.
>>>
>>> being lost in spam, people beating themselves on the head with
>>> nanowrimo, holdiay preparations and whatever, perhaps a discussion of
>>> the relevance of morality to magic would be an acceptable means of
>>> preventing the remaining few from needing to set our hair afire to
>>> avoid death by boredom.
>>>
>>>
>>> morality than science. Perhaps that indicates a deficiency of
>>> morality in the scientific arena?
>>>
>>> technology that cannot be mechanized, something computers and other
>>> machines cannot do because it requires a certain capability or
>>> viewpoint (or morality?) only available to humans. Quark-charming or
>>> whatever.
>>>
>>> But to be (apparently) somewhat unconventional, it's my opinion that
>>> the reliance by fantasy-story magicians upon wands, amulets, and other
>>> *mechanical*trinkets* leaves me somewhat less interested than I might
>>> otherwise be.
>>>
>>> If a magician's magical powers disappear with the loss of a mechanism,
>>> he ain't much of a magician, he's just some lame who found a chunk of
>>> anti-kryptonite and became a superman by sole merit of its posession.
>>
>> Yes, magic can be alignment-specific; techonology isn't, sfawk.
>
> "Alignment-specific" is a new term for me. Is it something I ought to
> know already, or did you just invent it?
>
Perhaps it would be easier to think of it as a password. Oh noes! I
have picked up my husband's palmtop and I cannot make it work! Is it
keyed only to his magical aura or something? No, I just need the password.
Brenda
David Friedman
James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
> The evil sorcerer uses dark magic, and summons minions that are
> creatures of darkness. The stormtroopers of the evil empire, however,
> use blasters that don't use dark plasma.
On the other hand, the interrogators of the evil empire do use torture,
which a lot of readers will see as the technological eqivalent of dark
magic.
David Friedman
Eric Ammadon <n...@spam.thankee> wrote:
> > is the conflict between two "schools" of
> >magery. The Dorayans are the people who first worked out enough about
> >magery, a very long time ago, to make it a usable craft--and took
> >advantage of that to build an empire. Esland, which broke free from that
> >empire a few centuries back, after the relevant knowledge had spread
> >enough to considerably diminish the Dorayan advantage, is where the new
> >breakthrough in magical theory happened.
>
> Was it really a breakthrough in "magical theory" or was it a
> breakthrough in the ability to formalize what had previously been
> understood without formal systematization?
A breakthrough in theory. A good deal hadn't been understood, and some
parts of what people understood were not true.
...
John W Kennedy
Maiar are generally reckoned among the Ainur.
--
John W. Kennedy
"Compact is becoming contract,
Man only earns and pays."
-- Charles Williams. "Bors to Elayne: On the King's Coins"
James A. Donald
wrote:
> Like Math? Some can do it, come can't. But it isn't human or alien
> tech, it is all mental. Like Magic.
In my WIP, a spell is an idea that can affect the world directly.
By mentally applying the right description to the universe, you change
it. Simple creatures intuit simple magical ideas. Magicians (thanks
to innate talent and patient training) study complicated magical ideas
that ordinary people cannot grasp.
If you have the idea properly memorized and understood, you can apply
it in an instant, without having to think it through and rehearse it.
Typically a sorcerer has a few spells he can apply in an instant,
rather more he can apply if he has time to think for a bit, and a lot
more he might be able to apply if he spends time reading up on them.
He can apply a spell a lot faster by reading his own notes, than by
reading someone else's notes or observing someone else's work.
A key prologue incident is that a powerful demon (offstage villain)
sees a major character cast a spell against him, interferes in the
spell with interesting results, causing both sides to eventually
discover the spell that drives the plot.
James A. Donald
> > Hmmn. I disagree. Yes, having magic work via
> > fixed, arbitrary rules
> > turns it into a technology, but to me that turns a
> > should be unknowable, but it should follow rules
> > that the reader understands subconsciously. Never
> > state the rules -- have the reader already know what
> > they are.
"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
> (A) this makes no sense. If it's unknowable, the
> reader can't know rules, even subconsciously.
Makes perfect sense to me. Magic derives from magical
thinking. People tend to think they are in a magical
universe, and have to make an effort to know it is not
so.
So magical stories are set in the kind of universe that
people tend to think that they are in. If you find that
kind of magic too stupid (as I do) add some elaborate
rationalization, but don't let the rationalization get
in the way of the story.
Brian M. Scott
<pe...@sagatafl.invalid> wrote in
<news:4afc199e$0$282$1472...@news.sunsite.dk> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:
[...]
> Yes, if magic becomes too reliable and too widely used, it starts to
> resemble technology so much that it's no longer magical.
Lord Darcy and Master Sean O Lochlainn. 'Magic, Inc.'
Ginny and Steven Matuchek.
[...]
> Most writers, worldbuilders, and so forth, fail to build
> sufficiently good magic systems, and so resort cheap
> solutions, such as a particular kind of item being
> required to work magic at all: With that item, the
> wizard is all-powerful, but if you can steal it from him,
> he becomes impotent.
Offhand I can't think of an example. I can think of *lots*
of counterexamples.
[...]
Brian
Brian M. Scott
<re...@panix.com> wrote in
<news:hdhsga$lec$1...@reader1.panix.com> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:
> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
[...]
>> If magic produces physical effects and does so reliably
>> enough that it can be used usefully,
> The magic I am talking about does not obey the 'reliable'
> clause up there.
Then either it's not really very interesting, or you're
reading too much into 'reliably enough so that it can be
used usefully'.
[...]
Brian
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> On Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:17:37 -0500, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
> <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>
>> Alma Hromic Deckert wrote:
>>> On Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:24:48 -0500, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
>>> <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Eric Ammadon wrote:
>>>>> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Magic with no rules breaks my WSOD.
>>>>> You might need a cast for a spell.
>>>>>
>>>> An all-star cast?
>>> You might just want to get plastered...
>> I had to brace myself for that comment.
>
> Eh. Might as well go for broke. It might fracture the thread
> irreparably but then again it might just also help it gain some
> traction...
>
> A.
Dang. I'd better bone up on my punning skills before I compound this
error...
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>> Remus Shepherd wrote:
>>> What makes a great work of art? You can talk about composition, shading,
>>> subject matter, and all of that. But eventually it's going to come down to
>>> some unexplainable vision originating with the artist. He can't relay to you
>>> exactly how he did it -- the artwork itself is his best attempt to relay it
>>> at all.
>
>> Art, however, AS A PHYSICAL PHENOMENON, is understood, easily
>> reproducible, according to very much known laws.
>
> That's what makes magic magic. It's a subjective, mysterious thing that
> creates physical effects.
>
> If it's a well-understood, deterministic phenomenon then it's just another
> kind of science. I like known science enough to not want to see an author
> inventing a new science out of nothing.
>
>> If magic produces physical effects and does so reliably enough that
>> it can be used usefully,
>
> The magic I am talking about does not obey the 'reliable' clause up there.
Give me an example in literature. Preferably a well-known one, because
I can't think of ANY.
I can think of some where the writer was inconsistent because HE didn't
have rules for it and thus said "it's magic, anything goes", but that's
just a sucky writer.
>>> Magic doesn't have to be reproducible. In fact, often it should not be.
>> Why, and how, would anyone try to study magic?
>
> Three reasons.
>
> One, you might not know any better. Lots of story potential there.
> Example: Mickey Mouse in Fantasia.
But a bad example for your approach, as the Wizard himself clearly
could use his power reliably to achieve the effects he wanted. He even
had a book that probably contained many, many spells of well-known
characteristics to him. Unfortunately it either had no index, or Mickey
never thought to use it to find "Dispel magic".
>
> Two, you might not care. Maybe you think that you can master it, or you
> know there's going to be a price but you're willing to pay anything to get
> what you want. In the real world, economics is not well understood, but that
> doesn't stop people from being greedy or deluded enough to try and master it.
But it still obeys rules.
> Examples: The early part of Full Metal Alchemist (yes, their 'magic' had
> rules, but they didn't understand those rules properly, and their alchemy was
> dangerously unstable.)
But it has rules, very VERY clear rules. That is, in fact, a world
that's the ANTITHESIS of your idea. To Edward Elric, Alchemy is NOT
magic, that's a nonsense word. Alchemy is SCIENCE. It's mathematical
formulae describing exactly how you want to arrange matter and energy.
(in fact, it's very much like block-transfer computation from Doctor Who).
> Faust.
Follows rules.
>
> Three, you might not have a choice. If you have the Gift, then the magic
> is within you, and you either need to master it or you will die. Examples:
> Gandalf (he was Ainur, so magic was part of who he was, he had no choice but
> to use it). Merlin, same thing. Harry Potter. Everyone in Xanth.
Of those that I know enough to state, there's rules governing them.
Alma Hromic Deckert
<sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>Alma Hromic Deckert wrote:
>> On Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:17:37 -0500, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
>> <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Alma Hromic Deckert wrote:
>>>> On Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:24:48 -0500, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
>>>> <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Eric Ammadon wrote:
>>>>>> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Magic with no rules breaks my WSOD.
>>>>>> You might need a cast for a spell.
>>>>>>
>>>>> An all-star cast?
>>>> You might just want to get plastered...
>>> I had to brace myself for that comment.
>>
>> Eh. Might as well go for broke. It might fracture the thread
>> irreparably but then again it might just also help it gain some
>> traction...
>>
>> A.
>
> Dang. I'd better bone up on my punning skills before I compound this
>error...
You mean before you take a crack at mine... Better luck tomarrow...
A.
Brian M. Scott
Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote in
<news:hdi86o$im0$1...@news.eternal-september.org> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:
> Remus Shepherd wrote:
[...]
>> The magic I am talking about does not obey the 'reliable'
>> clause up there.
> Give me an example in literature. Preferably a well-known
> one, because I can't think of ANY.
One example of *reliably* unreliable magic occurs to me:
Edward Eager's _Half Magic_. I can also think of stories in
which a given *individual* has unreliable magic -- e.g.,
Camille D'Artigo in Yasmine Galenorn's Otherworld series,
who labors under the handicap of being only half Fae. Then
there's Ilona Andrews's world in which magic 'comes in
waves, without warning, and vanishes as suddenly as it
appears. When magic is up, planes drop out of the sky, cars
stall, electricity dies. When magic is down, guns work and
spells fail.'
But I don't think that any of this is what Remus has in
mind.
[...]
Brian
Bill Swears
> Not me. I am always in the middle of a novel in November, and I have
> never seen the point in setting aside what I'm working on at perfectly
> reasonable pace that seems to work well for me, in order to rush through
> the start of something else.
I shouldn't say I'm killing time with nanowrimo, but I'm working on my
thesis, and waiting for word to come back on a couple projects, so my
creative time is my own. Teri and I have been talking about my trying
romance or YA, and I've had this idea for a YA percolating, so I'm
starting it now. I figure if I can get to my normal writing pace, I
still have a slim chance.
Bill
>
>
--
Living on the polemic may be temporarily satisfying, but it will raise
your blood-pressure, and gives you tunnel vision.
inv...@invalid.invalid
wrote:
>"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>
>>David Friedman wrote:
>>> In article <hdhdec$53q$2...@news.eternal-september.org>,
>>> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Magic should be unknowable, but it should follow rules
>>>>> that the reader understands subconsciously. Never state the rules -- have
>>>>> the reader already know what they are.
>>>> (A) this makes no sense. If it's unknowable, the reader can't know
>>>> rules, even subconsciously.
>>>>
>>>> (B) If it has no rules which can, eventually, be derived, it's neither
>>>> going to be teachable, nor reproducible.
>>>
>>> I don't think this is correct in general. Consider, as a counterexample,
>>> language.
>>>
>>> A native speaker of a language has learned a very complicated set of
>>> rules, can follow them, can detect violations. But in most cases he
>>> doesn't know the rules�could not explain why one way of saying things is
>>> right, another is wrong. The same is true for most good writers or
>>> speakers. One can be able to write an effective paragraph, or a good
>>> sonnet, but have no idea how one would program a computer to do the same
>>> thing, hence no clear idea of what the process is that you are
>>> competently using to create.
>>>
>>> It's true that, at least in the former case, there are rules which can
>>> be derived--but the fact that it is possible for a linguist to figure
>>> out the rules isn't essential in order for a speaker to learn them.
>>>
>>
>> It is however essential for there to BE rules in order for language to
>>be usable.
>
>I wish I could remember the name of that old Star Trek episode where
>they ran into a planet where people communicated by stating the name
>of an incident that was an analog representing their thought. It was
>something like "Foofoo at Blahblah". I'm not sure their language had
>rules. Or if it could truly be considered a "language" by we on this
>planet who have many intent-oriented verbal mechanisms.
That's not a language. It is considered to be a form of personal
cipher based on common experiences and is usually considered to be
unbreakable in that it is a unique book cipher with the users being
the books and generally no other copies available anywhere.
Bill Swears
>
> I understand that viewpoint, but I'd say it's the individual
> practitioner who's demonstrating good or evil and that the magic
> itself would be morality-neutral.
Lots of books revolve around black and white magic. I like to write
about personal responsibility, and how no matter how powerful you
become, you will still have problems, so my magic tends to be morality
neutral.
R.L.
[....]
> We know some of the rules of art well
> enough that anybody can create something that's at least basically pleasing.
> The analogy with magic would be the hedge spell, or the cantrip. There may
> be simple tricks that are reliable enough that anyone can do them, without
> understanding how it works or why. High magic, however, is like high art --
> it takes a master's effort, it is not reliably successful, and when it
> fails it can fail spectacularly.
I see magic as like ... Judy Garland or Liza Minelli or Leonard Cohen or
possibly Michael Jackson walking out in front of a live audience and
performing. It needs some practice, usually a lot of lights and orchestra,
a good audience.... But the main thing is the ... spirit, attention of the
performer, her almost direct handling of the energy of the audience,
interaction, skillfully meshing with the outside energy....
Or, as I put it in FRP, in a mana-rich world there is so much wind that any
fool can throw up a bedsheet to make a sailboat. But which way the wind
will TAKE you.... You can tap it but scarcely control it. And it takes all
your attention, including your 'moral' faculty, to function with it at all.
So a mage of good alignment can catch a good wind, but an evil mage needs
an ill wind. ;-)
R.L.
Bill Swears
> Peter Knutsen wrote:
>> Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
>>> Not always. Especially higher-tech ones. I point that out in the
>>> forthcoming Threshold, in which a character gets a hold of someone
>>> else's gun and finds it won't work for him.
>>>
>>> Magical gadgets can be very personalized.
>>
>> In �rth they can't, because the benefit in power one gets, by
>> Enchanting an item, is balanced by the risk that someone else might
>> steal the item and use it against one, e.g. as with Sauron's ring.
>>
>
> Well, Sauron's Ring was very much personalized -- and while it was
> possible you might be able to use it against him, in general it would
> wear you down, turn you to a wraith, and possibly draw you to him in the
> end.
>
Well yeah, except Yoda and Gandalf were busy pushing Frodo's buttons
from afar, so they could get him to drop the ring in the mountain of
doom and create the first stabilized cold-fusion reaction. That whole
"Force" thing? Just carefully redirected hydropheremones from the cold
fusion experiment, which pushes back entropy, but has the unwelcome side
effect of polarizing certain personalities into "Good" or "Bad." Yoda
chuckles.
R.L.
Having alignment-specific magic available can raise the stakes on personal
responsibiity. EG Galadriel.
R.L.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> Remus Shepherd wrote:
>>> Hmmn. I disagree. Yes, having magic work via
>>> fixed, arbitrary rules
>>> turns it into a technology, but to me that turns a
>>> story into a form of bad science fiction. Magic
>>> should be unknowable, but it should follow rules
>>> that the reader understands subconsciously. Never
>>> state the rules -- have the reader already know what
>>> they are.
>
> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
>> (A) this makes no sense. If it's unknowable, the
>> reader can't know rules, even subconsciously.
>
> Makes perfect sense to me. Magic derives from magical
> thinking.
Magical thinking follows rules. Not the ones we use for physical
phenomena, but rules that make sense within their context, and rules
that -- if they were actually real, which in a magical universe they
would be -- produce consistent and reliable results.
James A. Donald
But no one can state the rules, even though everyone is apt to think
magically in much the same way.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> On Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:11:03 -0500, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E.
> Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote in
> <news:hdi86o$im0$1...@news.eternal-september.org> in
> rec.arts.sf.composition:
>
>> Remus Shepherd wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>>> The magic I am talking about does not obey the 'reliable'
>>> clause up there.
>
>> Give me an example in literature. Preferably a well-known
>> one, because I can't think of ANY.
>
> One example of *reliably* unreliable magic occurs to me:
> Edward Eager's _Half Magic_.
DEADLY reliable, worked by trivially derivable rules -- ones that the
children figured out very well.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
Better luck? You're saying "break a leg"?
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
I recall Scientific American having an article that DID derive many of
the "magical thinking" rules.
You CAN state the rules for a lot of "magical thinking", at least the
sort I've encountered. Often the person themselves can state the rule,
because they THINK that way because they believe the magical rules are REAL.
Alma Hromic Deckert
<sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
OOooh. You might call that a joint pun...
R.L.
For a more organic rationale, I've heard of cars that have some sort of
breathalizer meter built into the steering wheel: too much alcohol and it
won't start. Expand that to adrenalin, anger, living on the polemic....
R.L.
Peter Knutsen
> Eric Ammadon wrote:
>> know already, or did you just invent it?
>
> Perhaps it would be easier to think of it as a password. Oh noes! I
> have picked up my husband's palmtop and I cannot make it work! Is it
> keyed only to his magical aura or something? No, I just need the password.
I'd imagine that in most cases "alignment" is what one is, internally.
It's not a password, although it may be fakeable, e.g. by a superb
method actor with massive external knowledge (from observation) of the
alignment he's trying to fake the magic item into believing he has.
--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org
Peter Knutsen
> Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> No, he wasn't an Ainu -- specifically, he was not a Vala, those
>> Ainur who descended into Arda on its creation -- he was a Maia.
>
> Maiar are generally reckoned among the Ainur.
ISTR that that is correct, yes. Ainor divide into Valar and Maiar, and
the Valar in turn divide into two roughly evenly sized groups, one of
which is noticably more powerful than the other, but I can't remember
what the more powerful group was called; I don't think the less powerful
group had a name.
--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org
R.L.
That could be helpful if he's trying to fake an Evil or Chaotic alignment.
R.L.
David Goldfarb
>at all without some particular trinket.
The "Liavek" shared-world series comes close: in order to be a wizard,
you have to focus your magic into some one item. Until you do that,
you can only practice magic once per year, on your birthday, during
the time that your mother was in labor with you. (And afterwards, you
have to re-focus every year, leaving you vulnerable -- so wizards try
to keep secret what day is their birthday.) Once you have focused your
magic, you can do spells while you have your focus, but if you lose it
you lose all your powers.
--
David Goldfarb | "You do it. I'm bitter."
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu |
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | -- MST3K
David Goldfarb
Suzanne Blom <sue...@execpc.com> wrote:
>Somebody who is
>highly proficient in the language can nonetheless make statements that they
>believe that are not so.
One that springs readily to my mind: William December Starr, over on
rasfw, recently asserted that the words "thing" and "their" began
with the same sound.
--
David Goldfarb |"You realize you're insane, don't you?"
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | "*hahahaha*. Don't change the subject."
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | -- _Zot!_ #3
David Goldfarb
Okay, I just went and read the section of _The Silmarillion_ called
"Valaquenta". The Valar are divided into Valar and Valier, but the
division is by sex not by strength -- Valar are male, Valier female.
Dorothy is in fact misremembering, btw; "Ainur" is a blanket term
for all those beings whom Eru created before the world and who helped
sing it into existence. Those Ainur who entered Arda after its creation
became the Valar and Maiar (*there* the distinction is of strength).
--
David Goldfarb |"Given enough time and the right audience,
gold...@ocf.berkeley.edu | the darkest of secrets scum over into
gold...@csua.berkeley.edu | mere curiosities."
| -- Neil Gaiman, _Sandman_ #53
Eric Ammadon
>Eric Ammadon wrote:
>> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Eric Ammadon wrote:
>>>> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>> "Alignment-specific" is a new term for me. Is it something I ought to
>>>>>> know already, or did you just invent it?
>>>>> It originated in roleplaying games, specifically Dungeons and Dragons,
>>>>> where the moral compass was effectively literal and had two axes: Lawful
>>>>> -- Chaotic and Good -- Evil. So you had alignments that ranged from
>>>>> Lawful Good to Chaotic Evil and everything in between -- Neutral Good,
>>>>> Chaotic Good, True Neutral, Lawful Evil, etc. It has since been used in
>>>>> many other RPGs (and discarded by others as a childish and clumsy
>>>>> mechanic, but that's a whole different can of worms) and in some
>>>>> computer RPGs as well.
>>>> Ah, thanks. I lost interest in video gaming at the Mario Bros level
>>>> mostly because I have more interesting things to do with computers,
>>>> but partly because I'm a spaz.
>>> Alignment originated in REAL RPGs, not video, though.
>>
>> Huh. I don't think I ever played one of those that was upfront. This
>> modern stuff makes my head hurt when I think about it. I'm afraid I
>> don't understand what a "real rpg" is and why anyone would want to
>> play one.
>
> Ever play pretend games as a kid? Where you were Superman, or a
>fireman, or a lion, or some character from TV?
Not that I remember. Who knows what lurks...
> A real RPG basically does
>that, except there's rules to prevent the kid's classic argument of "I
>gotcha!" "No ya din't!" "Did too!"
I'd just as soon sit in front of the tube eating pork rinds and
drinking lite beer (lol). Each to his own. <g>
--
arggh, is it priate day again?
Eric Ammadon
>In article <4innf5hsb57n4npc8...@4ax.com>,
> Eric Ammadon <n...@spam.thankee> wrote:
>
>> I guess what I'm
>> trying to get at is that if a wand's power didn't originate from the
>> powers of some human, it's just technology. Granted an individual may
>> develop great skill at shooting a gun, but without the gun the skill
>> is useless, and the gun is just technology, it ain't magic. Take the
>> wand away from a great mage and you haven't truly decreased his powers
>> unless he's allowed himself to become dependent on it. Take the
>> amulet from an apprentice mage and you've decreased his/her powers but
>> talent may grow to overcome that. Give a child a gun, and you have an
>> untrained undisciplined hazard; it seems that magic should require a
>> bit more than a gun.
>
>Its power might come from some natural source.
>
>Central to _Salamander_ is--the Salamander. It's the (unique) fire
>elemental on which all fire magic, indeed all fire, is in some sense
>based. Magical theory suggests that the sun ought to have burned out
>long ago, and the conjectural explanation of why it hasn't is that it is
>being fed power from the Salamander.
>
>The Salamander certainly did not originate from the powers of a human.
>But a sufficiently competent, powerful, and courageous mage can--one
>did--somehow come to an "understanding" with the Salamander. My scare
>quotes are because the Salamander is something between a conscious being
>and a force of nature, so the description of the relationship is
>necessarily a simplification. The result is that the mage has access to
>the Salamander's fire--which is, in principle, infinite in quantity,
>although there are limits to how much the mage can channel.
>
>Creating the relationship is likely to get you killed, and using it is
>also risky, depending on the mage's will power being sufficient to
>resist the temptation of increasing pleasure from the flow of
>fire--which at a sufficiently high level will kill him.
>
>I think that feels like magic, not like technology.
It seems like a gray area... one could claim it to be a matter of
technology, or a matter of magic, and make either one stick if the
right words were spun. The question of the Salamander's sentience
might come into play, and its reach -- whether it's "omnipotent" or
limited, how limited, its morality if it has one, etc. You might
learn that its aspect as a "fire elemental" is only the tip of it.
Because it's between sentience and natural-force, magic deriving from
it could be considered to be very much like powers derived from a mage
of great power thus entirely "magical", though its closeness to being
a natural force could justify the classification of techniques for
working with it as "technology".
(I have btw come to a similar "understanding" with gravity, I don't
jump off cliffs and it doesn splatter me on rocks, but that seems like
basic technology.)
Eric Ammadon
>Perhaps it would be easier to think of it as a password. Oh noes! I
>have picked up my husband's palmtop and I cannot make it work! Is it
>keyed only to his magical aura or something? No, I just need the password.
I dunno, to me passwords are tech and it's understandings that grant
access to magic. Maybe understandings could be described mechanically
though, for example as a fractal. Have you read "Cyber Way" by Alan
Dean Foster?
Eric Ammadon
>"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>> Remus Shepherd wrote:
>> > What makes a great work of art? You can talk about composition, shading,
>> > subject matter, and all of that. But eventually it's going to come down to
>> > some unexplainable vision originating with the artist. He can't relay to you
>> > exactly how he did it -- the artwork itself is his best attempt to relay it
>> > at all.
>
>> Art, however, AS A PHYSICAL PHENOMENON, is understood, easily
>> reproducible, according to very much known laws.
>
> That's what makes magic magic. It's a subjective, mysterious thing that
>creates physical effects.
>
> If it's a well-understood, deterministic phenomenon then it's just another
>kind of science. I like known science enough to not want to see an author
>inventing a new science out of nothing.
>
>> If magic produces physical effects and does so reliably enough that
>> it can be used usefully,
>
> The magic I am talking about does not obey the 'reliable' clause up there.
>
>> > Magic, in my opinion, should be art, not science. Art has rules that we
>> > do not understand and has effects on people that we cannot explain.
>> Actually, we have learned quite a number of rules that tell us what
>> approaches "work" in various types of art -- what proportions tend to be
>> perceived as more pleasing, etc.
>
> It was the best analogy I could come up with on short notice. :)
>*Everything* we have in our universe is explainable.
Sure, explanations are cheap and readily available, but some cannot be
proven or disproven, and those are ready pickins for authorial
speculation.
> There aren't any
>ineffable forces in the real world for me to point to as a better example.
Well yeah, maybe there are, but they can be explained away through the
application of handy dogma, so they might as well not exist except for
any usefulness inherent to accepting them sans concrete provability...
which might be a way to describe certain types of magic.
>Subjective human experiences are the closest thing to magic -- and I think
>there's a reason for that. We are, after all, trying to evoke a
>subjective response in our readers.
>
> But you bring up a good point. We know some of the rules of art well
>enough that anybody can create something that's at least basically pleasing.
>The analogy with magic would be the hedge spell, or the cantrip. There may
>be simple tricks that are reliable enough that anyone can do them, without
>understanding how it works or why. High magic, however, is like high art --
>it takes a master's effort, it is not reliably successful, and when it
>fails it can fail spectacularly.
>
>> > Magic doesn't have to be reproducible. In fact, often it should not be.
>> Why, and how, would anyone try to study magic?
>
> Three reasons.
>
> One, you might not know any better. Lots of story potential there.
>Example: Mickey Mouse in Fantasia.
>
> Two, you might not care. Maybe you think that you can master it, or you
>know there's going to be a price but you're willing to pay anything to get
>what you want. In the real world, economics is not well understood, but that
>doesn't stop people from being greedy or deluded enough to try and master it.
>Examples: The early part of Full Metal Alchemist (yes, their 'magic' had
>rules, but they didn't understand those rules properly, and their alchemy was
>dangerously unstable.) Faust. Elric of Melnibone (or, better yet, the rest
>of the Melniboneans -- Elric had something like a conscience.)
>
> Three, you might not have a choice. If you have the Gift, then the magic
>is within you, and you either need to master it or you will die. Examples:
>Gandalf (he was Ainur, so magic was part of who he was, he had no choice but
>to use it). Merlin, same thing. Harry Potter. Everyone in Xanth.
You don't always have to die, sometimes you can just live in a hell of
misfortunate ineptitude for the rest of your natural lifespan. <g>
> The question of why anyone would use a dangerous, unreliable source
>of power should be at the core of any story about magic, IMHO.
Absolutely, though it might not need to be explicitly stated.
> Putting
>magic in a story as part of the backdrop for an unrelated tale is another
>thing I don't like to see...but that's a different rant. :)
>
>... ...
>Remus Shepherd <re...@panix.com>
> Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/remus_shepherd/
Eric Ammadon
>On Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:51:22 +0000 (UTC), Remus Shepherd
><re...@panix.com> wrote in
><news:hdhsga$lec$1...@reader1.panix.com> in
>rec.arts.sf.composition:
>
>> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>
>[...]
>
>>> If magic produces physical effects and does so reliably
>>> enough that it can be used usefully,
>
>> The magic I am talking about does not obey the 'reliable'
>> clause up there.
>
>Then either it's not really very interesting, or you're
>reading too much into 'reliably enough so that it can be
>used usefully'.
>
>[...]
>
>Brian
Unreliability can itself be useful, for example subtle unreliabilities
in the way magic works can hint to subtler truths not yet understood,
just as inexplicable deviations from a reliable orbit can hint at
previously undetected masses.
Eric Ammadon
>On Nov 12, 2:42�pm, Eric Ammadon <n...@spam.thankee> wrote:
>> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> >David Friedman wrote:
>> >> In article <hdhdec$53...@news.eternal-september.org>,
>> >> �"Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>
>> >>> Magic should be unknowable, but it should follow rules
>> >>>> that the reader understands subconsciously. �Never state the rules -- have
>> >>>> the reader already know what they are.
>> >>> � �(A) this makes no sense. If it's unknowable, the reader can't know
>> >>> rules, even subconsciously.
>>
>> >>> � �(B) If it has no rules which can, eventually, be derived, it's neither
>> >>> going to be teachable, nor reproducible.
>>
>> >> I don't think this is correct in general. Consider, as a counterexample,
>> >> language.
>>
>> >> A native speaker of a language has learned a very complicated set of
>> >> rules, can follow them, can detect violations. But in most cases he
>> >> doesn't know the rules�could not explain why one way of saying things is
>> >> right, another is wrong. The same is true for most good writers or
>> >> speakers. One can be able to write an effective paragraph, or a good
>> >> sonnet, but have no idea how one would program a computer to do the same
>> >> thing, hence no clear idea of what the process is that you are
>> >> competently using to create.
>>
>> >> It's true that, at least in the former case, there are rules which can
>> >> be derived--but the fact that it is possible for a linguist to figure
>> >> out the rules isn't essential in order for a speaker to learn them.
>>
>> > � �It is however essential for there to BE rules in order for language to
>> >be usable.
>>
>> I wish I could remember the name of that old Star Trek episode where
>> they ran into a planet where people communicated by stating the name
>> of an incident that was an analog representing their thought. �It was
>> something like "Foofoo at Blahblah". �I'm not sure their language had
>> rules. �Or if it could truly be considered a "language" by we on this
>> planet who have many intent-oriented verbal mechanisms.
>>
>
>I thought the episode was just titled "Darmok." They spoke, as you
>say, by analogy to incidents in their history. "Shaka, when the walls
>fell" was one. There may have been "prom night, when I threw up on
>Alice," but I think I made that one up. It was one of the best Next
>Generation episodes, in my opinion.
That's the one. I hadn't recalled it as being NG but don't doubt that
one way or another.
> Also in my opinion, I thought the
>best episodes of the old show were better but the average episode of
>TNG was better than the average old show.
I think both had some good and some bad, but ohmygawd the one where
Kirk wrassled the lizard-guy was pretty awful.
I will not mention obviously-cardboard boulders or hokey
blinkeylights, I just won't. <g>
Eric Ammadon
>Eric Ammadon wrote:
>> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>
>>> David Friedman wrote:
>>>> In article <hdhdec$53q$2...@news.eternal-september.org>,
> Dormok. One of the stupidest episodes ever, and given what Trek got up
>to, that's saying a lot.
Yeah, I'm gonna need you to get together with Will on that opinion,
and let me know who survives. <g>
> Such a language depends on there BEING another way to say that thing --
>something from which you can BUILD your references.
Yes, that seems quite true if you intend to present it to an
earth-human television audience. On the other hand if your race is
telepathic enough to swap around event identifiers but not more
discrete messages, it might just work.
Eric Ammadon
What constitues a language, and what doesn't, could be argued over
indefinitely. Entities exchange identifiers which have mutual
significance, but beyond that it gets real complicted real fast.
Eric Ammadon
>Eric Ammadon wrote:
>> "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)" <sea...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Magic with no rules breaks my WSOD.
>>
>> You might need a cast for a spell.
>>
>
> An all-star cast?
Plaster, maybe.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
Don't expect me to bend the knee to you!
Will in New Haven
> On Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:11:03 -0500, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E.
> Spoor)" <seaw...@sgeinc.invalid.com> wrote in
> <news:hdi86o$im0$1...@news.eternal-september.org> in
> rec.arts.sf.composition:
>
> > Remus Shepherd wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >> clause up there.
> > one, because I can't think of ANY.
>
> One example of *reliably* unreliable magic occurs to me:
> which a given *individual* has unreliable magic -- e.g.,
> Camille D'Artigo in Yasmine Galenorn's Otherworld series,
> who labors under the handicap of being only half Fae. Then
> there's Ilona Andrews's world in which magic 'comes in
> waves, without warning, and vanishes as suddenly as it
> appears. When magic is up, planes drop out of the sky, cars
> stall, electricity dies. When magic is down, guns work and
> spells fail.'
That is very reminiscent of the situation in the border area in the
Bordertown series. You have to put "spell-boxes" on your electic
insturments for when the electricity fails and you have mundane
electrical power running them if it's working. If you are cruising
along on a motorcycle, depending on its mundane engine, you may
suddenly have no power. However, if you have a spell rigged up to run
your motorcycle, you can easily run into a situation where it doesn't
work. Some people, maybe most, who use bikes have both mundane and
spell power. There are some loonatics who ride spell-powered bikes
_without wheels_ and they crash really badly when they hit a magical
"pothole."
So a guy with a fire-shooting want would have it all over a guy with a
handgun on the days his want worked and the handgun didn't but the
opposite would be true on, say, Tuesday. On the other hand, low-tech
always works and having a bow or a spring-fired dartthrower means you
are never unarmed, only outgunned by people whose better stuff happens
to be working.
--
Will in New Haven
>
> But I don't think that any of this is what Remus has in
> mind.
>
> [...]
>
> Brian
Will in New Haven
I could have _told_ him it's like trying to tell a stranger about rock
'n roll.
Remus Shepherd
> Remus Shepherd <re...@panix.com> wrote:
> >Gandalf (he was Ainur, so magic was part of who he was, he had no choice but
> No, he wasn't an Ainu -- specifically, he was not a Vala, those
> Ainur who descended into Arda on its creation -- he was a Maia.
I'm not that knowledgeable in the Tolkein mythos; I only remembered that
Gandalf wasn't human. I had to go to Wikipedia to name his race. Sorry
if I got that wrong.
Remus Shepherd
> >> that it can be used usefully,
> > there.
> Give me an example in literature. Preferably a well-known one,
> because I can't think of ANY.
The Djinni of the lamp -- you get a wish, but you never know how it's
really going to work out. Rincewind -- did the spells he cast *ever* do
what he wanted them to do? Bink in Xanth has a power that causes random
things to happen. Magic in the _Wheel of Time_ series has bizarre and
deadly side effects. Every story of every magical apprentice ever has them
doing something they didn't intend to do. It's a classic trope that magic
is unpredictable. In my mind it's the trope that the definition of magic
should be hung upon.
> > In the real world, economics is not well understood, but that
> > doesn't stop people from being greedy or deluded enough to try and master
> > it.
> But it still obeys rules.
Now we're getting into an odd semantic argument. Is there a difference
between a system that does not obey strict rules, and a system that obeys
rules that are strict but unknowable? I do not feel there is a difference
there, especially for storytelling purposes.
> > Examples: The early part of Full Metal Alchemist (yes, their 'magic' had
> > rules, but they didn't understand those rules properly, and their alchemy was
> > dangerously unstable.)
> But it has rules, very VERY clear rules. That is, in fact, a world
> that's the ANTITHESIS of your idea.
Agreed. That's why I limited the example to the early part of the story,
when they didn't understand the rules.
> > Faust.
> Follows rules.
The Devil's rules, which Faust doesn't understand (although he believed
that he did.)
> > Three, you might not have a choice. If you have the Gift, then the magic
> > is within you, and you either need to master it or you will die. Examples:
> > Gandalf (he was Ainur, so magic was part of who he was, he had no choice but
> > to use it). Merlin, same thing. Harry Potter. Everyone in Xanth.
> Of those that I know enough to state, there's rules governing them.
I was giving examples of people who had no choice but to study magic.
Gandalf and Merlin had very reliable magic, but then they had studied it well.
Potter's magic was unpredictable in the beginning, before he went to school
and for some time after. Xanth magic follows rules but can be capricious
and unpredictable at times. (I've only read the first few Xanth books; I
have no idea where the series went after Anthony lost his mind.)
I'm just saying that I prefer magic that isn't treated like science.
Even real-world magical belief doesn't have strict, knowable rules. Hermetic
magic operates via arcane ritual, but its effects depend on things that the
magician cannot control, like the position of the stars and the current
temperment of whatever god you're invoking. Pagan magic derives from emotion
and is notoriously unpredictable. And Chaos magic...well, yeah. Magic
doesn't always follow rules. I assume that fantasy authors force rules
upon it to make it a more accessible form of wish fulfillment, but I think
that stories with untameable magic are much more interesting.