Apparently because Tolkien understood Clarkean logic (‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’) he’s an idiot according to the anti-science anons in this thread
Are modern day fantasists just dumber than those from before?
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Please make 5 more threads for this moronic non-debate. I think we could keep it going until 2025 if every thread spawns 2 more. Make sure not to talk about Traditional Games at any point, though. That'll just slow us down.
I'm actually happy with this clusterfrick.
Say what you want about whether or not it pisses you off, but at least its better than just soullessly posting in a bunch of dead generals ad nauseum. At least I kind of care about what's happening here for once.
>At least I kind of care about what's happening here for once.
If you care about this, you're pathetic
Then why are you:
>Here?
>Getting all pissy?
You clearly care more than I do, you're just asshurt instead of enjoying yourself.
nah not really. People always over estimate the effort it takes to tell a random person to kill themselves or that they're a moron because it makes them feel better but dude I'm using the same effort to post this as it takes to drop a turd.
Okay?
Getting defensive and trying to justify yourself is pretty transparent. I can't argue with you about what's going on in your own mind, just know from an outside perspective it seems pretty clear that you're invested enough in the conversation to get asshurt about it.
Who cares about the perspective of a troony tho. You guys always seethe over everything to the point that y'all have a 41% suicide rate
Whatever you say.
I'm literally only responding to your posts when I'm taking a shit. Are you shitting?
I don't need to be butt hurt or engaged or even annoyed to tell you it's pathetic to care about this thread. There's no reason for me to assert anything other than that.
There isn't even enough here to be called a thread with a purpose, it is a meta argument winding down multiple threads. Lower even than the HYTNPDND bait threads.
I can't wait for thread 5 on this that gets a single bump every 4 hours and thus hovers on the edge of oblivion for a week like this one will.
Go somewhere else then you fricking cretin
/tg/ is unforgivably stupid now, please don’t lose sleep over it 🙁
Only go to /tg/ if it's for Star Wars and Battletech.
>now
Bro it was always midwit central
Yeah but it used to be fun midwit central. Now it's bitter b***hy idpol infested tiktok topic of the week bullshit midwit central.
It isn't a matter of lower intelligence, but of a few disagreements on foundations. You've got the Wondergays who essentially invert Clark's position by saying any insufficiently understood technology is magic, you've got the scientism cultists behind this spat of threads who think science is the foundational process rather than the process of describing natural laws, you've got the autistic amateur epistomologists obsessively trying to hammer home the limits of empiricism, you've got the etymology spergs who insist that the words' meanings are static across millennia and occasionally that the translation convention is the real meaning...
I personally favor magic being defined by running on a different way of knowing, such as being a practical field to implement rationalism where sitting in a room thinking about things is in fact a useful way to progress and the "experiments" are just making sure you didn't miss any biases or fallacies.
I don't give a frick if magic is science or not, some things in a story should remain mysteries.
Good post.
science is when you do stuff with electricity and guns and lab coats
magic is when you do stuff by waving your hands around and chanting
I am 100% right
literally all posts in this thread after this line are made by GPT bots or extremely gay morons:
-------------------------------------
Science is when you write code you understand
Magic is when the cult mechanicus repeats the code, in its compiled binary form, without knowing anything about how it works other that it does a thing
As language model trained on the autobiographies and twitter accounts of homosexuals with an IQ below 60, I am incapable of giving a complete opinion on the magic systems of JRR Tolkein.
I will default to "making happy noises" and "just liking to see good TV".
I hope this answer is sufficient!
>or extremely gay morons:
you called?
Science is when you have a teachable theory on the basis of which you describe and manipulate the universe.
Magic is when whatever you do just works because you're the only male your universe who is physically capable of having penetrative sex with a woman.
Yeah. No.
Mr Fantastic is sci because he got his powers from space radiation and shit, and Doctor Strange is magic because he got his powers from monks and meditation and shit
behold, magic!
>wave a plastic flipper around
>beep beep
>"okay, we get to strip you naked now"
do people really believe this shit?
Wait a second...
>One side waves wands around to scry you before casting lightning bolt with their tasers
>The other side waves their hands around while screaming and then explodes
Are TSA agents and Terrorists actually just wizards having a duel?
nah, chanting and handwaving magic is amateur magic, real magic doesn't need that shit
>yet another "/tg/ is one person" thread
Consider roping yourself op.
I'm right everyone else is wrong
Tolkien IS an idiot, moron.
no u
I'm going to post this again since this topic is just the same people shouting past each other so when in Rome
To grasp magic you need the same type of mindset as a Christian with the Trinity
That is God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy spirit are at once the same being, three independent beings, equal with each other, and that God the Father is above the other two And that their is no greater insight to uncover on this front, no secret of God to find/
This is a core tenant of christian theology and its one that you just need to internalize and accept despite the fact that it breaks every set of logical definitions and in believing it forms a key basis for Faith You cannot effectively use the scientific method without repeated outcomes to gauge and for a hypothesis for
Fricking KILL SIX BILLION DEMONS grasps this perfectly
YS ATUN VRAMA PRESH-
-THE SEVEN SYLLABLES OF ROYALTY-
1. YISUN said: let there not be a genesis, for beginnings are false and I am a consummate liar.
2. The full of it is this – the circular suicide of God is the perfection of matter.
3. YISUN lied once and said they had nine hundred and ninety nine thousand names. This is true, but it is also a barefaced lie. The true name of God is I.
4. Living is an exercise of violence. Exercise of violence is the fate of living
5. Violence is circular. Perception is not circular and lacks flawlessness- therefore, rejoice in imperfect things, for their rareness is not lacking!
6. Love of self is the true exercise of the God called I.
7. Only an idiot cannot place his absolute certainty in paradoxes. The divine suicide is a perfect paradox. A man cannot exist without paradox – that is the full of it.
Once you start expanding past this point into alternate science where the Wizard does have a secret power supply or can alter the fabric of the universe than it becomes a decision of choosing the aesthetic and tone which is associated with magic over the aesthetic and tone associated with science
reminds me of the thing about an omnipotent god creating a stone so heavy he himself can't lift it, he simultaneously creates such a stone and also lifts it anyway despite it being unliftable because omnipotence takes precedence over mundane logic
If he lifts the stone, than he can do that and therefore fail in creating a stone he cant lift
the whole argument is nonsensical and only shows how moronic and selfcontradictory the concept omnipotence is
or the stone simply becomes liftable when he wants it to be
absurdist logic, an omnipotent God would never be able to create a stone so heavy it cant lift it
>If he lifts the stone, than he can do that and therefore fail in creating a stone he cant lift
false, you failed to grasp it, try again
or maybe recursion will help you understand it better: he creates the stone that is unliftable including by him, he lifts it anyway, and the stone in the end is still unliftable despite that, and despite that unliftability he is lifting it, and the stone is still unliftable, and so on
>an omnipotent god can't do X
lmao, no
it's not absurdist logic, it's an area where standard logic is not in charge in the first place, as i said in the post you responded to
>Creates stone
>Lift it
that mean he is able to lift the stone, therefore failing to create a stone he can't lift
if the stone is lifted, it can't be unliftable by definition
you are just failing to understand basic logic and how the concept of omnipotence is self-contradictory
the description is not omniscient, which is attributed to a creator god
>that mean he is able to lift the stone, therefore failing to create a stone he can't lift
nope, he just lifts the stone he can't lift, simultaneously satisfying both the unlfitability of the stone and being able to lift it, both of those are true at the same time because an omnipotent being can give precedence to his acts to the extent that even mundane logic has to bow out
this is unrelated to the argument so i guess i can give it a shrug and "okay, anyway..."
no, its completely relevant. God isnt a man
yes, but that doesn't matter
it does matter.
which moron bible is this because God had no physical description besides bei
..ing shrouded in the darkness of a storm
it's irrelevant to the discussion because what i'm talking about is omnipotence generically, not anything to do with the theology of any specific religion, what you're doing is at best trying to change the subject to apparently christianity
God is omniscient and omnipotent, part of the universe and outside it.
Your argument is moronic
i'd say it's a lot more moronic to try to use your non-argument there as if it were an argument
you are actually moronic, stfu you subhuman fricking c**t
i accept your concession i guess, have a nice day
run away bleeding out of your homosexual butthole you idiot loser
>anon claims the bible saus god has a ohysical description (he doesnt) lying and referring to the christian bible
>anon counters referring to the hebrew bible
>baww you are christian
The omniscience of a God has nothing to do with your christgay hate
i haven't said a single thing about the bible, christianity, or judaism, other than to explicitly say they don't matter to what i'm talking about, they're just what you're trying to change the topic to
the hebrew bible is part of the christian bible anon
you should go back to sunday school
you mean the christian bible that edits the entire thing
Im not a christian you mentally ill subhuman spastic
Anon, the christian bible don't really changes the text of the OT books
yes it did imbecile
it didn't change the letter of the text and the story I reference is the same both in the christian bible and in the torah
you should try read those books someday
entire parts are missing or mistranslated you dunce
you are wrong, but again that doesn't matter as the storie I referent is present both on the christian bible and in the torah, and is identical in both books
you should try reading someday
no it isnt you lying christgay. Judaism came first not christianity
No thats just your new strawman. Thats right homosexual, magic bypasses causality.
You used a strawman, baking bread. Thats not magic,
Making bread appear out of thin air, thats magic and defies causality.
You dob't know what cause and effect is and if you reverse cause and effect you are doing magic
>Judaism came first not christianity
I know, and the story of how the name 'Israles' came to be is the same in both religions
>on their own they're just data
they are the data predicted by the theory
>they are the data predicted by the theory
yes, that's what "verify" means
since you may need it to be spelled out more clearly, the theory is built by inputting the data into a logical framework, so it's an example of logic in action, not a counterexample to it
ok what is it?
>I know, and the story of how the name 'Israles' came to be is the same in both religions
>No thats just your new strawman
For it to be a strawman, I'd need to be misrepresenting your argument.
I'm literally telling you what my argument is.
>if you reverse cause and effect you are doing magic
Making bread appear out of thin air wouldn't be a reverse of cause and effect though. If you snap your fingers and bread appears, there's a cause leading to an effect. If bread randomly appears, then you have an effect without a cause.
More to the point, we don't see elves in Lord of the Rings making bread appear out of thin air. What we do see is elves who have bread that the hobbits would consider magical that doesn't exist in real life.
If you'd like to explain what how you think cause and effect fails to apply to what the elves do, then I'm all ears.
Yes it would be you mentally moronic imbecile.
Making bread out of thin air is bypassing the first step of preparing baking the bread.
C'mon now kid you are clearly not bright.
>Making bread out of thin air is bypassing the first step of preparing baking the bread.
Oh, you mean like where I said right here
>If bread randomly appears, then you have an effect without a cause.
Or are you having trouble reading again? I know it's very hard for you given how many posts you failed to even understand the argument being made.,
An effect without a cause is not the same thing as there being a reverse. The reverse would be an effect and then a cause, where the bread randomly appears and then you go through the steps to bake it.
Are you having problems with the basics of cause and effect now as well?
c'mon moron, you clearly are trying to argue above your intellectual level. You don't know what causality is.
Trying to bluff your way through this thread isnt working. Thats why you are being called moronic over and over.
Just stop you autistic idiot
>back to no arguments
Concession accepted, yet again.
>back to being moronic again
if you snap your fingers and bread appears there is no physical production of bread by you.
You created mass out of nothing, energy out of nothing etc.
That isn't causality. Causality would be i snapped my fingers and a waiter brought me bread, thats the cause.
Getting the desired effect without the cause is pretty much what magic is.
Scientists have tried to get around it but so far they cant.
In a world where snapping your fingers creates bread, it would be the cause.
But some people in that world probably wouldn't consider it magic if they could do such a thing, because to them it would be normal. Even if to us, people looking into such a setting from the outside, it would be magic.
That's kind of the whole point behind bringing up elves from LotR in this context. Elves can casually do things that other people consider magic, even if the elves themselves don't consider it magic.
no it wouldn't be the cause because how was the bread made? where did it come from? what was the steps to get the bread.
There is none. Its reverse order of what would normally would happen.
You are trying to argue but you just dont understand things, you are an idiot
>what was the steps to get the bread.
Step 1) Snap Fingers
Result: Bread
The fact it's a shorter process that doesn't exist in real life is what makes it magic.
Exactly.
For something to ignore causality, there can't be any cause like somebody snapping their fingers. The bread just has to appear without anything that actually causes it.
Saying that skipping steps in the process is a violation of causality means that any technology that improves the efficiency of a process violates causality.
It's not ignoring causality to do the same thing with fewer steps.
>Saying that skipping steps in the process is a violation of causality means that any technology that improves the efficiency of a process violates causality.
Well, no, technology possibly changes the steps, but it doesn't skip them, they still get done.
>Well, no, technology possibly changes the steps, but it doesn't skip them, they still get done.
Any caveman would tell you that step 1 of making a fire is to gather wood.
A lighter skips that step.
A magician who can create a flame by extending their palm and saying some magic words skips even more steps, like needing a fuel source and a spark or ignition.
None of these violate causality, because they all do their own version of A to B. The 'A' in question is a variable number of steps that differ between each.
that violates causality, how was the heat made? what was the fuel, what ignited it, where dod it come from, how did the person not burn themselves.
You get the flame without the steps of making a fire thats effect before cause.
it violates conservation of mass and energy and thermodynamics if anything, however just as you don't talk about all of those things during the normal baking of bread and assume that they're taken care of in the background, the same can be done for spellcasting, sometimes with the inclusion of extra dimensions or other places to move the mass and energy to and from, while other times there is a genuine break with those physical axioms
put it this way, magic, is literally time travel, theres no such thing as time in actual fact. Causality is what actually exists. Things happening in sequence. If you can mess around with the sequence you are manipulating time.
If people itt can't understand causality they will never get this post.
even in time travel you can point out causality, there's just a different arrow of time than you're used to
another similar explanation for magic is parallel dimension interaction, but even then it's still causality even if the space where the cause comes from is different than usual
there's a bunch of magic systems where there is in fact no clear physical causality, even if there's some guy waving his hands somewhere to make a thing happen
you love ignoring what people say. Theres no such thing as time is the point.
So there is no direction besides reversing things which violates causality. Full stop.
>So there is no direction besides reversing things which violates causality.
Right, so as long as the mage brews a magic potion and then drinks it to get the result, causality hasn't been reversed nor violated.
Or to put it another way, flip the situation on its head.
Take an elf who is able to make bread by snapping his fingers, and grew up isolated, sheltered, and has never head of any other way to create bread before.
Then he is suddenly dropped into a bakery.
Does the elf suddenly accuse all of the bakers of violating causality, because none of the bakers are snapping their fingers at any point in the process? Or would it be obvious that the bakers are doing their own steps to get the result of bread, even if the elf doesn't understand how those steps allow the bread to get made?
Snapping fingers to make bread might violate the laws of thermodynamics and plenty of other things besides that, but causality wouldn't be one of them. Both the baker and the elf would understand that the other needs to perform an action in order to get the desired result.
>Does the elf suddenly accuse all of the bakers of violating causality, because none of the bakers are snapping their fingers at any point in the process?
if he has the same mindset as the average guy in a thread like this, yes
it seems like everyone here is trying to argue from a framework of understanding that feels comprehensive to them but limited to others
I'm trying to do my best to understand multiple frameworks. That's why things like how the elves consider their magic to not be magic is relevant to the argument, because how the elves view that framework in their own world helps to demonstrate that they see it as something that's reliable and understandable, even if it's left vague to the reader or isn't well understood by others within the world.
That's why I take issue with defining magic as violating causality. Something that violated causality could absolutely be magic, but that wouldn't imply that all magic is now lacking in cause and effect. Some sort of lengthy ritual to summon a demon can still be magic, even if it has 100 steps that need to be done in an exact order.
it only depends on how far outside of the usual frameworks you want to draw the line, which is pretty much where the conversation about standard logic earlier came from, and while that might seem difficult to get your head around, when you think about how a world like tolkien's works where spiritual forces can turn elves into super saiyans just by being around some spiritually profound trees five thousand years ago, it makes more sense
by which i mean, such a thing can be rooted in something other than the mind which functions by logic, as the example of spirit is supposed to imply
god damn you are the filthiest of pseuds just stfu already and get educated
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality
>That's why I take issue with defining magic as violating causality.
Again, pick up a book, read on the difference between an effective and a final cause. Magic is anything which effective cause cannot be fitted inside a materialist narrative.
>Magic is anything which effective cause cannot be fitted inside a materialist narrative.
Is an alchemist brewing a healing potion magic?
He's got ingredients, he's got a mixture, he's got a method. It's just far better results than any similar mixture in real life.
snapping fingers will never make bread, bread has multiple steps including applying heat for a chemical reaction.
That's what still makes it magic.
The caveman would ask the same questions of someone using a lighter. You got a flame without gathering wood, which any cavemant would tell you is the first step.
You would tell the caveman that you simply are able to get the same effect from a different cause.
The magician would tell you the same thing if you asked him.
Something is still being done to cause the effect. It's just a magical process that gets to violate other laws of physics like getting matter/energy from nothing.
there actually was a decent point in his thermodynamics and other physical laws of conservation oriented argument though, since those laws are in fact intimately linked to causality, if something were to break them you may still be able to point at a cause of some sort, but the explanation laws themselves is that all of the different matter and energy involved are going through convoluted but unbroken chains of causality to reach the final conclusion, but if you just somehow rip that away and "magically" create a different conclusion, it really does feel very distinct
It's obviously going to feel very distinct. It is magic after all.
But even if you do add sources and explanations to it, like saying that the form of the magician's flame comes from the platonic ideal of fire, or that the energy and combustion itself is sourced from an elemental plane of flames, would it really cease to be magic now that there's a better explanation behind the cause?
>The caveman not knowing doesn't make it magic
Nor did I say it did.
I said that the caveman would accuse you of getting a fire without going through the steps to create a fire. Just as you would accuse a magician of doing the same.
There is a cause and effect of all three, even if the third does things like violate thermodynamics.
yeah but that break in normal physical causality is specifically distinct
I would go back to the example of
If this fire magician isn't aware of the fact that fuel and friction create fire, and then is dropped in on a caveman lighting one with two sticks, wouldn't he also accuse the caveman of violating causality?
The mage would say that he has broken normal causality by failing to say any magic words.
Or better yet, imagine that prior to having his palm light on fire, the mage has to create a potion by carefully mixing a dozen special reagents in a particular order. Then once he drinks it, he can shoot flames for a while.
Is that no longer magic, because now there are physical causes involved in the process?
Pointing out that the magical example has a distinct cause from the two real-life examples merely highlights that the magic example has a very different cause. Not that it lacks or reverses it.
its not subjective, we know the lighter has fuel in it and can make a flame.
The caveman not knowing doesn't make it magic
causality is A to B
ignoring causality and you get B without A
Thats magic.
Thats as simple as it can be explained to you.
you are right, she is a woman
also it's not self-contradictory, it's contradictory to classic logic but not towards itself
Anon, you are just babbling nonsense and claiming special rules to save your paradoxical, self-contradictory baseless bullshit dogma
logic is not self-proving, therefore standard logic is already an example of special rules, so the rules of omnipotence aren't any more special than standard logic
except that logic can give verifiable results and testable statements
you have no idea of what you are talking
omnipotence is self contradictory, hurting your feefees or not, and there is no consistent logic capable of saving it
no it isnt
I dont know what you are trying to argue as you keep moving the goalposts and lying every tine you get caught out like an intellectually disabled jester. What exists in the LotR doesnt exist in our world.
>I dont know what you are trying to argue
Yes, that's what I've been trying to tell you, and yet instead of actually trying to clear up the misunderstanding when I tell you that you don't understand my argument, you've instead been doing everything in your power to avoid actually trying to grasp what is being said to you.
>What exists in the LotR doesnt exist in our world.
Exactly. Now go back to
and actually read it this time.
i understand your initial argument is
Magic in LotR isnt really magic because elves were confused by Hobbits being bewildered by their magical powers.
That its technology.
You are an idiot
>Magic in LotR isnt really magic because elves were confused by Hobbits being bewildered by their magical powers.
Ah, now we're getting somewhere. That isn't the argument I've been making.
If you want to know my specific initial argument, it's that someone upthread claimed elven magic bypasses causality. Except for elves, it's something so easy and reliable for them that they don't consider it magic.
In spite of the fact that it's objectively magic, the elves don't treat it as such. They treat it like something that they can do reliably. They can perform an action and receive an expected result. Very basic cause and effect.
That doesn't make it technology, but it also means it's a fairly predictable form of magic, at least for the elves who know how to use it.
Firstly you made the fedora mistake of thinking an omnipotent god is corporal and is physical like a man.
So that he'd even need to lift a heavy stone.
Omnipotent God translates into a metaphysical one. Its not physical
the bible states in multiple parts that god has a physical body, just check up how the name Israel came about or read genesis
>Omnipotent God translates into a metaphysical one. Its not physical.
I will mention that it is an issue at stake in recent metaphysics, following a quip from Husserl saying that God needs a body to exist, but its not a physical one, its a requirement for anything to enter in a relationship to something else, "body" means the subject end-point of the relationship and all its characteristics which determines the relationship.
God doesn't have a body, hes not like a greek god, God is above everything hence the point
“Did you know that science is everywhere? That there’s a process and explanation to everything?”
“Nuh uhh. Science is a thing not everything. You apply it.”
In just ten years the world has forgotten what science is. Imagine thinking man invented processes.
Science isn't everything, it's specifically a method we use to model physical reality. A tree can be explained by science. A tree is not science.
>A tree is not science
Everything in a tree (indeed, everything) has a process to it. Ergo, everything in a tree is science. Science is more definitive than descriptive. Fire burns. That’s a definitive fact. Science is everywhere. There’s science we haven’t even reached yet. The music of the spheres.
>Everything in a tree (indeed, everything) has a process to it.
What is the process of determination of the Three Foundational Rules of Logic?
What is the process of qualia mediatization within consciousness?
You have a magical view of science.
Science is a process. You DO science. There are no objects that ARE science.
The fact this needs to be said is frankly baffling. I can understand if you're taking the piss or talking poetically, but this is basic fricking grade school shit.
“Hey, Bill. What’s the science behind the erection of the penis?”
“Well, Fred. An erection begins with sensory and mental stimulation in your brain. Your brain sends messages to your penis via your nerves. Essentially, these messages tell the muscles of your corpora cavernosa—this contains the sponge-like material of the penis—to relax, allowing blood to flow in and fill the open spaces.”
Science is just as much about explaining processes as it is about repeating processes, to assess said processes. It’s all processes. Processes repeat. Repetition is *everywhere*.
Repeatability and math weren’t invented by man. They just weren’t.
Math alone is too “unreasonably effective” in the universe to be man-made. The universe is already eerie, in the sense that it may as well have been made by some hyper-alien mathematician.
Ed Witten explains this quite well:
> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1-Zl9o7I4Fo&pp=ygUiVW5yZWFzb25hYmxlIGVmZmVjdGl2ZW5lc3Mgb2YgbWF0aA%3D%3D
> The fact this needs to be said is frankly baffling. I can understand if you're taking the piss or talking poetically, but this is basic fricking grade school shit.
Your incapability of thinking interchangeably is frankly baffling. To the point where you resort to insults.
Sorry that figures like Einstein trigger you so much. There’s science we will never reach or understand. Processes we will never assess.
There is always a background to the foreground. So it is with causality. If you think science is only the foreground, I question your thinking.
Anyone who says that science isn’t repeatability itself are morons. Literally how else is science conducted? Fricking ingrates.
Einstein was an idiot and so are you lol
his thought lead us to nuclear power. You instead are only a parasite
The experiment that demonstrated that a nuclear reactor would work was just homies stacking uranium in a room, bruv. No mathematics required at all.
And none of this is a property of the object. Science is something you do, not something that is, and is sophisticated enough that it requires a complex actor that by all indications is relatively recent, cosmologically speaking.
Science requires repeatability, but they are not interchangeable as repeatability does not imply the other dependencies of science. Neither is the description and the thing itself interchangeable.
Additionally, the "unreasonable effectiveness" of math is no logical requirement, merely a baffling observation, as nobody's ever proven a theory contingent on the math being how things ACTUALLY work. In many cases, the "unreasonable effectiveness" has boiled down to nothing more than efficient deduction, which you'd expect of any systematic description.
>all food is cooking
>no it's all processes, so the food actively is cooking
>even when there isn't anything actually happening to the food at the moment, it still is cooking
I’ve already stopped caring. At this point your only use it making this thread smell slightly more stinky.
What would this thread smell of?
Cuisine/cooking is quite literally an applied science. Food degrades/expires over time, and sometimes this is how food is prepared/“cooked” (fermentation, acidity, etc).
An ass.
The point I was making is that the declaration that a thing is the process leading to it is nonsense. Science and cooking can describe how the completed cheese stored in the Wisconsin caves was made, but are in no way a property of the cheese itself.
Only some processes are science, and no object is a process. Your malformed reductions of science do not change that it is a much more complicated matter of empirical study that iterates towards more accurate descriptions. It actively RELIES on not being "The All-Encompassing Truth" like you frickwits make it out to be.
The Trinity is an autistic shit-test that only exists as a logical requirement of biblical literalism that wasn't quite the actual position of the Catholic Church, and allegory does not need to be exhaustively theologically accurate.
Being incapable of accessing the internal mechanisms of the magic does in fact make it unscientific, because science is a human process of learning, not an objective property of reality. There are in fact things we do by pure rote that nobody has taken the time to describe, and as science is that description it means that bikes are in no way scientific.
To say nothing of the magic being in a non-monist world where some portions are verifiably Rationalist in nature, throwing empirical study out as a whole let alone science in particular.
I didn't mention anything about accessing internal mechanics, I talk about multiple methods, and no if something can be done repeatedly it can be studied.
I also didn't said anything about science being an objectively property of reality.
I said that I reject you definition of magic as moronic and that it leads to bad narratives
Now you are difting in pure meaningless schizobable that at most is only applicable to your fanfics to force a phenomena to completely inconsistent for some moronic mysticism sake and than b***h about "muh materialism" when people disagree with your ideas
You are just making excuses for to make something unknowable, as you fetishize ignorance and can't stand people preferring setting were things can be understood and played with
>Muh Rationalism in nature
If you came to a conclusion of how something works through rationalism, you can still test if your rationale is right
Rationalism does not imply non-testable
You have no idea of most of the things you are talking about
>and no if something can be done repeatedly it can be studied.
Nothing precludes that you cannot study something that only happened once and that you do not have a way of repeating.
Non-linguistic beings do repeated acts all the time and yet do not study them, conceptualize them or build anything resembling knowledge or science.
Therefore repeatability is not sufficient or necessary for science.
>I didn't mention anything about accessing internal mechanics
Science covering magic requires it, on some level. Black-box but reliable magic can be useful for engineering, yet impenetrable to any pursuit of "why".
>You are just making excuses for to make something unknowable, as you fetishize ignorance and can't stand people preferring setting were things can be understood and played with
This is /tg/, not Ganker or /x/. Plug-and-play simulationist design as is needed to support this statement of yours makes this a goddamn nightmare even BEFORE the buttholes and morons start trying to use it to demand balance-ruining firearm efficiency. I am simply slamming the door in their face, you do not get to force me to spend hours devising a robust answer as to why even a handful of that bullshit doesn't work.
>Rationalism does not imply non-testable
I refer to the epistemological position of knowledge arising primarily from reason, rather than from observation. The point is that on that end of the world in question, there's no purpose to testing it because the raw reasoning is verifiably superior to the empirical methods of testing. This isn't even that hard when you have a poor state of statistics or manpower to parse the variance of practitioner imprecision into useful data.
>Science covering magic requires it
it doesn't, it only requires to be able to do it reliably
> yet impenetrable to any pursuit of "why"
it isn't, even if is a black box for whaterver moron reason you decide to pull of your ass, if it can be performed reliability, it can be experimented with
>This is /tg/, not Ganker or /x/.
and yet you are the one bringing up Ganker and /x/ shit to try making a game mechanic and setting element inconsistent for no reason, leading to shit games and shit narratives
>Plug-and-play simulationist design as is needed to support this statement of yours makes this a goddamn nightmare
there's no simulationist design implied in anything that i said
> I am simply slamming the door in their face,
no, you are b***hing that people don't like your fanfics
> you do not get to force me to spend hours devising a robust answer as to why even a handful of that bullshit doesn't work.
the mere reason you thing you need to come up to the detailed mechanics of how it works in universe already shows that you have no idea of what you are talking about
>I refer to the epistemological position of knowledge arising primarily from reason, rather than from observation.
and that changes nothing
> The point is that on that end of the world in question, there's no purpose to testing it because the raw reasoning is verifiably superior to the empirical methods of testing.
again, that changes nothing and only shows how you know nothing about what you are trying to talk about
> This isn't even that hard when you have a poor state of statistics or manpower to parse the variance of practitioner imprecision into useful data.
again, this only hold in the mudcore setting you use for you fanfics, it says nothing about the topic in general
>>all food is cooking
Wouldn't that still mean a wizard casting a spell is 'cooking', even if the reagents he used to cast the spell are only 'food' when they're not being used?
Or more specifically, even if you want to say that foods and reagents aren't science themselves, the fact that someone can take them and apply a process to them would still make the use of magical reagents into a science.
>Science is a process
Yes.
>You DO science
Yes.
>There are no objects that ARE science.
Processes are science. Everything is/has a process. Ergo, everything is science.
>Processes are science. Everything is/has a process. Ergo, everything is science.
Both the Major and Minor of this syllogism are false however.
the processes inside a tree aren't science, science is the process in your head you're using to understand the tree
why would all processes be science somehow? that's not what the word science means
(you)'s for the (you)'s throne
How are elves not magic though?
How is machinery not magic though?
Do you have permission to use my image?
Anon, you're not allowed to post that image, it is an NFT owned by an Tolkien fan!
>OP posts blatant bait in hopes of filling the void in his heart with (You)s
Tolkien isn't a moron but some of his fanboys are.
Another sperg thread, eh?
This entire conversation is pointless until somebody can actually come up with a functional way of implementing "nonscientific" magic into a tabletop game.
You can argue about the definitions all day, but are wondergays going to be satisfied by a magic system that is extremely rigorous in terms of cause/effect, but has a black box at some minor point in the process that prevents a full scientific theory?
If you want people to stop pointing out that magic systems for tabletop games operate based on rules and causality and function like technology, then you actually need to propose alternatives for how to avoid magic systems that work like that, rather than just suggesting that it'd be ideal if magic systems were more wonderous.
>You can argue about the definitions all day, but are wondergays going to be satisfied by a magic system that is extremely rigorous in terms of cause/effect, but has a black box at some minor point in the process that prevents a full scientific theory?
Call of Cthulhu already does it. You can just expand from there.
>Call of Cthulhu already does it.
Great, so simply saying that a magic system is mysterious and eldritch is sufficient.
Call of Cthulhu is a system where the primary methods of learning spells are either reading a spellbook or having someone else teach you. You literally make INT rolls in order to study and memorize it. You're learning eldritch secrets, but you are still learning how it works well enough to be able to cast the spell.
The spells in question being specific mechanical effects that the GM has access to. The GM might obscure that information, and a character's diminishing sanity would discourage experimenting with spells, but Call of Cthulhu has adventure paths where there are cults using spells as a business venture.
If this is what people were after for wonderous magic, the bar is far lower than I expected.
>This entire conversation is pointless until somebody can actually come up with a functional way of implementing "nonscientific" magic into a tabletop game.
Magic that isn't spellcasting and that has a permanent effect that doesn't fit with our intuitions of how the world works at all.
Every character in the setting starts off with +5 to Strength (or whatever). They lose this bonus the first time they tell a lie, and can never get it back.
If you stand in front of this full body mirror, your reflection escapes off to stage right, and all mirrors no longer display your image. Your reflection will occasionally appear in a mirror, somewhere. While in the mirror, it will act like an annoying twat, flashing, doing bunny-ears, etc. It still can't affect the physical world, nor can the physical world affect it. If you die it dies too, and the corpse stays in the mirror that it died in until it rots.
Arthur K/Goblin Punch has lots of things like this. They're cool.
So you're just saying "DM bullshits random shit happening"
Thats not a very compelling game.
I didn't say random shit at all. Neither of those things are random. There is literally no random component to either of them.
You could put in the core book exactly what they do and describe it in rigorous detail. The fact that it doesn't appear on your character sheet as a spell doesn't change that. Players can interact with them in a meaningful, predictable manner and use them to their advantage.
>Every character in the setting starts off with +5 to Strength (or whatever). They lose this bonus the first time they tell a lie, and can never get it back.
I don't know if I would classify an evil overlord cutting out the tongues of children in order to start a super-soldier program as particularly wonderous or non-scientific.
Are vampires wonderous for gaining superhuman strength but dying in sunlight? Because that feels like a very low bar.
Much of modern fantasy operates on an underlying assumption that the world is "our laws of physics, plus also dragons and wizards exist."
Vampires fit into this construct. "Lying costs you your inborn magical powers which everyone has at birth" does not fit into this construct, because it changes the assumed rules of the universe. Things like germ theory of disease are brought into most fantasy worlds and make it automatically feel more mundane. Breaking these assumptions make the world feel more alien and wondrous (see also the Pale from Disco Elysium). Perhaps if ten thousand slop games had been operating on the "the basic rules of reality are different" then it would no longer feel wondrous.
(Also, obviously lying in writing or by sign language would count for this magic effect too, so the evil overlord's minions would have to be unable to communicate.)
>obviously lying in writing or by sign language would count for this magic effect too
Right, so in addition to already having to deviate from what you stated, you also ignore that these super-soldiers don't need to be literate. The evil overlord can have other minions who are there to wrangle them and act as a mouthpiece for a squad.
>does not fit into this construct,
Plenty of modern fantasy has paladins losing their magical powers for failing to live up to a standard. Stating that everyone automatically starts as blessed as a Paladin isn't as big of a shake up as you're pretending it is.
>it changes the assumed rules of the universe
Like how getting bitten by something can make you immune to weapons that aren't covered in a specific material or make you burn to death in the sun? Or how dragons can actually fly rather than collapsing under their own weight?
If the only difference is that you've seen a bunch of fantasy settings where the evil overlord's army is orcs or zombies, while you haven't seen settings where the evil overlord's army is a bunch of illiterate slave soldiers whose tongues have been cut out, then it sounds more like what you're actually complaining about is things not being unique or original enough.
I'm sorry, I'm done with this conversation, you appear to be painfully low IQ. Farewell.
>I'm sorry
That's okay. Wondergays being utterly incapable of explaining themselves isn't anything new to these threads.
Feel free to try it again once you can actually communicate what you want, how it would work in a tabletop game, and how it isn't just your idea for an original D&D setting.
>Clear cause and effect
Yeah this is just science.
Still scientific.
Tolkien hated science fiction as a genre because it didn't offer escapism or promise of happy endings and especially loathed those works / authors that came close to rivaling his own success, which can be attributed to plain old jealousy.
Oh and C.Clare was a flaming homosexual.
No he just hated Dune. And rightfully so.
Science Fiction is generally just loathed by actual writers because it's a shit genre. It's also always destined to be obsoleted.
>It's also always destined to be obsoleted.
Necromancer is more relevant today than when it was written lmao, it wasn't "obsoleted" so much as reality literally initiated art
>Necromancer
sounds like he just didn't like Dune
He didn't like Dune for very obvious reasons. Tolkien was highly religious while one of the big things in Dune is exactly how religion is a manipulative lie.
imo Tolkien wasnt that religious. He was a closet pagan. I mean he believed in reincarnation.
>imo Tolkien wasnt that religious.
This is a man famous for being mad about the changes that Vatican 2 made. He was so deep in this shit he would loudly make responses in Latin while the priest was talking in English. Frick, this guy insisted that his wife convert to Catholic before they married
It was a different time, plus sources say he was catholic just to respect his mothers memory.
He may have secretly wanted to be Pagan.
Well, you are free to believe whatever fanfiction you want about him.
that is actually well attested though
[citation needed]
Me taking a shit is a process.
Am I to understand that everything in the universe, being processes, are cosmic echoes of my bowel movements?
yes, and vice versa
92352557
Science magic thread again
>He made an entire thread to b***h about a single post
Stop spamming this stupid fricking shit you autistic c**t. Three threads over fricking nothing.
>starting a new thread to complain about people in an old thread
Butt status: colon crucified.
Don't let this be the tolkien thread, go to
instead, they literally asked for it.
I'd unironically take the incest threads over whatever crap this anon is trying to shill over the course of three (3) different threads.
I think the issue lies more in how magic in modern settings has developed.
Too many magic systems rely on mages being scholars and knowledge focused. Thus, it comes to reason that Clarkian logic applied, because this sort of magic is synonymous with science.
What you need to do is create magic systems that are more faith based, and more difficult to control. There is now guaranteed results to your actions. You just pray and pray and sometimes things happen. Sometimes they don't. And sometimes things spiral out of control. Call of Cthulhu utilizes magic in this way.
Like, you need to take shit back to how it was in early history, with Shamans, and Rituals, and Stargazers/Astrology, and Alchemy, etc.... the problem had been turning magic into this power wank and a force you can dominate, rather than it being something greater than man that's impossible to fully understand.
>Call of Cthulhu utilizes magic in this way.
No it doesn't? The results of casting a spell is pretty straightforward. You pay the costs, gain sanity, and then the spell takes effect.
Now, you don't get to choose what spells you might have access to, assuming you find any spells at all, and some spells have rolls involved that could make them fail. But both of those would also apply to Wizards in AD&D where the DM picks out your spells and a successful saving throw can end up meaning a wasted turn.
Stuff like Alchemy in early history as well as other early forms of magic had the express goal of trying to control those forces to your advantage. An alchemist isn't praying and hoping that a potion spontaneously appears. He's studying ingredients and trying mixtures in accordance with different starsigns to discover something he can use. In a fantasy world where alchemy works, why wouldn't it be a specialty with just as much focus on scholarly knowledge as chemistry?
>In a fantasy world where alchemy works
That's the problem.
It shouldn't be consistent. You're forgetting that our current civilization if on the cusp of reaching the peak of reasoning can accomplish, so we have a very broad understanding of the laws of nature.
Magic, at its very core, has always been rooted in spirituality and faith. Two things that run contrary to reason. Older science, like alchemy was heavily rooted in mysticism and religious practice. A lot of alchemical texts are metaphors for the transfiguration of the soul.
Which, therein lies the point. You can't and shouldn't structure this like science. You need to treat it more like faith and add far more inconsistency to things.
Hell, even in modern science, replicating experiments takes a lot of trial and error and results in several failures, yet, magic systems in modern fantasy often give characters the power to warp reality with greater consistency and very few drawbacks.
The reason alchemy is inconsistent is because alchemy wasn't real, and they were accounting for variables that didn't actually influence the results of a mixture.
>magic systems in modern fantasy often give characters the power to warp reality with greater consistency and very few drawbacks.
I think you're conflating a magic system having drawbacks with a magic system being inconsistent.
Call of Cthulhu has spells with drawbacks, but losing some sanity from trying to cast a spell on someone and them resisting it isn't the same thing. Spell A is still Spell A.
Even the Warhammer rpgs, for all of their tables of perils, tend to still result in casting the spell you intended. Trying to burn someone to death won't randomly make them immortal instead. And that's a setting where magic is explicitly based on belief and willpower.
This doesn't make magic wonderous, it just makes magic less powerful. Which can be a good thing for a game, but it isn't what wondergays have been asking for.
>alchemy wasn't real
Black person, who do you think Sir Isaac Newton was? A charlatan? A mathematician with no interest in empirical study?
>they were accounting for variables that didn't actually influence the results of a mixture.
You have a posteriori knowledge. Alchemists did not.
You know, alchemy (Chinese and Western) was good enough to create gunpowder - something that revolutionized warfare over the course of a few centuries... and disctintion between "proper chemistry" and "alchemy" didn't even exist until 18th century, by when trial-and-error approach had largely exhausted the set of possible errors.
One thing that makes alchemists look a bit ridiculous from the vintage point of XXI century is that they didn't have a theory to guide their research, so they're essentially stumbling in the dark for the most part. (At least if you're concerned purely with material results and not with alchemy as means of purifying the practioneer's soul, but let's not bring poor old Rene Guenon into this)
>You have a posteriori knowledge. Alchemists did not.
Yes. That's what I mean when I say alchemy wasn't real. The alchemists thought it was real, and were accounting for those things because they thought they were important to account for.
>disctintion between "proper chemistry" and "alchemy" didn't even exist until 18th century
Yes. That's what I'm saying. Alchemists thought they were doing proper chemistry, and that all of the mystical aspects were just as important as getting the right mixture of sulfur.
In a fantasy world where they're correct, then alchemy simply remains "proper chemistry" rather than being separated.
>That's what I mean when I say alchemy wasn't real.
Are you an ESL, or just a moron who has trouble explaining things clearly and concisely?
>Alchemists thought they were doing proper chemistry
Alchemists lived in a world that was, in some way, very similar to XXI century, but in the others, very different. The concept of "proper chemistry" would be anachronistic referring to anything earlier than 18th century, which is full-swing Age of Enlightenment slowly dipping into Age of Tyranny.
Alchemists thought they're doing proper research. They were, in fact, doing proper research. It was fragmentary, and pervasive paranoia often meant that rather than sharing research with colleagues outside of their initiatic circle they sought to obscure and conceal it. The inevitable consequence is for endless repetition of mistakes and re-discoveries, but the very fact that alchemy, in the end, created foundations for empyrical chemistry stands as a testament that it was very much a proper, if archaic, science.
But the esoteric dimension of alchemy doesn't fully overlap with that of "proper chemistry". Chemistry lets you - or anyone else, even a Chinese person or a cat who suddenly gained sapience - create various compounds, some of them very destructive. Alchemy promises to teach you ways to purify your soul before God by doing chemical operations, much like Freemasonry - back when they were actually masons - was doing with civil engineering. Is a concept of using some skill that, by itself, can be completely mundane, but somewhat intellectually demanding, such as engineering or chemistry, as means to focus your intellect and will on better understanding of God that outrageous?
You know, we don't teach architects that their work glorifies God anymore and modern construction looks like an abomination compared to XVIII-early XX century. May be we should start doing it again.
>Alchemists thought they're doing proper research. They were, in fact, doing proper research
Cool. I agree. Sorry if I phrased it in a weird way.
>The reason alchemy is inconsistent is because alchemy wasn't real,
> Things that are true are real and things that are false are not real
Might wanna try again.
i'm starting to suspect that wondergays are just morons.
magic is a fictional thing, fictional things are obligated to make sense, and things that make sense can be made sense of.
>I'm starting to suspect that wondergays are just morons.
It's because you don't understand wonder. It's not an abstract concept such as a number; it is something that is simply to be experienced and very hard to put into words, but is said to be a foundation of all philosophy.
On my part the issue that as "wondrous" magic cannot have a mechanically-decent system to represent it in-game, only a mountain of tedious special cases and storygame abstractions leaving the telling of it to the end user. Like the issue of "true" mass combat, for all its narrative reasonability there's not a good way to PLAY it.
>"wondrous" magic cannot have a mechanically-decent system to represent it in-game
>"Wondrous"
>System
Of course, a system cannot be wondrous. A system is the most tedious thing imaginable.
Exactly. Which is why wondrous magic is off-topic for /tg/, which is a board all about games and systems.
If wonder can't be put into a rulebook, then why not go to Ganker?
Thats the point. There are ways to make magic "more" wondrous than DnD does, with its very simple lists of effects. But there is no way to capture the kind of wondrous magic that happens in many novels, because we are playing a game. A game that has to have some systematized rules in order for things to function.
The closest you can get, imo, is a very loose narrative system, where you can just narrate what you'd like to happen and its effectiveness or predictability vary based on some other conditions like stats or pools. Or just go full narrative and have anything possible but play "mother may I" with the GM.
By all means, have things work how you want in your novel. But we're talking about games here.
Wonder is not a foundation of philosophy.
>Too many magic systems rely on mages being scholars and knowledge focused.
You mean... like the Persian Magi from whom the term Magic comes?
Tolkien knew well the tension of technology and the threat of the machine. Tolkien explains the use of magic in his mythos and how it relates to machinery. Tolkien had thought through, with great clarity, the difference between the magic of the elves and that of Mordor.
He observes that the hobbits do not understand the difference between the magic powers exercised by the elves and that of Sauron: “the Elven queen Galadriel is obliged to remonstrate with the Hobbits on their confused use of the word [magic] both for the devices and operations of the Enemy and for those of the Elves.” Tolkien says the lack of a proper word (other than “magic”) for the work of the elves portrays the same confusion in our own minds and mythologies.
He goes on to explain the difference: “Their [the elves’] ‘magic’ is Art, delivered from many of its human limitations: more effortless, more quick, more complete (product, and vision in unflawed correspondence). And its object is Art not Power, sub-creation not domination and tyrannous re-forming of Creation.”
Tolkien elucidates the dilemmas we face as technology snowballs and threatens to blow up in our face. Put simply, the magic of Mordor is the machinery of murder. It is the pursuit of power for its own sake, and perceives the natural world merely as a raw material to be exploited, distorted, and destroyed. In the films, we see this in full display as the wizard Saruman destroys Fangorn—chewing up the forest to fuel his machines of war. The realms of the Elves, in contrast, at Rivendell and Lothlorien, are havens of harmony, beauty, and peace created by elven magic.
The distinction elucidates our own continued, confused, modern relationship to technology. Do we use our increasingly sophisticated gadgetry and expanding knowledge in an elvish, creative, and artful way to bring light, beauty, and truth to the world, or do we use technology to manipulate, make money, and thus gain more power in the world?
>Do we use our increasingly sophisticated gadgetry and expanding knowledge in an elvish, creative, and artful way to bring light, beauty, and truth to the world, or do we use technology to manipulate, make money, and thus gain more power in the world?
Is restriction to the first usage even possible?
The whole point of "high magic" in Legendarium that, much like alchemy (alchemy is sufficiently specified to make it different from vague "magic"), it takes ages to perfect and relies on a delicate balance.
Technology, on the other hand, is robust and predictable. Unless it is badly designed, either by accident or on purpose. So, the potential to abuse it in order to gain more power is always there, and even if you had a gentlemen's agreement to restrict its' potential application - only takes one scumbag to ruin it. See: French and American biological research outsourced to the little known chinese city of Wuhan, for things that don't sit right with the Ethics Committee (needless to say, they themselves are twisted black magicians approving a lot of abuse).
Magic is a "science", the mad science.
Brilliance and ignorance go together hand-in-hand like peanut butter and jam.
This is Paracelsus, a hermetic alchemist, or proto chemist; also the greatest natural physician of his day, and a father of mineral medicinals.
He believed he could produce a slave creation, or a familiar of sorts—the Homunculus—by ejaculating into a chicken egg, or worse.
— ‘That the sperm of a man be putrefied by itself in a sealed cucurbit for forty days with the highest degree of putrefaction in a horse's womb ["venter equinus", meaning "warm, fermenting horse dung"[2]], or at least so long that it comes to life and moves itself, and stirs, which is easily observed. After this time, it will look somewhat like a man, but transparent, without a body. If, after this, it be fed wisely with the Arcanum of human blood, and be nourished for up to forty weeks, and be kept in the even heat of the horse's womb, a living human child grows therefrom, with all its members like another child, which is born of a woman, but much smaller.’ [3]:328–329
The original coomer, if you will.
This one gets it. Galileo was an insane old man who refused to separate astronomy from astrology, and would seriously entertain topics such as "Should a Leo date a Gemini?", and would even offer readings to people. Isaac Newton believed in the philosopher's stone and the sacredness of israeli geometry. More occultist and theologian than natural philosopher proper. Newton was also a bloody heretic in private, and rejected the Trinity.
newton was a homosexual and died a virgin
>newton was a homosexual
Unsubstantiated claim
>died a virgin
Like Jesus, some of the younger martyrs, and monks? Is that a bad thing?
Would be right at home on /tg/ then
The presocratic Empedocles of Akragas was, among other things, the first to suggest that it takes time for light to travel. He was also a cult leader, a mystic who practiced magic, and a complete lunatic who believed himself to be a living god and who commited ritual suicide by jumping into an active volcano.
I also like how George R. R. Martin does it.
— ‘"Fantasy needs magic in it, but I try to control the magic very strictly. You can have too much magic in fantasy very easily, and then it overwhelms everything and you lose all sense of realism. And I try to keep the magic magical — something mysterious and dark and dangerous, and something never completely understood. I don’t want to go down the route of having magic schools and classes where, if you say these six words, something will reliably happen. Magic doesn’t work that way. Magic is playing with forces you don’t completely understand. And perhaps with beings or deities you don’t completely understand. It should have a sense of peril about it.”
No different from past alchemists drinking mercury thinking it would make them immortal.
No different from tossing a wild beast a piece of meat and hoping for their favour.
No different from physicists risking their very lives poking at radiation.
But GRR Martin is a modernist degenerate or something, like that.
>Creates an army of zombies
>Revives the dead
>Sees the future
>Never finishes his book
OP why spend any mindshare on these morons?
Tolkien is objectively a genius. You know it and I know it. Let any of these morons write something that a single other person cares about -- let alone multiple generations holding in absurdly high esteem and spinning multiple genres of culture off of their works.
These people are so insignificant, they're literally not worth getting upset over. They can't even finish their shitty fan fictions. They will never accomplish anything of note.
This is objectively the best approach to magic in fantasy.
For argument's sake, though, you could say this is basically what we were doing when we split the atom. We legitimately didn't know if we'd destroy the entire world lol
More human attention and time has been spent on playing Fortnite than reading or thinking or discussing all of Tolkien's works combined.
you have a broad definition of humanity.
>This is objectively the best approach to magic in fantasy.
only if you are writing books in a setting were magic is not well understood and you want to do asspulls when convenient
for a game it's shit
for stories in any other kind of setting it's shit
well structured magic generally serve to much more interesting implementations and uses in the story
>this is basically what we were doing when we split the atom
not even close
we understood what was happening and what the factors involved was
>We legitimately didn't know if we'd destroy the entire world
this is a myth base on a error of calculation resulting on the probability of igniting the atmosphere due a runaway fission coming of to high, when the equation was revised and the error fixed the true probability turn out to be less than a fraction of a percent
KYS wondergays
>KYS wondergays
How is wonder a bad thing when it’s practically a requirement for magic, along with mystery, or horror? Ignorance is the greatest magic of all—at its simplest you had the ancients looking to the night sky and considering the stars gods.
The modern scientific world meets all the criteria for magic, and yet it’s not considered magic, so clearly there is a vital element of psychological “wow, it’s like magic!” that people are missing.
Humans take everything for granted in-general, though. They don’t see the Atlantean wonder all around them. They don’t see the mystery that is deep space.
(me)
>Ignorance is the greatest magic of all—at its simplest you had the ancients looking to the night sky and considering the stars gods.
I mean, in this vein, magic is literally indistinguishable from religion. The truth is not the rule, only ignorance is, otherwise the whole purpose of faith and belief is removed.
You don’t normally ask a magician for their secrets, do you? It’s much the same with mysticism and the gods.
No different from Curie fiddling about with Radium? Sounds like science.
Yep. Curie was a witch corrupted by her experiments. Her grimoire is still ‘cursed’ to this day.
>Curie was a witch corrupted by her experiments.
>her body could not be cremated because the ashes would contaminate the air
>had to be buried in thick lead coffin purpose-made to prevent her corruption from spreading
yeah, all signs point to witchcraft
How fricking irradiated was the woman?
She would just carry unshielded test tubes of radioactive substances around in her pocket or keep them in her desk. Odds are everything she owned had absorbed a lot of radiation.
Wasn't uranium a common ingredient in ink at the time? I recall she got much of her materials by buying the waste of those companies and extracting what was left
You're thinking of Radium Girls. Radium was used to paint the luminous dials on the instruments of planes and such. They were told the paint was safe and so would roll the brushes on their tongues all the time to get a fine point. Turns out, it wasn't safe.
What I like about this is it kinda is a case of having your cake and eating it too. It implies that there is indeed an order and possibly a way to codify magic but the people doing it don't have access to the full deck of cards and probably never will because the forces are far beyond their ability to understand.
When you make the next thread can you at least put "/rg/ - moron general" or something in the subject line so I can filter it?
lurk more
>magic can't be understood!!!!
Just say you don't want magic available to players, Black person.
It comes from a thought process that their definition of science is only what they immediately assume is so. A toaster is science because it has solid form, they press it down, it bakes the bread. They don't comprehend how electrons pass through the wire into the toaster to power it to facilitate heat, let alone understand how it effectively controls and navigates those electrons. All they know is is that works and is definable. God is not definable. Luck is not definable. These are things witnessed, but cannot be explained in much detail the same way if asked how the technology does what it does, eventually you're going to have to say "I don't know".
But not knowing does not mean it doesn't work somehow.
Not knowing doesn't automatically reduce morality to an abstract "they just wanna control women's bodies REEEEE!"
They're reddit-brained
A toaster isn't science. It's a toaster.
As a game dev seeing these "magic should be incomprehensible and inconsistent but still exist in a coherent setting" morons posting here again and again genuinely makes me feel like replacing my game's no-magic setting with a high magic setting where the magic is well understood, purely out of spite.
>>>/lit
Imagine seething so hard you have to make a new thread for your shit.
Clarkean logic is wrong and gay
I am genuinely curious what drives someone to continue the same pointless argument for multiple threads in a row. What do you people get out of this? Is it fun? Is it that important to you to correct people who are wrong on the internet? There must be some appeal but I just don't get it.
If you don't find pointless arguments fun, what are you doing on the Internet?
Sir, you need and autism diagnostic to be here
Posting here IS an autism diagnosis
Autism, the answer is autism.
Holy shit, are you still mad? Just let it go.
>Are modern day fantasists just dumber than those from before?
Because the internet made it easy for EVERYONE to have a say, you have people whose understanding of fantasy in past times would have been an enjoyment of their grandmother's fairytales now writing tons of fanfiction about the trans handicapped communists on alternate mars using their magic to erase capitalism or some moronic shit like that.
Basically a flood of people who think they are experts while knowing the bare minimum, making their stories bad because harry potter is the foundation of their fantastical interests.
The weirdest part of these threads is how many of the posts are clearly just OP repeating his shit.
Every dozen posts it's another "uh, so let me get this right, you guys are so stupid you think science don't real?". I'd almost think this is that dude who gets really really angry about giant robots and starts ranting about how fantasy is the failure of the educational system.
OP, what is your opinion on soft-science settings with fanciful but otherwise depicted as real technology?
It's more his copycats that have ruined the fantasy genre.
Having read some medieval and renaissance grimoires I can assure you that magic was believed to be subject to consistent ritual for consistent effects and some went as far as to call it a "science."
Having read biblical scriptures Hindu scriptures, and alchemical writings, I can tell you there's absolutely no guaranteed consistency at all.
Not sure what fricking books YOU read, because none could actually guarantee consistency because otherwise the fact that it was all bullshit would immediately be exposed. It was all metaphysical and heavily based on belief. Because the moment you place a cause and effect clause, and someone tries that shit, abd it doesn't work, then the entire fricking thing Falls apart.
It was always "this SHOULD work, and it doesn't, it's cause you lack the XYZ metaphysical bullshit to do it well., keep praying/meditating."
Even alchemy, which was more of a science was like "well, this is the recipe to make the philosophers stone" but there was always some caveat because no one ever achieved it. Which is why the focus then shifted toward "well, turned lead to gold is actually a metaphor for the soul, bro."
>entire fricking thing Falls apart.
>It was always "this SHOULD work, and it doesn't, it's cause you lack the XYZ metaphysical bullshit to do
So there's a spell failure roll, so what? It's still a due this -> certain effect (or none) system .
*Do
This entire "argument" only exists because some gays are incredibly asshurt at Brandon Sanderson.
The aliens don't know everything if they don't know about fireball. It exists, so it's part of reality.
>/tg/ now thinks
Not only is /tg/ not your personal army, it isn't a hive mind either. Frick off to Twatter.
I never got this sense of "wonder", every time comes off as wither an asspull or as boring shit dressed in purple prose
You need certain degree of child-like naivete to feel a sense of wonder, perfectly rational adult or thoroughly jaded individual of any age just can't get it.
>still making threads after repeatedly getting btfo
Christ. Just take the L.
This was a troll from the start.
Either some STEM or some Philosophy first year student got lonely during Easter weekend while having no one to visit, or one of the usual Ganker trolls got put on notice and had to come here instead.
>/tg/ now thinks Tolkien is a moron
So what? A few loud homosexuals complain about him and suddenly it's "all of /tg/"?
>moron thread piggybacking off a moron thread piggybacking off a moron thread
92364941
> He's still going at it.
Jesus fricking Christ man, give it a rest.
No body is scrolling up to see who you're talking about. Stop being a massive homosexual and just reply to who you're talking about.
>Are modern day fantasists just dumber than those from before?
Have you looked at IQ scores over the last few decades? Yeah, quite literally they're stupider than before.
>/tg/ is now one person
Why do you frick off to reddit or twitter if you wanna view the world in some absurd binary.
92365647
> Back to back posts during the holiday weekend
> Only posts after school hours afterwards
Sad!
The wizardly trope/stereotype is very much filled with arcane sciences and technological devices and other bizarre and exotic apparatuses. Tower orreries and alchemical workshops and geometrically maddening diagrams and whatnot. All traced back to history.
You’d have to be a mouth breathing idiot totally ignorant of our past to think machines and artifice aren’t and haven’t always been heavily associated with magic. Seriously.
You know you’ve fricked up when you call Tolkien an idiot
Shut the frick up and go back to writing whatever undergraduate essay on the philosophy of science you have due, you revolting little Scientism-worshiper.
>science is le bad
The sad and pathetic (and concerning) incapability of separating actual science from the “science”, everyone.
>he thinks miracles aren’t magic
>he thinks science isn’t magic
>he thinks psionics aren’t magic
>he thinks art isn’t magic
Peak brainlet
get a job you bum
Technology and magic are not comparable to begin with. Magic is usually a force or natural phenomenon; it's more akin to gravity than technology, which is what we use to observe or harness artificial or natural phenomena.
You’re moronic. See
Why do machines and science trigger so many?
they attack what they do not understand
used to be authors had life experience. now they only have writing experience.
I like Tolkien.
Anti-science anons only think that Tolkien is dumb because they don't understand his position or they don't understand what they're advocating for in regards to magic.
Magic is by nature an attempt to interface with things outside of your control. Science is impossible to conduct without controlling variables. Science is about achieving repeatability- Magic is about delving into the obscure.
Magic is any process you don't understand and can't control. Science is any process you do understand and can control.
Mages are mages to one another because no two people cast a fireball in precisely the same fashion- The invocation of bat guano's underlying symbolic architecture, the opening of a portal from a plane of fire for a brief moment, spitting on a patch of dried demon's blood, which ignites into fire when wet, and flinging it at an opponent- All of these are methods of achieving a result. The degree to which anybody understands the method, including the wizard himself, is variable. This is what makes the fireball "magic"
The Fireball is not a singular, repeatable process. The thing you, the layman ,and the magical college define as "Fireball" is the destination of a thousand different roads. The technique a particular school or college uses to achieve a "fireball" may be formalized, but that is not -the- method of casting the spell, it is -a- method.
Do you suppose that two wizards who possess an identical process for producing a fireball discuss its casting in magical terms?
If you think you have an answer, you're not magical. You're irrationally materialistic, because you again missed that possessing a process is not the same as understanding it, and what there is to know is potentially infinite.
And this is all before we dive into the idea of relative factors- Methods of producing a fireball which no longer produce a fireball if you observe it in materialistic terms, ensuring that only people who don't understand it can do it, preventing experimentation.
Understood. I'll be sure to recommend Eberron and similar D&D to anyone who requests a setting with a magic system that involves more wonder than science.
I think this is all well and good from a narrative perspective. And from a narrative perspective I 100% agree with you. But my understanding of this argument is that the act of casting fireball in the game is repeatable and predictable. You can flavor the casting of the fireball however you want, at the end of the day you still can cast X number of fireballs a day and have no chance to cast Ice Knife instead, no chance of it not being cast where you wanted, and it does the same (average) damage every time. Every formulation of how you cast fireball, whether that being channelling your draconic blood or making a portal to the plane of fire, it all does the same damage, at the same range, and you can do it the same number of times.
Now, to be clear here, I am not saying its wrong to do things this way. We're here to play a game, and games need rules. Predictable magic, imo, is a consequence of playing a game and not writing a novel. But trying to put the argument into perspective here, a lot of the issues are because of this sacrifice made to gamify magic. And again, that isn't necessarily a negative. Predictable magic lets us play a game and not fumble about trying to make unpredictable magic fun. But certain people will necessarily want something less gamified, ie have more "wonder" to it. To the point you get these dumb esoteric discussions dodging around actually nailing down definitions and specific problems, which is why this particular thread is a trashfire.
I don't know of a system that has weird, interesting and unpredictable magic, but I haven't played a lot of systems that might. I've heard Mage the Awakening might, but maybe that doesn't satisfy some people. All I know is that its not about the flavor, some people are raging against systemizing magic at all. Which is stupid in the context of a systemized game.
Tolkien was Catholic and very devout. For him, magic is something that God gets to do without any explanations provided. Gandalf doesn't do magic because he studied at a school or whatever. It's because he's an angel of the Lord in the form of an old man.
I mean, look at the "magic items" in LotR like lembas bread. The thing is basically a communion wafer. Mana from the heavens.
>Science is about achieving repeatability
science is about researching phenomena and testing hypothesis what includes "delving into the obscure"
>Magic is about delving into the obscure.
>Magic is any process you don't understand and can't control.
I completely reject your definition of magic as moronic
All what you are saying is to make things purposefully inconsistent and non-nonsensical for no other reason than plot convenience, what make for asspulls and overall bad narratives.
No matter how many methods to get a result, if the methods are consistent and replicable they can be studied and understood as a science, and such science can be called magic.
All you, and the rest of wondergays do is romanticize and fetishising your own ignorance and b***hing about 'muh materialism'.
You no idea of how magic was understood historically and by different cultures and tradition irl (pro tip, no used anything close to your definition)
catholics trying to claim tolkien will never stop being funny.
When his entire life work was Pagan myth.
(You)
Dante had Jesus claim Aristotle and a whole bunch of straight up Pagans, this is not an issue.
his catholic faith is an historical fact as much as the Two World Wars. By insisting that his writings reveal he couldn't possibly have been christian you are only revealing your inability to understand the complexity of his thinking and ethics
I don’t think you understand just how *moronic* the average Tolkien fan is. I’ve met people who didn’t even read the books or watch the movies, who understood Tolkien’s words and letters better than the people who have.
These people will mock you for repeating basic tidbits. I once told some diehard middle-earth fan that Tolkien’s elves don’t believe in magic—and he fricking lost it on me. Tolkien understood that magic is an angle, not a thing. How do his fans so easily miss the simplest of approaches?
(The black machines of Mordor are also treated as black magic, which also pissed him off—“because le machines cannot be le magic because that’s le science”—what a fricking moron, that man was. It was at college too, frick me senseless. I’m glad I didn’t ask for his age.
I think some people get into middle-earth for all the wrong reasons.
>Harfoots are described as nut brown
>”OMG THEY LITERALLY AFRICAN MIDGES”
I hate the Rings of Power so fricking much
Oh really so Eru being a single god with no trinity that co-authors creation with his demi-gods
Thats Catholic?
Trad Caths are mongs
Tolkein explicitly says Wizards and Elves do magic in LotR.
Magic is innately part of them
>Tolkein explicitly says Wizards and Elves do magic in LotR
Yes, kind of, but Tolkien also knew that what is magic is entirely psychological, and what is magic to one is not going to be magic to another.
Tolkien talked about this a lot, as he held a deep frustrating regarding the modern world and its war against nature and mystery, and thus magic.
He played with the ironies. See
Or have some direct context, from the books, when Galadriel says:
— “For this is what your folk would call magic, I believe; though I do not understand clearly what they mean."
Elven “magic” doesn't exist (to the elves) and is just a natural part of their life, the same way the modern world is to us—It’s not magic to the modern man. It would definitely be magic to the medieval man.
Meanwhile, the elves refer to the wizards as the ‘Istari’, which literally translates to ‘wise one’. Wizard comes from wise.
Magic lies within the mind’s eye. It’s what you make of it. It’s Art.
nope.jpg Tolkein says in his letters explicitly Elves do magic. For example lighting a fire with magic. Which has no illusionary aspect its practical.
This is contrasted with Evil's magic which is deceitful and the Elves almost fell to it. eg the Ring.
Elves have a magic spark in them.
Humans, Dwarves and Hobbits do not.
Unless they have Elvish ancestry
Sure, they (the elves) do magic. It’s just not magic to them—the elves. That’s it. That’s all this is. Is your cellphone magic, anon? Are the machines of Mordor?
The elven bar for magic is simply higher than it is for men. The maia are magic to the elves the same way the elves are magic to men and hobbits.
Why is this so hard to understand?
Here’s even more clarification, from Tolkien himself in his letters; specifically to Milton Waldman:
— “I have not used 'magic' consistently, and indeed the Elven-queen Galadriel is obliged to remonstrate with the Hobbits on their confused use of the word both for the devices and operations of the Enemy, and for those of the Elves. I have not, because there is not a word for the latter (sinceall human stories have suffered the same confusion). But the Elves are there (in my tales) to demonstrate the difference. Their 'magic' is Art, delivered from many of its human limitations: more quick, more complete (product, and vision in unflawed correspondence). And its object is Art not Power, sub-creation not domination and tyrannous reforming of Creation.“
Basically everything said here
Now can you stop being a frustrated constipated turd?
i think you are losing the argument pretty bad. Elves doing magic isn't technology, it isnt a cellphone.
Its a magical power that bypasses causality
The point he's making is that the things humans in Middle Earth call magic (and that we would call magic), the elves don't call magic, because to them it's easy to do.
Which also means it doesn't somehow 'bypass causality'. An elf knows how the process works and can use it in order to get desired results. Lembas bread is pretty magical, but that's something that elves just bake.
There's no violation of causality. It violates physics as we understand them, but an elf makes bread and then gets bread. It doesn't get more causal than that.
Please don't just ignore evidence presented to you like a homosexual
>causality
setting wood alight from your hand is magic and defies causality.
No one is talking about baking bread.
You are a dishonest idiot
>defies causality
it doesn't, you just don't know how it done
>No one is talking about baking bread.
The lembas was just an example, for men and hobbits its magical, for the elfs its just baking
Thats not what casualty means you fricking idiot.
Causality is you use flint to light a fire. projecting a flame from your hand has no cause and effect.
>projecting a flame from your hand has no cause and effect.
how do you know ? you just don't understand how it's done
by the words of Tolkien himself, the elves know the causal relations involved and how to perform them
thats not what casualty means you fricking idiot. its not about understanding or not understanding.
thats not what casualty means you fricking idiot
>thats not what casualty means you fricking idiot
Luckily we're talking about causality and not casualty then. Perhaps you should calm down and stop being illiterate?
>its not about understanding or not understanding.
Correct. Causality is entirely about the relation between cause and effect. The fact that (you) don't understand how the person is causing a fire to emit from there palm doesn't mean that they aren't causing that effect.
you have list the argument so fricking badly you illiterate cretin.
Get the frick out of here, trying to fricking rest on typos.
You are a dishonest c**t to the core.
You seem mad anon. Maybe you should take some deep breathes until you can actually understand the basic definitions of words.
you seem stupid and low iq. Why don't you take a deep breath and realise you are not as smart as you think you are. You are in fact wrong and stupid
Then prove me wrong anon. You're the one who keeps resorting to insults rather than explaining yourself properly.
Or are you too low IQ to handle something as basic as defining a word?
you have been proven wrong. When you continue to ignore evidence and double down and fundamentally do not understand things.
There's nothing left but to insult you, thats all people like you allow insults and violence because you are deceitful lying c**ts
You offered 0 rebuttal to
other than screeching about causality, even though causality wasn't even used in the post.
But seeing as you have nothing left but insults instead of actual coherent arguments, I accept your concession.
>Tolkien explicitly says magic exists in his setting and some beings use it
>moron: magic doesnt exist
you are just a fricking moron
>Strawman
Tolkien explicitly has characters who say that they don't consider something magical that they do to be magic. You can keep pretending to ignore this very basic fact, but it will continue to exist.
Tolkien explicitly says they are doing magic whether they regard it as "art" is irrelevant.
thats your argument liar.
My entire argument has been that the elves don't regard it as magic, and that it doesn't violate causality.
Anything else is either your schizo attempts at a strawman or you mistaking me for someone else.
I'm glad you concede the point though.
Tolkien confirms that elves regarding somethings they do as not magic is irrelevant because they ARE doing magic
You have been slapped in the face by the evidence and refuse to listen like an idiot.
The elves are not wrong their magic is not lore or spells its an innate power
>Tolkien confirms that elves regarding somethings they do as not magic
>The elves are not wrong
Yes, exactly. Glad you agree.
Holy shit you are actually moronic. I am not agreeing with you. The Elves are doing magic
>I am...agreeing with you
Yes, you've already conceded the point numerous times by failing to actually refute my arguments and deciding to engage with strawmen instead.
Tolkein explicitly said in that letter different character used the word 'magic' to mean different things
Tolkien literally says here
They are doing magic.
You are wrong and an idiot
I thing you are illiterate, because what Tolkien said
is exactly what I said
Then he says Aragorn is inherently magical. He says his healing may appear as magic to hobbits who assume anything wondrous is magic.
But he makes clear in the entire letter magic is actually real and happening.
You illiterate fricking dunce.
Hes obviously referring to people in the setting confusing something like a machine for magic
It said it "might be regarded as magical" not "it is magical", exemplifying the point of different characters have different understanding of what magic is
Try reading the actual words
you are illiterate
see
>their magia Elves and Gandalf use sparingly
Yeah, the magia that gandalf and the elves don't consider as magic
The letter itself explain that the term magia(magic) is used by different character to mean different things
which he clearly says is magic...you fricking total twit
He is using the word magic as a shorthand for the wondrous things in his book and to explain the point of different character having a different understanding of what magic is
no he explicitly uses the occult term magia and says they innately possess this power you moron
>He says his healing may appear as magic to hobbits who assume anything wondrous is magic.
Yeah. He also has characters tell the hobbits that the wondrous thing they're doing that doesn't exist in real life isn't considered magic.
Almost as if the letter states that different characters use the word 'magic' to mean different things.
He literally says Elves do magic explicitly and that they may fool men and bewilder them
And the actual book demonstrates that the elves don't call everything wonderous 'magic' like hobbits do.
you really can't read. The last part you are cherry picking
>magic is not lore, its something elves do as an inherent power
>a mix of magic, pharmacy and hypnotism
>magic
>but its reported by hobbits who dont know any better (in theory)
>however Aragorn possess Elf lineage so obeys the first point
>cherry picking
>while posting partial quotes
Aragorn's 'healing' might be regarded as 'magical', or at least a blend of magic with pharmacy and 'hypnotic' processes'.
Meaning, the letter is about how different characters use the word magic to mean different things, and would regard different things as magic.
Hobbits would call everything magic. Elves wouldn't.
What part of this are you having trouble understanding?
This is hilarious. You have the reading comprehension of a moron.
He literally says
>yes the hobbits would call everything magic
>but its this case its partially true
and his initial point is magic does exist as a power,
How are you able to not understand what hes saying?
are you esl?
I understand what he's saying perfectly well. It's you who seems to fail to understand what you're arguing against.
The hobbits call everything magic. From our perspective in real life, as well as that of Tolkein, this is obviously true. Every inexplicable things the elves do is magical to the people of real-life Earth, as well as the hobbits.
The argument, which you keep failing to grasp, is that the Elves DO NOT THINK THAT. The elves do not consider everything magic as we would. Some of their inexplicable things are not magical to them. They do not consider those specific things that they do not consider magic to be magic, even if hobbits and people from real-life earth would.
Are you able to grasp this basic premise?
you literally do not because you are cherry picking the part about the hobbits
>elves do magic
>men can not
>well Aragorn isn't purely a man
You are stupid
>didn't even read the entire post
>didn't answer the question
>can't grasp the basics of his opponent's argument
Concession accepted yet again.
you are an idiot
It is magic though thats Tolkiens point you cant grasp.
He says explicitly men and hobbits do not process the innate power only elves do.
Do you get what innate power means esl?
It means the elves have magic inside of them its a special characteristic of elves.
>It means the elves have magic inside of them its a special characteristic of elves.
And the elves don't consider it such.
Again thats completely irrelevant. And more the point being they don't consider their magic deception eg sorcery eg witchcraft. That is what Tolkien is saying
>Again thats completely irrelevant
It's very relevant to the arguments that are actually being made. You just fail to actually understand those arguments, and are arguing against something totally different instead.
you fail to understand what tolkien is saying or the counterpoints because you want to force your moronic headcanon into a fantasy novel
>counterpoints
You haven't given a counterpoint to the arguments being made. You've simply said they're irrelevant to the imaginary argument you're having with a strawman.
No moron, tolkien point is that different character have a different views on what magic is
Elves having an innate power doesn't change that
>Do you get what innate power means esl?
so, is shark electrosensory capabilities or octopi ability to chance the color and texture of their skin magic ?
the whole point of the letter is that magic is a word that change meaning depending on who is using it
You are moronic moron. Elves doing magic isn't like an eel giving off electricity.
Its not a rational scientific thing you imbecilic low iq frick
>Elves doing magic isn't like an eel giving off electricity.
both are an innate power that man lack, therefore magic by the definition you gave in the last post
>Its not a rational scientific
Tolkien never said that, and again that's irrelevant to the argument that different character having different definitions of magic
You might call it magic, as well most humans would, but the elves wouldn't call it magic as they have a different understanding of the nature of what it's happening
You can make a man give off electricity its static charge you dunce.
Magic is not a power explained by biology
You are now revealing how mentally ill you are, flip flopping between using science as an a strawman then lying and claiming you arent.
>You can make a man give off electricity its static charge you dunce.
you know that quite different from the capability of ells to produce charges by themselves whiteout statics ?
>Magic is not a power explained by biology
again making up stuff to cover your ass
Do you think magic exists in the real world you potato brained frick?
don't lie
>trying to change the subject to apparently christianity
>Do you think magic exists in the real world
Obviously it doesn't.
Do you think I'm trying to argue that magic doesn't exist within Lord of the Rings?
that's what i referred to
>other than to explicitly say they don't matter to what i'm talking about
logic gives results that are verified by logic, it's circular, that's what logic not being self-proving means silly anon
>logic gives results that are verified by logic
no, result verified by mathematics and empirical evidence
both of which use logic as their foundation
and than verified it's results with methods others than just logic
you are just making excuses for why you uber dupper special immaginary friend is different
there's nothing that would make onmipotency non-contradictory with itself
but again you were agreeing with me the entire thread
>that's what logic not being self-proving
Yes it is? That's Witty's point with the bracket method in the Tractatus, all logical rules are built on tautologies and contradictions. You prove a logical rule by reducing its statement to their atomic propositions and showing that all reduces to one or the other.
>You prove a logical rule by reducing its statement to their atomic propositions and showing that all reduces to one or the other.
...within the framework of logic
that's why it's circular, you used logical rules to "prove" logic, hence you failed
>that's why it's circular, you used logical rules to "prove" logic, hence you failed
That's why we talk of validity and not truth in logic, anon. You prove the validity of a rule by showing its consistency. Its not circular, its apodictic, following any other set of rules precludes the possibility of following any other set of rules...
>That's why we talk of validity and not truth in logic, anon
i know, it's an admission that logic isn't self-proving, i don't know why you're arguing against it at the same time as you're admitting it
>and than verified it's results with methods others than just logic
give one example, lmfao
>give one example
general relativity
the planet Uranus
>general relativity
just another example of a field based on logic, such as the mathematics and empiricism you mentioned earlier
>the planet Uranus
has a lot of gas, but it unfortunately doesn't make an argument
>just another example of a field based on logic
anon, it's a measurable phenomena
>has a lot of gas, but it unfortunately doesn't make an argument
look up the history of how people figure out that the planet should existed before it was discovered
>i know, it's an admission that logic isn't self-proving,
What do you use to prove a logical statement besides other logical statement, anon?
The logic is about proving the validity of the form of the argument. Its not circular because it doesn't care about the content, purely about what cannot be used as a form in a proposition.
>What do you use to prove a logical statement besides other logical statement, anon?
that's the question, isn't it? you need something, but you don't have it, thus you haven't proven logic
>Its not circular because it doesn't care about the content
the rules themselves don't care about what they're applied to and are thus not inherently circular, but the moment you try to prove them by recursively using themselves you are applying them in a circular fashion
>anon, it's a measurable phenomena
the measurable phenomena are the information that was used to create and verify the theory, but they are not the theory in and of itself, on their own they're just data
>look up the history of how people figure out that the planet should existed before it was discovered
ah, you're referring to the mathematical discovery of uranus
>the rules themselves don't care about what they're applied to and are thus not inherently circular, but the moment you try to prove them by recursively using themselves you are applying them in a circular fashion
What?
First you state the 3 foundational laws or some variation of them. They don't have proofs, they are necessary and implicit propositions necessary to make any proposition.
Then you develop a u-nary system. The number of propositions you get is based on the number of terms you get (iirc the equation is 2n(squared)).
Then for each u-nary set you determine which propositions are degenerated and which aren't. This is how you prove a mathematical equation using logic, by showing that you followed the logical rules of transivity or distributivity properly.
You don't need anything else. The proof is that if you followed the whole thing properly you can retrace your step back to the first.
>They don't have proofs
yes... logic is not self-proving... well done
Show me a proof of "numbers", please.
Oh no you can't prove maths!
Holy frick you moron.
i see you finally understand that what i'm saying is true and inconvenient but also simple and not very profound or smart, good job for getting here but please don't blame me for the inanity of this conversation because i never pretended that i was being especially smart and profound with that statement in and of itself, it was just part of a larger conversation until you focused on it specifically
>i see you finally understand that what i'm saying is true and inconvenient
No its just infantile and very stupid.
Logic "proves" that a statement is not degenerative, i.e that it has a stable truth-function. We speak of validity because too many normies think you prove the content of a statement with 2nd order logic instead of showing its soundness, completeness and effectiveness.
Logic is self-"proving" because you never need anything else than logic. It is not circular because it does not end back up to its starting point through its argument, it shows you that the statement is within the limit of what can be proposed ~at all~.
>that it has a stable truth-function
...within the framework of logic itself
i guess i shouldn't have given you the benefit of the doubt
>...within the framework of logic itself
Which is the necessary framework to ANY and ALL frameworks. You don't get an option. It isn't circular, it is foundational, there is a huge difference.
>Do you think magic exists in the real world you potato brained frick?
yes, after all, magic is just a question of perspective
this is why Elves claim (falsely) they don't do magic. They literally expel magic when they fart. They breathe shit and piss magic.
Its a supernatural bodily function to them.
As Tolkien said no lore, spells or incantations needed. Its just natural to them.
If you asked Elves to explain their inner magic they couldn't tell you "Eru did it"
Could Eru tell you? "its magic. mortal"
and the elves don't consider that to be magic and have a finer understanding of what is happening there that normal man and hobbits lack
read the letter again
he thinks that just because the elves use words other then magic for those things those aren't fantastical and would be considered magic to us
he clearly lack a good grasp on how language and perspectives works
holy shit you are moronic, it has nothing to do with semantics
Tolkien literally says they ARE doing magic. Its irrelevant if the elves say they are not
You are a dunce
He also says Elves do magic and the power and effect isnt illusionary for them but men who are ignorant will assume it is deception.
>projecting a flame from your hand has no cause and effect.
If there was no cause, then how do the people capable of projecting flames from their hands not accidentally set things on fire?
Your evidence agrees though. Different people on Middle Earth consider different things magic.
>setting wood alight from your hand is magic
Sure
>and defies causality
In what way? The effect is that the wood is on fire. The cause is that somebody used magic.
thats not what it says you illiterate c**t
Literally the last paragraph is about how Aragorn's healing might be regarded as "magical", and that it's the hobbits that would report it as such.
And then the last line says Aragorn is an Elf descendant.
So possesses magical quality. After he just explained that Elves possess magic you cherry picking fricking idiot
>So possesses magical quality
*might be regarded as 'magical'
It's your evidence anon. You can at least stick to it.
Anon you are low iq and a liar but the entire letter explicitly refers to magic (magia) and sorcery (goeteia)
"both sides use both"
And the other letter explicitly states that he doesn't use the word 'magic' consistently, and that the confused use of the word is also a thing within the world, because Hobbits would call things magic that the elves wouldn't call magic
This isn't hard to understand if you have an IQ above room temperature. Tolkein has spelled it out as clearly as possible that what is magic to one may not be magic to another, regardless of the fact that all of it is magic to the reader.
he literally says magic in lotr is not learnt like lore or a spell its an innate magical quality.
So it has nothing to do with knowing or not knowing like you keep spamming the thread like an idiot.
Gandalf does magic because he is a magical being.
>So it has nothing to do with knowing or not knowing like you keep spamming
I don't even think you understand my argument. You seem to be yelling at some vague strawman that has nothing to do with the actual point I was making.
I'll keep this simple: Do any elves in Lord of the Rings ever say something to the hobbits that would imply that the elves don't consider to be magic something the hobbits do consider to be magic?
your argument is this moronic thing
>Theres no magic, its just technology.
>refuses to answer the question
>replies with a strawman instead
Concession accepted
why technology can't be magic ?
that just isnt the sort of setting lotr is
you lost moron, you are now patheticaply resorting to claiming i am agreeing with you. This is classic dunning kruger posting so common on here.
>t-that thing you posted! it proves me correct
>you agree with me! (clearly doesnt)
this is also part of you delusional pathological lying disorder.
>i am agreeing with you
Obviously. Otherwise you would have posted an actual rebuttal, rather than ignoring arguments in favor of insults.
Until you do that, your concession remains accepted.
anti-magic gay you know you are severely mentally ill right?
>that just isnt the sort of setting lotr is
why not? Mordor has explicitly machines(technology) that is regarded as dark magic by men and hobbits
as well is elven tech considered magic by everyone but the elves
stop. moron.
that was literally what was said
no it wasn't you illiterate c**t. He explicitly says magic exists, elves possess it. other things can be confused for magic like machines by people who are ignorant.
>lalala I cant hear you lalala I know more than the author lalala
Sigh
thats what you are doing.
None of this contradicts.
An alien being with weird alien biology and strange alien devices would be borderline magic to us. It wouldn’t be magic to the alien.
In much the same vein, the innate workings of the elves and the exquisite crafts they make are magic to men. Not to the elves.
Often magic isn’t magic to the magician. Sometimes a black box is white within.
See this is your mental illness you are attempting to scifi up Lotr. Twisting Tolkiens word around
Theres no scifi explanation, Tolkien didnt set Lotr on another planet to avoid this
He didnt want to write a scifi novel
>everything is le science
die stupid reddit c**t
even then magic still exist, the elves just have another name for it
because at the end of the day that what magic is
just a name for whatever the frick the author want it to be in his setting
>heh, im smarter than the crazy hair man
>one moron says something moronic and an even bigger moron makes a thread about it, more morons bump the thread without sageing
Some thick ass sexual frustration going on ITT
science is the midwit version of magic
Actually magic should be unknowable.
> What is the difference between an effective cause and a final cause.
Why don't you just open up a book you c**t.
the anti-magic homosexual itt is a dumb prick. Its some trad cath schizo trying to twist Tolkiens words around
I mean, you guys know he's just going to make another thread after, right?
its also funny this moron prick doesn't get was causality means.
You literally want magic to not make sense thats why its magic
the anti-magic gay has been utterly btfo but is to dumb to even understand that lmao
>/tg/ continues taking the bait
-1 post
fedoras really are genetic defects
>literally 2 separate threads calling out an individual post
how ass hurt can you be?
>atheists are materialists
>they don't get god isnt physical
I pray every day god kills everyone on this rock
that really mindbroke you didn't it
no my mind is fine i worry about the mind of idiots like you though since theres so many of you like vermin
don't worry about us for we are amused at your seething, worry about yourself so that you may stop seething and move on with your day
you are an idiot, like i said i pray every day god annihilates you
that's nice anon, and i said that i hope you stop seething and do something more pleasant instead
>he thinks me wishing God destroys him is me seething
lol you have no clue about anything, i am exuberant about the inevitability of god destroying you
well, as long as you're having fun i guess it's fine
whoever the troll is in this thread, they aren't worth arguing with they are a pathological liar.
Literally a wall of moron christgay fedora homosexualry to rationalise why LotR is catholic and doesn't contain magic
Has this thread gotten more or less moronic since I last baited in it?
the answer to that is usually less, if you want to maximize moronation you need to put in the effort anon
At least 200% more. There's at least two concurrent chains of people taking bait on entirely different topics.
Tolkien's writing was always autism-max. He is not bad, just very, very boring. You don't need a six time history on every fricking rock, homosexual. Still, I can see why nerdy autistic kids enjoyed it
Okay, so, OP is not wrong about this board being fricking moronic I guess.
In Avatar the Last Airbender, the various elemental benders don’t consider their ability to bend the elements magical, even though it clearly is magic to the viewer.
Without time/causality nothing can happen or progress at all, you realize. It’s why spacetime is a thing. You cannot separate time from space. At all.
Fricking morons.
/tg/ “magic is what I say it is! >:(“ anons really are just the absolute worst
Magic is supposed to be inconsistent and contradictory, given man’s own confusions, and Tolkien knew that. It’s a label-label.
Overall, very good threads. Really opened my eyes. Some anons here are truly unsalvageable.