Phoebe and Her Unicorn by Dana Simpson for January 21, 2024

I actually toyed with the idea of a fanfiction character in the Harry Potter universe who gets into enormous trouble asking these exact questions. What is magic? How does it work?

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Better call Twilight Sparkle.

I once thought up a couple of sort of Little Prince, O.C.s. One is a scientist on an eternal quest to know everything. He doesn’t know what this will accomplish, but insists that he’ll eventually find out. The other is a guru who claims that he already knows everything from having spent years meditating. But ask him questions, and it’ll become obvious that everything he believes is completely wrong.

Yeah, only Unicorns, Boiling Isle citizens, Amphibians and such pull off the “It’s magic, we don’t have to explain it” bit.

Take a lesson Quesada.XD

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” —Arthur C. Clarke

Magic is science that we haven’t figured out the workings of yet. At one time an electric light bulb was magic. Radios that deliver voice and sound right out of thin air were magic. Then we figured out how to make them. Magic becomes science.

Douglas Adams wrote about ineffability, but I don’t think I could write it here. IYKYK.

I read fantasy stories that use magic and enjoy them. I was convinced I could write a story that uses magic. However, I’m such a science nerd, when I tryied, I ended up explaining the magic with science, thus the story turned into science fiction.

Magic looks like science. Or at least it’s output. A series of useful rules concerning how things work.

What is termed magic is sometimes just an illusion!

Phoebe as a lizard?, could be interesting!

I think Phoebe has turned into Bizarro Twilight Sparkle!

Schmendrick knew.

“Science is just… knowing how things work.” One of the many misconceptions that have caused science to be bloated.

It’s magic; we don’t have to explain it. Nobody has ever had a problem with that.

No, but it might just blow up your whole city, which will have nothing to do with you, personally, at all.

When one rewrites reality, one uses invisible ink.

If you can say that magic will ‘probably’ do something or not do something, you’re assuming it’s a stochastic system and so is to some degree knowable.

Also, is that why princes get turned into frogs? They ask questions about magic?

And THIS is why the protagonist in the trilogy I’m editing the final entry in distrusts magic. Well, that and, in that case, the stuff is sentient, eccentric and just plain annoying.

It’s also probably Dana not wanting to establish rules for magic that she’d then have to try and remember to uphold later when it’d be least convenient. :P

A (still-ongoing) Harry Potter fanfic I’ve been reading has a scene of Hermione Granger clashing with the insert character. Hermione takes a view something like Marigold’s, though without being smug about it. She’s really P.O.‘d that the insert, who’s become a teacher at Hogwarts, says magic is simply another aspect of science. He comes from a different world where that’s mathematically proven and fully understood. Miss Granger doesn’t know that about him … yet. Even though she’s acknowledged he’s a first-rate instructor, being told she needs to teach her old dogma some new tricks infuriates her.

There’s a saying that to a primitive society, science and magic are indistinguishable from each other.

Existence is either magic or a magic show. If it’s a magic show, a few in the audience still believe they’re seeing magic. Most believe they’re being tricked, but can enjoy the show without worrying about how every trick works. And a few CAN’T enjoy the show UNLESS they figure out all the trickery (or think they did). Albert Einstein, at least, held that understanding the universe should never eliminate the capability to wonder at it.

“The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, it is queerer than we can suppose.” — J.B.S. Haldane

Mildly surprised no one’s made the connection with Spiderman No Way Home, where he used his math skills to understand and counter Dr Strange’s magic.

Science is the rules that govern the universe. Magic is the exceptions to those rules.

Science is different from magic in that it always works. Until the power goes out.

Opinions differ. There have been a lot of stories written about systematized magic starting with Pratt and DeCamp’s Harold Shea series.

In his last several “Discworld” books, Terry Pratchett shifted from magic to science and engineering. He said something to the effect (I am quoting from memory) that “the wizard used magic to light up the room” is not interesting, while “a water wheel miles away spins a magnet in a coil of wire, causing electrons to move through that wire, across miles of additional wire, and eventually heat up a different piece of wire to the point where it gives off light” is very interesting indeed.

Having an engineering background, I agree with him.

I can’t remember if it was Asimov, Heinlein, or someone else. But to paraphrase, they stated that any technology that was sufficiently advanced, would seem like magic to the uninitiated.

But someone could use science in that way against you, Phoebe.

Is any significantly advaced science indistinguishable from magic?

Or is any significantly advanced magic indistinguishable from science?

Magic sounds a lot like faith.

Physics: “This is what the rules dictate should and shouldn’t be possible.”Magic: “SCREW THE RULES I HAVE MANA”