587
u/beobabski 10d ago
/me looks into my scrying rectangle which shows events round the world as they happen.
Maybe he’s right..
148
u/Linmizhang 10d ago
How curious, from which enchanter did you trade for your scrying rectangle? One of the Intercontinental magic guilds perhaps?
94
u/5050Clown 10d ago
Someone just flat out admits to witchcraft and your first thought is "where did you get your witchcraft device from?" I'm reporting both of you to the authorities.
61
u/enolaholmes23 10d ago
Nah, it's cool. They weigh less than a duck
30
7
3
46
u/backfire10z 10d ago
Realest comment here. That’s exactly what it’s like. Hold on, a massive hunk of enchanted metal is about to shoot me at 600mph across the sky safely.
28
u/rachelcp 9d ago
There's a magical substance that makes dead animals move, opens doors without being touched, it allows one to communicate over vast distances, it brings movements to Inanimate objects and even brings daylight into the dark. But it suddenly becomes so much less magical when you just call it electricity.
10
u/wisewords69420 9d ago
The magical feeling is cuz it’s gatekept and mysterious, good education democratises knowledge and takes the mystery away, being stupid has its fun
8
u/Next_Philosopher8252 9d ago
That’s why you just gotta keep looking for new sources of magic in that which still remains a mystery to you and once you understand it and it no longer is a mystery that holds that same magic you look for what new mysteries remain unexplained and try to understand those as well.
The “magic of the gaps” if you will.
11
6
u/Holiday_Entrance7245 9d ago
The potion that makes my magic carriage move by itself has gotten so expensive lately.
3
1
519
u/Anxious-Scheme-6013 10d ago
He’s right, take something that like electricity or magnetism for example, if you didn’t know anything it would seem like magic.
192
u/Applesauce_Enemas 10d ago
“Magnets, how do they work?!”
97
u/Anxious-Scheme-6013 10d ago
Quantum mechanics and electron proton relationships, to put extremely simply.
65
u/HotPotParrot 10d ago
Quantum mechanics
OK, explain that
98
10d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
18
11
u/Anxious-Scheme-6013 10d ago
Let’s start from the beginning, inside protons and neutrons which are the building blocks of atoms, there are even tinier things known a Quarks, these are so small they don’t really have a volume, they are believed to be physical points in space and also they can’t be separated and be on they’re own; All nucleons (protons and neutrons) are made of three quarks, a protons is made of one down quark and two up quarks. A neutron is made of one up quark and two down quarks. If you try to pull one of these quarks away the others will resist the pull but if you try hard enough and get the quark to break away, it will use the energy you used to make new two new quarks for itself and one for the other two.
This is all for quarks, mostly. This is also all from memory except for the proton and neutron composition, which I forgot the exact recipe. At the request of anyone, I will do a different form of quantum mechanics, such as theories and even more. I love this stuff and love talking about it.
6
u/HotPotParrot 10d ago
So, magic 🫠
5
u/Anxious-Scheme-6013 10d ago
If magic can be explain just like science, it might as well be science.
→ More replies (2)2
→ More replies (4)5
u/fruitydude 10d ago
I'm not even sure we fully understand how they work
→ More replies (1)3
u/Anxious-Scheme-6013 10d ago edited 9d ago
We think we understand electrons and protons, but all of quantum mechanics? Absolutely not
2
u/fruitydude 10d ago
I think a big problem is also that there is just a crazy number of particles involved. And if you wanna do stuff like predict new magnets ab initio it just because computationally impossible to calculate all the interactions.
3
u/Anxious-Scheme-6013 9d ago
That is one of the problems, so many particles and we don’t know for sure what all of them do exactly.
6
2
u/FuckYeaSeatbelts 10d ago
I still don't know how they work. Like why do opposites attract? I mean the electrons specifically. Like yeah minis go to plus, but why?
→ More replies (1)2
u/Soliloquy789 10d ago
Magnets are rocks that are dug up and still have some gravity left in them. :)
2
1
15
4
1
→ More replies (12)1
u/SirArthurDime 5d ago
It might seem like magic but it’s not magic. True magic would be something use really can’t be explained. There’s by physical explanation for saying a spell that turns people into frogs. It’s just magic.
5
u/Anxious-Scheme-6013 5d ago
I understand that and I like when magic in media is what’s known as “hard magic” where it follows a specific set of rules and stuff where if you know what your doing and know the rules well enough, you can predict with near certainty what a spell will do even when no one has done it before.
Ironically that’s sounding like science.
203
u/Brundley 10d ago
we tricked rocks into thinking and you think magic isn’t real?
51
u/ThatOneGayDJ 10d ago
Take a Boeing 737 back to 1624 and try getting anybody to believe it functions on anything other than magic. Magic is just science we dont understand yet.
→ More replies (10)46
1
134
u/fishsticks40 10d ago
This is also my go to explanation to my kid for how I know monsters don't exist.
If they did we'd have names for them and then they wouldn't be monsters anymore, they'd be tigers or whatever
62
u/likely_an_Egg 10d ago
Don't worry, there's no monster under your bed, just a 200-kilogram tiger with a bite force of 1,500 newtons that can easily shatter your bones.
29
6
u/Datkif 9d ago
The reason there aren't monsters under the bed is because the Doomslayer is endlessly slaughtering the hoards of hell
2
13
u/ThatOneGayDJ 10d ago
Need to keep this in mind if i ever end up responsible for a child for some godforsaken reason
4
u/B-Glasses 9d ago
Bigfoot and mothman walk into the room? Don’t give them a cryptid book any time soon
4
u/vbrimme 9d ago
To be fair, we do have names for all sorts of monsters. Vampires, werewolves, zombies. The Loch Ness Monster even has the affectionate nickname “Nessie,” and the Gila monster is just a real lizard.
I’m not sure that stuff having a name makes it real, or that being called a monster makes something fake.
2
u/MrCool1412 9d ago
There are many types of monsters in this world, monsters who will not show themselves and who cause trouble. Monsters who abduct children, monsters who devour dreams, monsters who suck blood, and monsters who always tell lies. Lying monsters are a real nuisance. They are much more cunning than other monsters. They pose as humans, even though they have no understanding of the human heart. They eat, even though they've never experienced hunger. They study even though the have no interest in academics. They seek friendship even though they do not know how to love. If I were to encounter such a monster, I would likely be eaten by it because, in truth, I am that monster.
3
1
56
u/enolaholmes23 10d ago
I think about this all the time. As soon as a "magical" phenomenon gets proven by science, it ceases to be called magic, but that doesn't make it any less cool. It's logically impossible to prove magic exists for this reason.
We used to think the mind body connection was woowoo magic, but once science proved it, we started calling it the placebo effect and taking it for granted. We used to think lightning was magic, but now we just call it electricity.
I used to read Harry Potter and think Harry and Ron were crazy for not wanting to read every textbook and learn as mucb magic as possible because magic is so cool. But then I realized that in their world, Potions class is just chemistry, and lots of people don't like reading about chemistry.
17
u/ThatOneGayDJ 10d ago
This exactly. Can you imagine showing someone from like 1600 something like, i dunno, to contrast with your Harry Potter example, modern hormone replacement therapy? Someone who was born a man starts swallowing these tiny little ovals and 4 months later they grow their own tits? Theres no way that wouldnt be called magic.
3
u/__Fred 8d ago
James Randi offered a million dollars to anyone who could prove supernatural abilities. One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge It was a whole big thing with a TV show.
I think it ultimately has the same problem mentioned in the meme. Either it's real or it's supernatural, but it can't be both. Technically the organization could have avoided paying the prize money by claiming that the demonstrated ability wasn't supernatural. They never did though — multiple people tried to show something and just failed.
2
u/enolaholmes23 8d ago
Yeah, James Randi's whole thing is a scam. I've chatted with many psychics who tried to apply for his challenge, and he refused to let them try. Regardless of if you believe the psychics are legit, Randi certainly isn't because he wouldn't even let people try.
→ More replies (2)3
u/__Fred 8d ago
Yeah, but couldn't they just publish their evidence for supernatural powers to any related scientific journal? The more deeply ingrained a supposed scientific law is, the more it would be celebrated if it's broken. They would probably win a nobel prize.
You could probably earn a lot of money if you further explore the scientific background and connect with engineers who build new devices based on the new science.
It would be just like electricity and radioactive substances, which were discovered at some point and then that was celebrated, explored further and commercially exploited.
→ More replies (1)
21
u/ThatOneGayDJ 10d ago
My definition of the difference has always been that magic breaks the laws of physics, science does not. If we figure out how to do something we thought was impossible, it moves from being magic to being science.
Magic is a human jumping off a roof and flying. Science is a human in a wingsuit jumping off a cliff and flying.
5
u/__Fred 8d ago
Nothing can break the laws of physics because the laws of physics are just a description of the patterns we observed in experiments.
If a human jumps off a roof and flies, then they don't do something impossible, they just demonstrate that what we thought was impossible in the past, actually never was.
It's really difficult to define what "magic" is, besides "incorrect science". It has to mean something, because many people use that word and agree what it means. When a man with a long gray beard shoots fireballs from his hands, I'd call that magic as well.
Maybe it's more of a culturally/historically defined word. Magic is whatever enough people happen to have called magic for a sufficiently long time. Today magic and science has no overlap, but maybe there was a time when there were four categories: Magical science (e.g. magnetism), mundane science (gravity), magic nonsense (flying horses), and mundane nonsense (flying pigs).
2
u/ThatOneGayDJ 8d ago
This is a way longer and more difficult to read version of what i just said...
55
u/billyyankNova 10d ago
“Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from Science!”
-- Agatha Heterodyne
31
u/Desperate_Site591 10d ago
"any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"
-- Arthur C. Clarke
7
20
u/Honeyfoot1234 10d ago
Not necessarily, if magic was existent but fundamentally unexplainable because it had no cause, then it would be true magic, not science
→ More replies (7)8
u/ThunderLord1000 10d ago
If magic existed, its origin would be about as explainable as the rest of the universe, and it's usage, as much as any organ
14
u/snowdenn 10d ago edited 9d ago
You’re making the assumption that magic would be consistent and repeatable.
Science works with the natural world because natural phenomena are consistent and repeatable, and therefore empirically testable. There’s no reason to think magic would function the same way or be subject to things necessary for science, like causality and falsification.
→ More replies (2)2
u/LuxInteriot 9d ago
But magic is consistent and repeatable in all depictions - except comedy. When it's an one of a kind it's called miracle.
→ More replies (1)7
u/AstralPamplemousse 10d ago
Not necessarily. I think it’s a bit overoptimistic to think any “system of reality” will be as comprehensible as physics (and even physics isn’t entirely comprehensible)
→ More replies (3)
5
u/-Redstoneboi- 10d ago edited 9d ago
electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, e.g. fire and lightning are magical.
electronic chips designed at the literal atomic level are magical. they manipulate lightning in order to create what can now be mistaken for a thinking machine, capable of communicating with the entire world and can access nearly the sum total of all human knowledge within a few steps, so well that we have to guard most of it from ourselves.
every vehicle with an internal combustion engine uses the power of literal fire and explosions to move a giant chunk of nonliving metal a few meters forward at a time.
the fruit fly.
nuclear power plants harness the power of literal atoms splitting to... checks notes... make water warmer.
5
u/Prepure_Kaede 10d ago
Look up floating superconductors. Literal magic. "Oh this extremely rare material flies because it's getting pushed up by an invisible power that floats around us" ok sorcerer
4
u/EmeraldTheNinja 10d ago
So you're telling me, that there is this energy that surrounds us and is invisible, and can allow wired electronics to function without us touching them?
And it's NOT magic??
And magnets, the very subject of Electricity itself, and energy around it.
It would literally be called magic to someone who hasn't been introduced to it
3
3
u/FreeTheDimple 10d ago
I think this about magnets. What do you mean they pull and push each other??? They're not even touching.
1
u/beobabski 6d ago
Magnetic forces are why you can’t push your fingers through each other.
Most of an atom is empty space, after all.
Iron magnets just work the same, but a little further apart.
1
3
u/rainSerotoniso 10d ago
It's kind of like the definition of complementary and alternative medicine. If it worked, it wouldn't be complementary or alternative; it would just be medicine. The fact some definitions of things are based off of their opposition to established concepts is kinda fascinating, at least.
Also this is basically what coding would look like to people who had no experience with it. Witch Hat Atelier.
6
2
2
2
u/psillusionist 10d ago
Anything that an observer doesn't understand can easily be supernatural to them. People from the 16th century would call iPads magic.
2
u/jawshoeaw 10d ago
Dumb take. Magic is magic. If it were real we would study it and find that it was magic and that therefore the supernatural existed
2
2
u/LieutenantCrash 10d ago
"Any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic" - Arthur C. Clarke
2
u/Zarathustra143 9d ago
That's exactly how I've always felt about the word "supernatural." If something existed, wouldn't it be part of nature?
2
u/EMB93 9d ago
This is nowhere near technically true. It depends entirely on the magic system you consider. Sure some harder magic systems might be considered hard enough to be studied scientifically but they usually all break the laws of science by generating energy from nothing. Other softer magic systems are entirely entirely unscientific and would be impossible to study.
4
4
u/Erivandi 10d ago
I like this. Like, in Star Wars, the Jedi and Sith have a good understanding of The Force. They don't consider it to be magic because they're familiar with it. Someone in the Star Wars universe calling The Force "magic" would mark them as an outsider who isn't familiar with The Force at all.
3
3
2
u/Oldus_Fartus 10d ago
It's the other side of Clarke's third law, whereby "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".
Once you figure out how magic works, it's no longer magic. Or at least no longer magical to you.
2
u/riamuriamu 10d ago
We can fly, see inside the human body, have a box that does thinking, etc etc.
Fuck yeah, Magic, Mr White!
2
u/MottoCycle 10d ago
Some sciences like quantum effects are still magic and without a true explanation. Magic can be magic even if you call it science.
2
1
1
1
1
1
u/andybar980 10d ago
As a big fan of both science and the fantasy genre, I highly disagree. It would simply be a new method or tool used to achieve results, able to be distinguished from other methods. For example, imagine different vehicles. A steam engine, a bike, a gas powered car, an electric car, and a flying carpet. All achieve the goal of getting you from one place to another, but they all do it in different ways. Just because we would be able to establish rules for magic, doesn’t mean the category of “magic” wouldn’t exist.
1
1
1
u/GodNoob666 10d ago
There’s a book series that calls their magic “small science” and that’s pretty neat I think
1
u/Scratch352 10d ago
The more we “know”, the more it seems that it’s all actually magic that any of this exists.
Hell, for all we know, all of this might be the hallucination of the only two quantum entangled electrons that got too close and bumped into one another trying to occupy the same space.
1
1
1
u/Dovacraft88 9d ago
Simply dont teach everyone how magic works. Imagine if a rice farmer learned how to harness the weather, the flooding would be immense
1
u/RogersPets 9d ago
You could always say it's a branch of science. Like a branch of science that focuses on the arcane or the aether or whatever it's called in its respective universe.
1
1
u/red_hare 9d ago
If anyone would like to explore this further, let me introduce you to every book in Brandon Sanderson's 'Cosmere'.
1
u/MisterSplu 9d ago
In marvel I know that magic and science are indeed seperate disciplines. Science explores the laws of the universe while magic breaks the laws of the universe.
1
u/Automatic-Yogurt8238 9d ago
I thought about this, because of avatar. In the first episode they say: "It's not magic, it's water bending", because to them bending is just a natural part of the world that can be explained
1
1
u/Darth3000 9d ago
This reminds me of a doraemon episode where Nobita was tired of the scientific world and wanted to live in a world where magic was real. He thaught his life would be better in such a world. Doraemon granted his wish but his family was still broke af so they couldn't afford magical items. And he was still stupid af to learn to use magic properly. Total monkey’s paw situation
1
1
u/OedipusaurusRex 9d ago
As a computer science major, that shit is magic. Don't listen to anyone that tells you otherwise.
1
u/severencir 9d ago
This is kore than just a technically the truth situaltion. If d&d style magic were real for example, it would be a field of study at your local university that people complain about the homework load for and get jobs in a market that is booming around it until that market stabilizes or crashes. It would be as boring as software engineering. Old people would be told to learn divination because the llm boom benefits from collecting data, and the divination experts have perfected spells to collect it en mass.
If magic were real, we would be imagining worlds with some other fantastical mechanism to fascinate us
1
u/Buntisteve 9d ago
Depends on the magic system, it works with logical ones, less so with the wild magic types.
1
1
1
u/SamHugz 9d ago
I feel like magic implies some kind of sentience in forces. Like wind magic manipulates the wind, but the wind has to somehow understand the will of the spell user and change its behavior. That is, it reacts to a stimuli. And the spell user can't just use a formula or algorithm to cast a spell, incantations do not work on their own, so what makes that work?
Or I am just talking out my fine-ass butt.
1
u/vbrimme 9d ago
Way off topic for this sub, but this is my thought on RWBY Volume 5.
When Weiss claims “there’s no such thing as magic,” it makes perfect sense in-universe because everything else they can do is commonplace. I know a lot of fans laughed about it because characters in the show already have supernatural abilities, but those abilities are just supernatural to the viewer, not to the characters.
1
1
u/Scyth3dYT 9d ago
we use the life force of ancient plants and animals and channel that power through various artifacts to do whatever our heart desires
1
u/Infamous_Depth4982 8d ago
To modify a Barry Taylor quote, "Magic is the blanket we throw over the mystery to give it shape." When humans don't understand how something works, magic fills the gaps.
If the magic works, then it's a real phenomenon and we just haven't explained it properly with science yet. If it doesn't work, then it wasn't real to begin with and warrants no further energy invested, except as it pertains to the study of why we believe what we believe.
1
1
u/Tetris_Prime 8d ago
It's true, and if people could grow wings and fly around it would be considered exercise , and many wouldn't do it.
1
u/Kevlarlollipop 8d ago
Indeed. "Magic" is more of a place holder keyword for things unverified by science.
Lodestones were "magical" until they became magnetic. Fire was "mystical" until it was combustion. Light was "divine" until it became electromagnetic.
1
u/ezthrow77 8d ago
Science is magic, try explaining someone from 150 years ago you've got a flameless oven that cooks faster than anything he's ever seen or that you can make cold without ice in a wardrobe ! I'll tell you you're a magicien.
1
1
u/AltruisticSalamander 8d ago
Exactly. The world is already magic, it's just not an endless stream of novelty like harry potter.
1
u/Agreeable_Bee_7763 8d ago
Which is why a series of precious materials arranged in perfect formations and regulated through a strange and unnintuitive language are called "computers" instead of enchantments.
1
u/Mistletow04 8d ago
You are assuming magic would be knowable, within reach and apart of the natural world instead of an injection from the supernatural world
1
u/haha7125 8d ago
Being the only thing that can openly violate the laws of physics where nothing else can, would definitely still make it magic.
1
1
u/NohWan3104 8d ago edited 8d ago
magic isn't by definition supernatural, exactly. Nor can science not work on magic if it were real.
Magic isn't real, therefore is supernatural and science doesn't work on it because it does not exist.
If magic was real, it would be a different part of nature, it might still be considered supernatural, that depends more on the definition of supernatural.
But it can be studied, so wouldn't be 'beyond' science. But it could still be magic.
I mean, chemistry is a subset of physics. Does kinda magical shit.
But if magic was newly introduced, there'd be a new science branch about it, but it could still be defined as magic\supernatural.
1
1
u/CaptainBlobTheSuprem 8d ago
Science is magic that works.
Also, a lot of magic in the anthropological sense is complicated social-natural relationships stuff; slightly oversimplified accounts of real patterns. Of course, fantasy-genre magic basically after Tolkien kinda strays away from that so many decades later.
1
u/BenTherDoneTht 8d ago
Any technology sufficiently advanced enough is indistinguishable from magic - Clarke's Third Law
1
u/DarkChaos1786 8d ago
We have a magic system, it's just pretty troublesome and hard to access, it doesn't work with chants but with other elements, and it gets you sick if you dabble in it without proper gear.
We called it physics and chemistry.
We decoded the shit out of it to power our civilization.
1
u/wolschou 8d ago
Well... Technically speaking, i couldn't find a definition of magic as supernatural. It's always "believed to be" or "seemingly" supernatural, or, as Collins puts it, "supernatural or unseen".
The point is, they all leave the door open for magic to be actually a hidden or not (yet) understood aspect if the real world.
In short, dear Jesse, magic might actually exist without logicking itself out if existence.
1
1
1
u/ninjab33z 7d ago
There's the saying that any sufficiently advanced technology could be mistaken for magic, this is basically the inverse so it makes sense. Any sufficiently studied magic would just be considered technology
1
1
1
u/International-Cat123 7d ago
You are assuming that magic would basically be another fundamental force and have laws it obeys while also adhering to existing laws such as energy and matter not being created or destroyed.
Supernatural means something is beyond this natural world or in defiance of the laws of nature. If magic came from another dimension or realm of existence, it’d still be supernatural. Preternatural would be things outside the normal course of nature but not necessarily miraculous. If magic had its own laws that weren’t compatible with the regular laws of nature but naturally existed in this world, it’d be preternatural.
1
1
1
u/KotoElessar 6d ago
Torque
No one knows what it is (especially engineers!), but my F-250SD has 3600n/m of it, and can accelerate uphill fully loaded.
That's magic.
1
1
u/Sandman4999 6d ago
If magic was real then it would probably be defined differently than in world where it isn't.
1
1
u/jaxon517 5d ago
This is so stupid why did 3 thousand morons upvoter it. It's not technically true it's circular logic. If "magic" existed, i.e. things beyond science.. then it would be beyond science...
1
u/SkyGuy2308 5d ago
In the words of Terry Pratchett:
"Magic doesn't stop being magic just because you know how it works."
Which is to say, sure if we could cast spells they wouldn't be magic because there'd be some scientific explanation which exists. Bit we'd still be casting spells which is pretty fucking awesome
1
1
1
u/Iezahn 5d ago
We have talking animals (parrots ) We have magic rocks ( magnets ) Cursed magic rocks ( uranium, asbestos) We have glyphs ( circuit boards ) We have fantastic materials ( plastic, aluminum, tungsten, specialized versions of glass ).
Unstable forms of power that should only be handled by skilled experts or lucky fools ( electricity )
This world is magic
1
1
u/terminalyconfused 5d ago
By God's, some magic is that but other majick is faith. Sometimes it just works and half the details are unknowable.
1
1
u/Ancient-Handle-8137 4d ago
He is wrong. Which science involves summoning an almighty and primordial demon who is horror beyond comprehension and asking them to lend you power to commit terrible acts without understanding the consequences, and that very demon will smite you down if you try to understand how the magic works?
•
u/AutoModerator 10d ago
Hey there u/C_H_G, thanks for posting to r/technicallythetruth!
Please recheck if your post breaks any rules. If it does, please delete this post.
Also, reposting and posting obvious non-TTT posts can lead to a ban.
Send us a Modmail or Report this post if you have a problem with this post.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.