The Effects of Magic on Warfare

[TheSummoner]

A funny thought struck me the other day... One that I thought would make for a fun discussion. Essentially, I was wondering on what the differences in the way war was done would be if magic existed. I'd like your thoughts on various scenerios... time periods... anything you think would make an interesting contribution to the discussion.

Remember to keep things reasonable... You could say that a single magic wielder has the power to level entire cities with the magical equivilant of a nuclear bomb, but where's the fun in that? Assume something along the lines of magic being difficult to harness or the ability to wield it being rare... Or that anything one magic user can throw another can theoretically counter.

Heres my example... A mideval siege. Attacking a city or fortress would be much more difficult with magic involved... In most real world scenerios, the attacking army would attempt to cut off supply lines to the structure being sieged and wait the defenders out. However, with magic, the defenders could set up a portal between the sieged fortress/city to one that isn't being threatened and recieve supplies and reinforcements through that. The attacking army would be forced to either lay siege to all allied structures at the same time (impossible) or try to directly assault the walls (suicidal). The attacking force could attempt to teleport in, but without a higher number of powerful magic users, only a few soldiers would appear at a time and promptly get slaughtered. They could attempt to sneak one of their own in to set up their own portal, but this is no less suicidal than breaching the walls and filing through. The attacking force would essentially have to level the entire area to win, which would require either a tremendous investment in time and human resources (both the magic users required and enough soldiers to protect them while they assault the... whole general area) or a force so superior that the defenders would be foolish to have not surrendered right from the beginning.

Anyone see any holes in my example... perhaps something the attacking force could've done that I hadn't considered? Anyone have any example scenerios of their own? And remember that while my example was mideval, you could do a more modern era example (Just avoid specific real life scenerios if you get too modern... Keep it general.)

Note: I put this in media since I figured this sort of thing would be more likely to pop up in books... games... movies... and other forms of media covered by the section.

[JonestheSpy]

Well, the rules of magic are going to be vastly different depending on who's writing the situation. Two interesting takes on it that come to mind are the Big Battle Scene from the last book of David Eddings' Belgariad and more recently the comic Fables, which frequently involves magic and tactics, both modern and old fashioned.

[TheSummoner]

I realize that the rules are going to vary quite a bit... Sorta why I didn't even bother with it. Each person is open to their own interpretation of how things "should" work with the only requirement being that they try to keep it reasonable. No individuals capable of wiping out entire armies singlehandedly =P

[Brewdude]

It would affect war in somewhat the same manner that technology does. What would matter is what ultimately powered the magic, and the struggle to control those power sources.

[Tavar]

Without rules there's nothing to discuss. Pretty much anything is possible, giving no basis for comparison or discussion.

The only sure thing is that Magic would have some effect on warfare. That's all one can say without detailing exactly what magic can and cannot do.

[TheSummoner]

Fine... Fine... If I must set a baseline.

1) Magic exists and can be wielded, but it is not common, nor is it easy to control.
2) Multiple magic users can combine their power towards a common goal if in complete harmony.
3) Magic can, theoretically, do anything. However, greater magical feats cannot be cannot be performed by an individual magic user.
4) Magic users vary in power depending on how much they have studied and applied their craft.
5) Magic handled poorly has can have rather ugly results. Specifics depend on exactly what was being attempted.

Everything else is open to your own interpretations. In my example, you can infer...

A) It is possible to set up a portal to allow magical transportation between two points. (See Rule 3.)
B) To do so, you need atlest two magic users - one on each end of the soon to be portal. (This is why the enemy would need to get one of their own inside to set up their own... Likely through the other end of the portal.)

These can't be infered from what I posted, but these are rules I also had in mind for that scenerio.

C) A portal must be maintained or it will collapse. This can either be done through the magic users on each end of the portal maintaining it manually or setting up some structure to hold it open.
D) A larger portal requires more magic (either in terms of individual wielder's power or in numbers of magic users working together) to establish.

However, anyone else is free to say "No, that isn't how it works. This is." Use your imagination. Theres plenty to discuss, but there are far too many possibilities for me to set rules for everything... If it helps, you can consider our discussions on the matter the methods for setting the rules... If a high number of people agree on the way something works then that is how it works.

[Don Julio Anejo]

Harry Turtledove already addressed this point in his Lost Legion series. Both Videssos and the Yezdi have powerful magic users with talents akin to battle meditation. Who can counter each others' magic. Which leaves regular armies to duke it out with one another. If, however, an army doesn't have a magic user of similar level, they're screwed.

As for more general... I would imagine an army making heavy use of magic users. Since in your post you did not specify that one needed an innate talent for magic, rather it simply depends on how much someone has studied (which to me makes more sense than a specific "gift" a-la a magic gene), magic users can be trained. This means that wealthier and more powerful countries would be able to set up academies for combat mages, for example by picking up orphans off the street with an offer of a better life but bound in service to the state.

This would equate magic users to modern black ops commandos (think Bourne) - rare and expensive to train, but useful in many situations and more or less anyone can become one.

Then magic would simply be another type of warfare, to be countered by other magic users. Much like ECM (electronic countermeasures) designed to jam comms/radar (countered by your own specialists) or snipers (countered by counter-snipers which are essentially snipers who look for other snipers).

Also, I personally would use mages (in what I'm assuming are standard fantasy medieval armies) as a replacement for modern technology. For example, placing telepaths in each medium-sized squad would allow for significantly improved coordination. Placing a battle mage in each squad would give them artillery support. Placing a far seer (Warcraft version where they look at lands far away) would give them aerial reconnaissance. Et cetera.

[TheSummoner]

Re Innate Magic vs Trained Ability:

It can be either or both. Whatever suits you better... If you consider it something that can be trained, then think of it something difficult to learn that few are able to wield to any real effect to preserve the rarity of magic users in these scenerios.

[Don Julio Anejo]

I honestly view it as something like theoretical physics. Technically anyone can learn it, but most people (me included) will melt their brain trying to wrap their heads around it. Doubly so if they're actually expected to do something original with it rather than just solve pre-made equations by plugging in numbers.

[Warlawk]

It would affect war in somewhat the same manner that technology does. What would matter is what ultimately powered the magic, and the struggle to control those power sources.

To further this point, it would greatly modernize warfare in settings that otherwise lack technology. It will increase mobility, reduce dependance on supply lines and greatly increase the destructive capability of small forces. Basically small units of skirmishers become more potent than large standing armies because the skirmishers have the powers to destroy the large massed forces. It becomes an arms race based around magic instead of weapons.

As for the effects of magic on a modern battlefield, that becomes more complicated and really cannot be examined closely without a much more specific set of guidelines for what magic is capable of.

[polity4life]

If we are still talking about medieval warfare, then you would certainly see the conceptualization and deployment of defensive structures change hundreds of years ahead of time when compared to the real world. They would be moot as of the turn of the first millennium AD instead of the 19th century AD.

An accompanying thought experiment that we could explore is how magic would affect modernization, trade, and societies. Depending on how magic could be used for the production and provision of goods and services, we may never see an industrial revolution as we know it today. I would argue that the peoples or nations that cannot cultivate and nurture a tradition of effective magic utilization would push hard for alternatives, provided they have the wealth. Indeed, the industrial revolution may happen sooner in different parts of the world and manifest differently.

I would imagine that those peoples and nations that have established magical communities and institutions would remain agrarian, especially if magic can be used en lieu of industry.

[Johel]

@polity4life :

Look for any thread speaking of "crafting magical traps" in D&D 3.5
You have basically the means to make a dark age medieval fantasy setting go overnight into steampunk.

More specifically :


Decanter of endless water + permanent Wall of fire ==> endless supply of steam to power engines, heat a palace or just provide nasty defenses.

Trap of Create Food ==> feed several thousands of people forever at the price of a duchy's single harvest.

Trap of Heal, Cure Disease, ect... ==> No more need for conventional medicine.

And I'm not getting into the Effrit Chains, as they are known to eventually trigger interplanar wars on a massive scale.:smallwink:

The most important would be in what measure Magic respect (tolerate ?) the laws of thermodynamics.

If Magic allows you to generate more matter or energy than you need to expend to get an effect with Magic, then yes, the world will change quickly.

Otherwise, Magic will be like military gears :
Very powerful, can get the job done quickly.
But not cost-effective energy-wise compared to civil gear.

[Lord Raziere]

I am interested in this discussion and will participate in it as soon I can.

[Weezer]

A good series to look at when discussing this sort of thing is the Black Company series. In it the really powerful wizards (of which there are 25-30) can do incredibly powerful things, from heating canyons until the rock starts to melt to bombarding an army with hurricanes and tornadoes for days to completely mind raping an opponent wizard to become loyal, undead and nigh-unkillable. Unopposed a single one would have a good chance at taking out a army alone, but they tend to neutralize each others powers when battle is given. So much of warfare is focused around neutralizing the opponents wizards, using subterfuge and special ops teams most of the time.

[polity4life]

A good series to look at when discussing this sort of thing is the Black Company series. In it the really powerful wizards (of which there are 25-30) can do incredibly powerful things, from heating canyons until the rock starts to melt to bombarding an army with hurricanes and tornadoes for days to completely mind raping an opponent wizard to become loyal, undead and nigh-unkillable. Unopposed a single one would have a good chance at taking out a army alone, but they tend to neutralize each others powers when battle is given. So much of warfare is focused around neutralizing the opponents wizards, using subterfuge and special ops teams most of the time.

To further that point on how warfare would change, the shock and awe tactics of the 20th would be adopted almost immediately after someone can light something on fire with a thought or a word.

[pendell]

I'm thinking the most profound magic would have would be not on actual battlefield effects, but on intelligence and communication.

There are two questions any battlefield commander has to answer , first and foremost:

1) Where the hell is the enemy?
2) Where the hell am I?

Now, imagine a world where such information doesn't have to be acquired by satellites, or scouts, or drones, or spies, or intercepted communications. Imagine that any person with a crystal ball could give you realtime observation of anywhere, anytime. Imagine that interrogation could occur when you could literally read a person's mind, learn everything they knew, in less than three minutes.

Imagine that you know, not just about the decoy column advancing, but about the two columns behind them on alternate routes.

An army using magic for intelligence, against an army who doesn't use magic, is an army who has no fog of war. That army has an incredible advantage.

Thus, the first primary use of magic is to collect intelligence, and to thwart the enemy's collection by the same means.

Second, communication: Back in the day, people communicated by drums and by flags and by bugles and by messenger. In the confusion of battle, it was very easy for a general to lose control of the battle or make a wrong move due to an intercepted courier, or false messages, or an incorrect assessment, or not knowing that the enemy was attacking some other area.

Now imagine that a medieval army has realtime communication as a modern army does. It means a general can get accurate information and respond far more quickly than they could if they are dependent on messengers and on their own eyes. Their responses are more apt to be correct and they will certainly be more quick.

Both of these are overwhelming advantages far greater than would be conferred merely by blaster-mages, who are essentially artillery pieces.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Prime32]

Modern-day warfare?

Let's try the following scenario:

Magic is a type of electromagnetic radiation which distorts the fabric of space, one use being to tear holes which release energy from higher dimensions. As such, it is subject to things like constructive/destructive interference.
Certain crystals release magic, but less efficiently than humans.

It wouldn't be long before someone hooked up a set of crystals to a computer and created a magic item. Muggle troups could be outfitted with enhanced sights and such, while magic users could get tools and weapons that boost their powers.
Shielding important facilities from magic could be achieved with a Faraday cage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage) or lead sheeting depending on the intensity of the radiation (which is done in many places already), maybe supplemented by a supercomputer and a bank of crystals on active dispel duty. Stealth planes could be redesigned to scatter magical detection in the same way as sonar.

[The Glyphstone]

So, a literal application of "magic is simply sufficiently advanced technology"?

[Tyndmyr]

So, a literal application of "magic is simply sufficiently advanced technology"?

Would agree. If magic appeared today, we would immediately try to figure out how it worked. Is it detectable in any way? What laws appear to govern it?

In short, it would invariably end up being categorized as another force under natural law. The details of this would go are infinitely variable, but the scientific method can really be applied to anything.

[Weezer]

Would agree. If magic appeared today, we would immediately try to figure out how it worked. Is it detectable in any way? What laws appear to govern it?

In short, it would invariably end up being categorized as another force under natural law. The details of this would go are infinitely variable, but the scientific method can really be applied to anything.

Though its possible that the scientific method wouldn't work. If there is no deeper reason why when gesture x is combined with incantation y a fireball pops out while gesture x combined with incantation z gives you rain then science would be relegated to merely cataloguing the various spells and using trial and error to find new ones. This kind of magic is rare in fantasy, but I have seen it a few times.

[TheSummoner]

Ok... So magic could be used to gather intelligence and coordinate a military force... And also it could be used to mask your army's presence form unwanted attention... Or to mislead an enemy who may be using their own magic to gather information... Either making your force appear much larger or smaller... Whatever suits you at the moment...

What about applications when you're actually engaging the enemy? Other than the basic magic users acting as artillery thing...

[Tazar]

Most likely it'd be like powerful and useful front-line artillery.

[pendell]

Also useful for special forces direct action. Imagine using summon monster 7 + dimension door to drop a couple demons into an enemy command center. As a bonus, you don't have to care at all whether the demons sustain 100% casualties or not. Perfect for those one-way missions you don't want to risk human troops on.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[polity4life]

Ok... So magic could be used to gather intelligence and coordinate a military force... And also it could be used to mask your army's presence form unwanted attention... Or to mislead an enemy who may be using their own magic to gather information... Either making your force appear much larger or smaller... Whatever suits you at the moment...

What about applications when you're actually engaging the enemy? Other than the basic magic users acting as artillery thing...

Misdirection via illusion. Impeding enemy movement and communication. Mind control of key figures in a given conflict.

[Prime32]

Though its possible that the scientific method wouldn't work. If there is no deeper reason why when gesture x is combined with incantation y a fireball pops out while gesture x combined with incantation z gives you rain then science would be relegated to merely cataloguing the various spells and using trial and error to find new ones. This kind of magic is rare in fantasy, but I have seen it a few times.What you described (experimenting through trial and error) still falls under the scientific method. :smallconfused: We don't know the reason a lot of things happen, and we know that every explanation we do have is only mostly accurate and can be replaced if something better comes along. We don't need to fully understand things right away - even a phlogiston theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory) of magic is better than nothing.

If you have crystals giving out a constant stream of energy, all you have to do is move them around in the right way to produce the patterns you want. So have a computer move them for you to match the patterns you detected when someone cast a spell.



Also useful for special forces direct action. Imagine using summon monster 7 + dimension door to drop a couple demons into an enemy command center. As a bonus, you don't have to care at all whether the demons sustain 100% casualties or not. Perfect for those one-way missions you don't want to risk human troops on.
Assuming the command center doesn't use antimagic rooms, or contingent dismissal effects.

[Xondoure]

In response to the original seige scenario, and dealing only with portal magic I see a fairly simple way of doing it. Open a portal, hurl in as much explosive material as you can before the enemy realizes you are doing it, throw in a match and close the portal.

Alternatively trial and error until you find how far down their fortifications go. Open a portal directly beneath and watch the walls crumble. For extra kicks have the other opening directly above the enemy so the wall falls into the city destroying yet more fortifications.

Portal magic has so many fun little military applications.

[TheSummoner]

Assuming the command center doesn't use antimagic rooms, or contingent dismissal effects.

Also assuming that demons exist in the first place. Magic does in these scenerios... Demons... Well they might and they might not.

[Weezer]

What you described (experimenting through trial and error) still falls under the scientific method. :smallconfused: We don't know the reason a lot of things happen, and we know that every explanation we do have is only mostly accurate and can be replaced if something better comes along. We don't need to fully understand things right away - even a phlogiston theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory) of magic is better than nothing.

I guess what I meant by that was that we couldn't use science to predict or improve on magic in some magical systems. When I think of science I think of it as a system used to find/develop theories and hypothesis that expand our knowledge of our world, our ability to manipulate the world and our ability to make predictions. If magic defies rational explanation, codification and deliniation then maybe you could try science and record the results but it wouldn't necessarily get you anywhere. To give it a physics analogy, lets say if you drop a weight from 5 meters up it will experience a force equal to mg but when you drop if from 10 meters up it experiences a force of (pi)mg. There are some magical systems that work like that, with no rhyme nor reason behind what happens and if you do something slightly different something completely unrelated happens. So even something as crude as a Phlogiston theory would be impossible to develop.


If theres no underlying rational system to discover, science cant do anything.

[Prime32]

I guess what I meant by that was that we couldn't use science to predict or improve on magic in some magical systems. When I think of science I think of it as a system used to find/develop theories and hypothesis that expand our knowledge of our world, our ability to manipulate the world and our ability to make predictions. If magic defies rational explanation, codification and deliniation then maybe you could try science and record the results but it wouldn't necessarily get you anywhere. To give it a physics analogy, lets say if you drop a weight from 5 meters up it will experience a force equal to mg but when you drop if from 10 meters up it experiences a force of (pi)mg. There are some magical systems that work like that, with no rhyme nor reason behind what happens and if you do something slightly different something completely unrelated happens. So even something as crude as a Phlogiston theory would be impossible to develop.


If theres no underlying rational system to discover, science cant do anything.If it happens, there's a system by definition. There may be so many variables that it's functionally unpredictable (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory), but "irrational system" is an oxymoron.

If things happened for no reason and worked differently each time, no one would be able to cast spells in the first place. We can observe that when a guy in a pointy hat waves his hands and says words, fire comes out. Then we test to see if he can do it with his hands restrained, or in a room with noise-cancelling equipment, or without wearing a pointy hat. Any possible result of these experiments will teach us more about how magic works.

[TheEmerged]

Point The First. We might be better off discussing individual effects one at a time. "Magic" is an extremely broad topic, after all.

Point The Second. Anything magic can do, someone out there will try to erect a countermeasure.

Original Post/Question. Okay, let's look at the traditional siege and how magic might affect it and what counter measures might come into play.

>The notion of making a magical portal to bring in food & water was mentioned. So a traditional siege would have to add some method of blocking/disrupting/intercepting such portals. Magic circle vs teleportation around the entire city? Probably to hard/expensive to make. In my own campaign world I made portal magic inefficient for non-living things to prevent it from replacing more conventional means of transport. I similarly made the cost of portal magics go up rapidly based on the number of souls transported (the better to allow a small group of mercenaries/champions quick travel without having to worry about the side effects of doing that with an army).

>Why portal the food in? Rituals/spells for just outright creating the food probably exist. For my own campaign world I made this sort of thing require a sample of "real" food that is destroyed by the ritual. Given that a famine is currently part of the metaplot, that matters :smallbiggrin:

[Weezer]

If it happens, there's a system by definition. There may be so many variables that it's functionally unpredictable (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory), but saying that something functions irrationally is nonsensical.

If things happened for no reason and worked differently each time, no one would be able to cast spells in the first place.

Not necessarily. In our world, yes that is how everything we've come across works, but what's to say magic works that way? It's not that everything works different every time it's that things just work, with no reason for them to work, and no connection between different working things. A mystical magic as opposed to a scientific magic. I'm just discussing this because I've come across magical systems in fiction, most recently in the Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (a surprisingly good fanfic), that characters have tried to analyze scientifically but they find that at its core magic is arbitrary. I guess thats what mostly defies science, if things are arbitrary. Science can deal with randomness, thats pretty much chaos theory, but arbitrariness overcomes it.

[Prime32]

Not necessarily. In our world, yes that is how everything we've come across works, but what's to say magic works that way? It's not that everything works different every time it's that things just work, with no reason for them to work, and no connection between different working things. A mystical magic as opposed to a scientific magic. I'm just discussing this because I've come across magical systems in fiction, most recently in the Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (a surprisingly good fanfic), that characters have tried to analyze scientifically but they find that at its core magic is arbitrary. I guess thats what mostly defies science, if things are arbitrary. Science can deal with randomness, thats pretty much chaos theory, but arbitrariness overcomes it.That still runs into the problem "How do wizards cast spells if they don't understand how to make magic go?"

[Weezer]

That still runs into the problem "How do wizards cast spells if they don't understand how to make magic go?"

People stumbling upon it? Divine revelation? Once one magic spell is found, systematic (and highly dangerous) trial and error?

[Prime32]

People stumbling upon it? Divine revelation? Once one magic spell is found, systematic (and highly dangerous) trial and error?See, trial and error = science, more or less. You can't have something that works by trial and error and doesn't work by science. And if magic works completely randomly then stumbling upon it would only allow people to cast spells by accident and never more than once.

If people can't figure out how to use magic, then people can't figure out how to use magic - there is no fundamental difference between a wizard and a scientist.

[Weezer]

See, trial and error = science, more or less. You can't have something that works by trial and error and doesn't work by science. And if magic works completely randomly then stumbling upon it would only allow people to cast spells by accident and never more than once.

If people can't figure out how to use magic, then people can't figure out how to use magic - there is no fundamental difference between a wizard and a scientist.

No, mere trial and error is not science. Trial and error used to find a system, a model for the world, is science. Arbitrary doesn't mean not reproducible. In this hypothetical setting a specific incantation when said exactly right would give the same result every time, but there isn't a fundamental logic behind it. Alakazam is a spell because it's a spell. Nothing more. There is no set of laws behind it that describe why it is a spell, why that collection of syllables has some effect, it just is and the only way to figure out that alakazam is a spell it to accidentally say it or more likely to have someone tell you that it is a spell.

[TheSummoner]

>Why portal the food in? Rituals/spells for just outright creating the food probably exist. For my own campaign world I made this sort of thing require a sample of "real" food that is destroyed by the ritual. Given that a famine is currently part of the metaplot, that matters :smallbiggrin:

A good question.

I suppose an assumption I made was along the lines that you cannot create something from nothing... You cannot conjure food or water out of thin air (though this is up for debate if you disagree with my assumption. Yay theoretical situations with few limits bound in reality!). The portal in my original scenerio was also used for reinforcements and non-food supplies (weapons, ammo, anything really).

[Ravens_cry]

No, mere trial and error is not science. Trial and error used to find a system, a model for the world, is science. Arbitrary doesn't mean not reproducible. In this hypothetical setting a specific incantation when said exactly right would give the same result every time, but there isn't a fundamental logic behind it. Alakazam is a spell because it's a spell. Nothing more. There is no set of laws behind it that describe why it is a spell, why that collection of syllables has some effect, it just is and the only way to figure out that alakazam is a spell it to accidentally say it or more likely to have someone tell you that it is a spell.
There is still rules then, otherwise, it would not be repeatable. They may be hidden, so? Finding out our own universes 'rules' is like watching one corner of a chessboard in play when you don't know the rules of the game, only infinitely more complex.
You can draw inferences, formulate a theory to explain it ,then you observe phenomena that makes your theory invalid, you see a pawn be queened, you see light act like a particle AND a wave, at the same time, and you must make a new theory to explain the new phenomena and try and predict future ones.
The rules for a universe where waving your hands a special way and intoning certain syllables makes fire appear from apparently nowhere would almost certainly be very different from our own. However, the very fact you could do that, repeatability, just shows there are laws in place, unknown perhaps to the practitioners, but it does not prove them unknowable.

[Weezer]

I was positing a world where magic works because it works, no other reason. I suppose that's a system of rules, but it's a pointless one to understand and fully grasping it doesn't allow you any of the benefits that fully grasping physics does. It wouldn't allow you to predict anything, create new spells extrapolated from others or anything of the sort. So a scientific investigation wouldn't gain you any insight as to how things work.

[Frozen_Feet]

So a black box, then. You can figure how it works, but why is ineffable.

Doesn't really matter. Many technological innovations were created without really knowing why they worked. Even these days there are phenomena we can't explain, but what matters is that those phenomena exist, and you can count on them happening in certain situations. They still interact with rest of the world, and more innovations can be based on extrapolating from those interactions.

Once it becomes a fact of life, supernatural becomes just an extension of the natural.

[Weezer]

A black box is a good way of saying it. It would allow for some innovation in the application of magic, but no understanding of it. Maybe I'm looking at science from a very purist perspective, but discovering why, the exact mechanism of the universe's functioning, is the only "Real" science. The rest is mere engineering.

[Dvandemon]

Take whatever problem we have in current military situations, apply magic to solve. I look to Discworld for ideas on that. Magic replaces nuclear power and people wouldn't need to go to war for necessities such as wealth, it'd be rendered obsolete by the ability to just generate the supplies one needs. Another story to look at could be Naruto, mercenary states loan magical ability for financial support. One thing I want to ask is what effect would the ability to use magic have on humanity's Kardashev rating? Would you need a separate scale to measure magical ability? What is the SI unit of magic?
No, mere trial and error is not science. Trial and error used to find a system, a model for the world, is science. Arbitrary doesn't mean not reproducible. In this hypothetical setting a specific incantation when said exactly right would give the same result every time, but there isn't a fundamental logic behind it. Alakazam is a spell because it's a spell. Nothing more. There is no set of laws behind it that describe why it is a spell, why that collection of syllables has some effect, it just is and the only way to figure out that alakazam is a spell it to accidentally say it or more likely to have someone tell you that it is a spell.

The question I asked today about magic is, why do sentient lifeforms have the capability to alter reality to desired effects? Alternatively, it's magic, I ain't gotta explain ****

[Prime32]

A black box is a good way of saying it. It would allow for some innovation in the application of magic, but no understanding of it. Maybe I'm looking at science from a very purist perspective, but discovering why, the exact mechanism of the universe's functioning, is the only "Real" science. The rest is mere engineering.
Some awesome stuff comes from engineering though. Look what we get from "round shape" and "wedge shape" alone. A spell that creates light could be connected to a solar cell for unlimited energy, communication magic could create infinitely fast computers, and so on.

[Weezer]

Some awesome stuff comes from engineering though. Look what we get from "round shape" and "wedge shape" alone. A spell that creates light could be connected to a solar cell for unlimited energy, communication magic could create infinitely fast computers, and so on.

Not denying that in the slightest. I'm a research chemist though, it's pretty much a requirement to be disparaging towards engineers :smalltongue:

[Hawriel]

Wiping out a city/large army,fort kind level of magic brings to mind some questions. Weapons, techknowlegy, and resorces of the deffender apply.

1) does the magic being used require one mage or multaple mages?

2) How long does the spell take to cast?

3) How often can the army/nation/kindom cast this sort of spell?

4) What resorces are invalved, and how much does it take?

5) Can this level of magic be hiden?

6) How close does to caster(s) need to be to the target?

7) What resorces are needed to deffend the caster(s) of the spell?

[pendell]

Magic replaces nuclear power and people wouldn't need to go to war for necessities such as wealth, it'd be rendered obsolete by the ability to just generate the supplies one needs.


It doesn't prevent war from non-economic reasons, such as pride or ethnocentrism.

Also, if there are magical resources, it gives us a whole 'nother set of things to fight over.

Still, I suspect this makes space travel a lot easier. Would magic in our world result in spelljammer scenarios?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Yanagi]

Pretty much any form of magic that could achieve consistent results across usages would utterly transfrom the strategy and economy of warfare. Considered onw example of a "magic" stretched across military contexts:

Teleportation, or There's no such thing as a zone of control:

...Radically alters troop movement in large-scale deployments. Achieving position is less of a logistics issue, as terrain, fatigue, profile, and defense/traps all have blunted, or zero, effect.
...Reinforcing key positions from being overrun is similarly simplified. A permanent site-to-site portal is an incredibly powerful defensive advantage, as it is a one-time investment with endless dividends, even if the opponent also has access to teleportation.
...On the macro scale, teleportation completely changes the resource allocation of militaristic empires, as garrisoning isn't as necessary. Retension and defense of critical routes, both overland and at sea, changes the need for stationary (castles, ports) defensive holdings and patrols (frigate/yacht fleets, Rome's road-building legions).
...Acts as a force multiplier for commando tactics like target elimination and chevauchee...again, positioning is simplified, as is extraction, but also op range is extended greatly. Any resource site is vulnerable to attack, seizure, and/or destruction independent of geography or strategic zone. High-value individuals are continuously under threat.
...Greatly dampens the efficacy of physical fortification--be it entrenching or a full-on star castle--as well as defense in depth. Geographic and positional advantages such as high ground are similarly diminished in importance. Defensive destruction of logistical resources--roads, bridges--and offensive seizure thereof (as in A Bridge Too Far, or the story of Horatius Cocles) is deprioritized.
,,,Severely shortens, if not eliminates, vulnerable supply lines: there's neither convoys to harry and disrupt nor vital depots to seize. Siege by circumvallation plus attrition becomes a less feasible tactic. Depending on the amassed resources and ethics of the opposing sides, scorched earth tactics are either invalidated or vastly more important.
...Potentially alters the movement of refugees and displaced peoples are handled by their nation--or their new captors. On one hand, teleport could be used for the humanitarian act of moving noncombatants out of dangerous and resource-depleted areas. Alternately, it's a way of transporting your labor-force to precisely where they'll contribute the most to the war effort (sinisterly, this applies equally if they're your own people or captive, forced laborers).
...Depending on the precise method of teleportation, the ability to move inanimate objects via teleport creates long-range high-precision bombing: 'port a boulder thousand feet above a town, then let it fall--wrecking the primary target and doing collateral damage as it shatters. Repeat with a barrel of burning tar. Or apport poison into the enclosed water supply of a besieged city...or shunt a bunch of plague rats into the far-away capitol of the opposing nation.

edit:
...One final factor: teleport can be used to create completely secure movement of information with no chain of carriers to disrupt or capture, no paper trail to analyze, and no signal to intercept. Parties needing to communicate secure information can do so face-to-face, within whatever degree of security they both agree upon.

[warty goblin]

So a black box, then. You can figure how it works, but why is ineffable.

Doesn't really matter. Many technological innovations were created without really knowing why they worked. Even these days there are phenomena we can't explain, but what matters is that those phenomena exist, and you can count on them happening in certain situations. They still interact with rest of the world, and more innovations can be based on extrapolating from those interactions.

Once it becomes a fact of life, supernatural becomes just an extension of the natural.

Only if you assume that magic is a reliable fact of the material universe. However it's not hard to imagine magic being granted by beings (gods, spirits, what have you) if they feel like it.

This sort of paradigm still gets you a lot of the cool bits of magic - all the incantations and funky spell components can still make perfect sense. Only now instead of being some bizarre manipulation of physical reality, they're how you appease the Otherworldly powers you want to do you favors. They can of course refuse for a variety of reasons they may or may not make clear to the practitioner. Maybe they like the person/side you are using magic against more than you, maybe something stronger is keeping them from helping, there could be any number of reasons for a magical ritual failing. Indeed sometimes it seems reasonable that an individual would receive magical aid without even asking for it.

This sort of universe is pretty radically different than that of most modern fantasy, which tends towards treating magic as merely another piece of a mechanistic universe. Instead I'm suggesting a personified universe, where things happen not (just) because of physical interactions, but because the primal forces of existence want them to.

[Prime32]

Only if you assume that magic is a reliable fact of the material universe. However it's not hard to imagine magic being granted by beings (gods, spirits, what have you) if they feel like it.

This sort of paradigm still gets you a lot of the cool bits of magic - all the incantations and funky spell components can still make perfect sense. Only now instead of being some bizarre manipulation of physical reality, they're how you appease the Otherworldly powers you want to do you favors. They can of course refuse for a variety of reasons they may or may not make clear to the practitioner. Maybe they like the person/side you are using magic against more than you, maybe something stronger is keeping them from helping, there could be any number of reasons for a magical ritual failing. Indeed sometimes it seems reasonable that an individual would receive magical aid without even asking for it.

This sort of universe is pretty radically different than that of most modern fantasy, which tends towards treating magic as merely another piece of a mechanistic universe. Instead I'm suggesting a personified universe, where things happen not (just) because of physical interactions, but because the primal forces of existence want them to.Sure. Though I'd immediately start looking for the god of science. :smallwink:

[Johel]

Only if you assume that magic is a reliable fact of the material universe. However it's not hard to imagine magic being granted by beings (gods, spirits, what have you) if they feel like it.

This sort of paradigm still gets you a lot of the cool bits of magic - all the incantations and funky spell components can still make perfect sense. Only now instead of being some bizarre manipulation of physical reality, they're how you appease the Otherworldly powers you want to do you favors. They can of course refuse for a variety of reasons they may or may not make clear to the practitioner. Maybe they like the person/side you are using magic against more than you, maybe something stronger is keeping them from helping, there could be any number of reasons for a magical ritual failing. Indeed sometimes it seems reasonable that an individual would receive magical aid without even asking for it.

This sort of universe is pretty radically different than that of most modern fantasy, which tends towards treating magic as merely another piece of a mechanistic universe. Instead I'm suggesting a personified universe, where things happen not (just) because of physical interactions, but because the primal forces of existence want them to.

We use something like that in my group of D&D.

Basically, any extraplanar entity is the result of the dreams, hopes and fears from mortals (except for the elementals but that's another story...).
So any outsider got *some* measure of magical power and can lend it to mortals for various reasons.
Gods are just some kind of outsiders which have laaaarge measures of magical power but still can't affect the material plane without mortals.

Now, the trick is that an outsider doesn't lend its power for free.
It always got something out of the deal.

By lending its power to clerics, it gives them the means to defend a certain ideal and spread it around, so that people will want to achieve this ideal.
As a result, there are more dreams and hopes about that outsider's specific values and "raison d'être"... or simply about that outsider and its deeds.
All of this is channeled directly to said outsider, which get more powerful and can therefor promote its ideal on a larger scale.
So basically "believe in me, defend my cause, preach my word and you will got my blessing"

It can also be less about indirect mystical power and more about actual, raw power :
Magic items, souls, gold, gems stones, exotic things... an outsider can require nearly anything, even as simple as getting away with his life.
That's one of the methods used by Wizards, who actually bargain with outsiders rather than worshipping them.
It's more difficult and often a lot more risky and costly.
But you don't have those pesky moral restriction and can have your magic "sponsored" by several outsiders.
Some Clerics also do it but because they are typically idealistic individuals, they tend to stick to outsiders of their own alignement.
Warlocks are often the result of bargains between outsiders and unscrupulous Wizards.
("my first born's immortal soul in exchange for a wish ? There you go !!")

The third method is to directly syphon magic from the planes themselves.
This is the most common form of arcane power.
It's a lot of effort for very little power but you don't even have to bargain and the risks are close to none.
Since doing so actually weaken the planes, outsiders don't like it and encourage their Clerics to hunt down arcane casters.
Some most supernatural creatures (and all sorcerers) are born with this ability and can do it more easily.

Magic items can be the result of any of these.
But arcane magic items are mostly related to the syphon method.
They are opposed by Clerics, who destroy them because they "are an insult to the will of the Gods".
Divine magic items are usually alignement-restricted trickets that directly take magic from the outsider behind their creation.

[Frozen_Feet]

Only if you assume that magic is a reliable fact of the material universe. However it's not hard to imagine magic being granted by beings (gods, spirits, what have you) if they feel like it.


It's still a fact of the universe. The quality of interactions is just different, meaning relevant fields of study are shuffled around a bit. I've been building a setting revolving around such personalized magic for a while now, and high-end magic still ends up being quite scientific. It's just that instead of meta-engineers or meta-chemicists, you end up with meta-psychologists, meta-sociologists and meta-biologists, if that tells you something.

[pendell]

Here's a thought.

What if "magic" turned out to mean that the universe is malleable, like a dream, and if one knows the right trick, one can control the dream? Sort of as in lucid dreaming? And like a dream, there is nothing literally impossible, because if you can imagine it , it can literally happen.

Some caveats to this thought experiment:

1) Assume that there are still consequences. For instance, if you are able to imagine that the ratio of a circle's diameter to it's circumference is not 3.14159... but 3, well, you can do it. But you'll also break everything and ruin every computation built around the previous assumption. You can turn someone into a frog by imagining them as a frog rather than a human. And it happens, instantly. There's no shift or metamorphosis sequence as in a bad horror film. Instead, one instant man, the next instant frog.

But even so, the universe catches up with things the next instant and if you're not careful, what you have in the aftermath of such a change from a 100kg man to a <1kg frog is neither man nor frog but a bloody mess.

The more you alter the world away from its default state, the more logically inconsistent the world becomes, the more dreaming energy needs to be spent to keep it in this state. Absent some guiding and controlling magic or magics to keep the system running, the world resumes running in accordance with the laws of nature as they were last configured by the last mage.

For example, you can create a world that is a flat disk on the back of four elephants on the back of a giant world turtle. And this means you're going to be putting forth a lot of 'dreaming' to keep that world in existence. Withdraw the dreaming energy , and the laws of physics catch up in a hurry, destroying the discworld and everything on it.

The only way this doesn't happen is if you can create a new default state that is also logically consistent and does not require magic to keep on track. But even there, presumably you would still need to give touchups and spot maintenance from time to time.

2) Let us assume there is some sort of power source required to make this happen -- to shift the world from what *is* to what you *want it to be*. Possibly belief powers this shift.

What would military science look like?

I suspect conflict would center a lot less on actual weapons as it would be on getting enough power concentrated to shift the world. There's an evil empire threatening your border? Get your circle together, and suddenly there's no longer an evil empire. There's a collection of small neighboring kingdoms. They have always been nothing but a collection of small neighboring kingdoms.

Meanwhile, the evil empire presumably has its own circle of mages trying to bring about a reality where your kingdom is a part of the evil empire. It has always been a part of the evil empire. And you and your circle of mages trying to stop this reality never existed, were never even born.

I suspect that in such a world the scientific method would be applied better to understanding this metaphysical reality -- to learn the rules of dreaming -- rather than actual physical laws, since the physical laws would be subject to change at a moment's notice. Propaganda would be vital, objectivity would be near-meaningless.

----

Perhaps I'm expressing this badly, but I'm trying to explore the idea of "magic" as being something other than simply sufficiently advanced technology, some new principle or force that can be controlled using scientific logic. I'm trying to think of a "magic" which is more something that completely exists above and outside the frame of scientific reference, a literally supernatural artifact that can nonetheless be accessed and manipulated by those within nature to shape nature. Changing nature and the natural laws to their whim. Where "fact" and "opinion" become interchangeable.

Just trying to look at the problem from a different angle.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[warty goblin]

It's still a fact of the universe. The quality of interactions is just different, meaning relevant fields of study are shuffled around a bit. I've been building a setting revolving around such personalized magic for a while now, and high-end magic still ends up being quite scientific. It's just that instead of meta-engineers or meta-chemicists, you end up with meta-psychologists, meta-sociologists and meta-biologists, if that tells you something.

Meta doesn't mean what you seem to think it means.

Aside from that, it's only a fact of the universe if it wants to be so. Because of this, the testability goes way down. Burying a lock of your enemy's hair along with a snake skeleton in a bronze box at midnight may result in them developing boils a week later. Repeat the 'experiment' and maybe nothing happens.

And there's no guarantee you'll know why nothing happened the second time; since the ultimate cause is a variable that rather by construction cannot be controlled. You don't even know why it worked the first time - or even if it worked the first time, or whether the boils were the result of something completely different.

Now sure, one could do some very largescale statistical inference on hundreds of cases of bronze box burying and the correlation to boils. That however demands a pre-existing and very well developed theory of statistics. That's the sort of thing that's really only been possible within the last two hundred years at absolute best, and is certainly not going to arise from the study of magic if it works as described above. All this also assumes that the entities in question don't object to being studied, which they very well may. In that case you're basically playing chicken with a large, pissy dude who can throw lightning bolts. Needless to say this is probably not conducive to longterm study.

[Weezer]

Meta doesn't mean what you seem to think it means.

Aside from that, it's only a fact of the universe if it wants to be so. Because of this, the testability goes way down. Burying a lock of your enemy's hair along with a snake skeleton in a bronze box at midnight may result in them developing boils a week later. Repeat the 'experiment' and maybe nothing happens.

And there's no guarantee you'll know why nothing happened the second time; since the ultimate cause is a variable that rather by construction cannot be controlled. You don't even know why it worked the first time - or even if it worked the first time, or whether the boils were the result of something completely different.

Now sure, one could do some very largescale statistical inference on hundreds of cases of bronze box burying and the correlation to boils. That however demands a pre-existing and very well developed theory of statistics. That's the sort of thing that's really only been possible within the last two hundred years at absolute best, and is certainly not going to arise from the study of magic if it works as described above. All this also assumes that the entities in question don't object to being studied, which they very well may. In that case you're basically playing chicken with a large, pissy dude who can throw lightning bolts. Needless to say this is probably not conducive to longterm study.

This is very similar to how people thought magic worked in real life in antiquity. There were certain rituals to be done that if the god/spirit/whatever decided to take notice of the spell, could do things like kill people or protect you against harm. It was seen as a very unreliable yet still powerful method of controlling and effecting the world.
They were also really cool, read through the spells in the Egyptian Book of the Dead sometime, they're fascinating.

[The Glyphstone]

Meta doesn't mean what you seem to think it means.

Aside from that, it's only a fact of the universe if it wants to be so. Because of this, the testability goes way down. Burying a lock of your enemy's hair along with a snake skeleton in a bronze box at midnight may result in them developing boils a week later. Repeat the 'experiment' and maybe nothing happens.

And there's no guarantee you'll know why nothing happened the second time; since the ultimate cause is a variable that rather by construction cannot be controlled. You don't even know why it worked the first time - or even if it worked the first time, or whether the boils were the result of something completely different.

Now sure, one could do some very largescale statistical inference on hundreds of cases of bronze box burying and the correlation to boils. That however demands a pre-existing and very well developed theory of statistics. That's the sort of thing that's really only been possible within the last two hundred years at absolute best, and is certainly not going to arise from the study of magic if it works as described above. All this also assumes that the entities in question don't object to being studied, which they very well may. In that case you're basically playing chicken with a large, pissy dude who can throw lightning bolts. Needless to say this is probably not conducive to longterm study.

Isn't that only relevant for divine magic? Unless you ascribe to the god of magic deciding to make spellcasting completely random for giggles (which would also upset the arcane spellcasters, since their tried-and-true spells don't work reliably anymore), you'll still be able to empirically test arcane magic. Divine magic gets classified as literal miracles, though futile tests will be attempted on it anyways.

[pendell]

Isn't that only relevant for divine magic? Unless you ascribe to the god of magic deciding to make spellcasting completely random for giggles (which would also upset the arcane spellcasters, since their tried-and-true spells don't work reliably anymore), you'll still be able to empirically test arcane magic.


Only if the success or failure of arcane magic is solely dependent on things we have knowledge of and can factor into account.

Let us suppose, for example, that magic is supernatural and there is an arcane "sun" in a supernatural plane. When it's up, magic works in our world. When it's down, magic doesn't.

Under such conditions, arcane magic would be unreliable until someone notes the times at which magic works when it doesn't, and schedule experiments solely at those time periods.

That is assuming that the time periods are regular and on easy cycles. If it's not something obvious like a solar day in our plane -- if it's some period like once every four years, for a period of a half-hour -- it would be difficult both to observe the pattern and to follow it closely enough to reliably perform arcane magic.

And that's assuming this "sun" is the only factor. What if there are other factors in this world we can't perceive? Hit-and-miss magic and superstition would be much more common. Occam's razor would suggest it didn't exist at all.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[warty goblin]

This is very similar to how people thought magic worked in real life in antiquity. There were certain rituals to be done that if the god/spirit/whatever decided to take notice of the spell, could do things like kill people or protect you against harm. It was seen as a very unreliable yet still powerful method of controlling and effecting the world.
They were also really cool, read through the spells in the Egyptian Book of the Dead sometime, they're fascinating.

The belief systems of most of history were more or less what I was patterning my argument on, however to avoid any seepage into real world religion I filed the serial numbers off. However I find that set of metaphysics far more interesting and appealing than the usual modern fantasy take on magic, which is usually pretty much a modern scientific worldview in which some people can shoot fireballs. One's dangerous and requires a profoundly different understanding of humanity's place in the cosmos, the other's basically a power trip.

(Not to say I have anything against scientific empiricism, a mechanistic understanding of the universe, or any of that. They're quite good ideas with a lot of support, and can produce astounding results. They simply don't work well for magic in my eyes.)


Isn't that only relevant for divine magic? Unless you ascribe to the god of magic deciding to make spellcasting completely random for giggles (which would also upset the arcane spellcasters, since their tried-and-true spells don't work reliably anymore), you'll still be able to empirically test arcane magic. Divine magic gets classified as literal miracles, though futile tests will be attempted on it anyways.

Arcane vs. divine is a possible distinction, but hardly a necessary one. My favorite work of fantasy over the last few years for instance only had magic that would probably be termed divine, since the characters thought it all came from gods. Interestingly enough it was seldom clear whether anything supernatural was in fact occurring - the main character performing the spells always thought it was of course - but there was usually a naturalistic explanation that the reader could see.

[Frozen_Feet]

Meta doesn't mean what you seem to think it means.
I'm perfectly aware of that. My vocabulary doesn't, however, include nominations for supernaturalist sciences that would've conveyed the right meaning, so I threw something together at random in hopes you'd understand.

Aside from that, it's only a fact of the universe if it wants to be so. Because of this, the testability goes way down. Burying a lock of your enemy's hair along with a snake skeleton in a bronze box at midnight may result in them developing boils a week later. Repeat the 'experiment' and maybe nothing happens.

And there's no guarantee you'll know why nothing happened the second time; since the ultimate cause is a variable that rather by construction cannot be controlled. You don't even know why it worked the first time - or even if it worked the first time, or whether the boils were the result of something completely different.

Now sure, one could do some very largescale statistical inference on hundreds of cases of bronze box burying and the correlation to boils. That however demands a pre-existing and very well developed theory of statistics. That's the sort of thing that's really only been possible within the last two hundred years at absolute best, and is certainly not going to arise from the study of magic if it works as described above. All this also assumes that the entities in question don't object to being studied, which they very well may. In that case you're basically playing chicken with a large, pissy dude who can throw lightning bolts. Needless to say this is probably not conducive to longterm study.

You're thinking about it in the wrong light now. If magic springs from "living" entities, you approach it in the manner you'd approach other living entities. This is what I tried to convey earlier - obviously you can't apply the same methods to mechanistic and animistic magic, but that doesn't mean there aren't methods, or that researching animistic magic is any harder. Indeed, I'm willing to claim animistic magic would be easier, as humans intuitively approach organic systems better than inorganic ones. We are good at inferring intent, which is invaluable when faced with animistic magic.

To give an example of a high-level, "scientific" animistic setting, I'll take Pokemon. Many pokemons are exactly the sort of black-box entities we talked about earlier - in many cases, the poke-world humans have no clue how they can do the things they can, or why they do the things they do. But those creatures are everywhere, and interact with knowable things constantly. So humans can pick up patterns in their behavior.

For example, there's a tree of berries! Every so often, a pokemon comes to eat them, so maybe it likes them? Maybe, if I collect berries, I can lure it to me!

Okay, so I collected the berries and it didn't come. Hmmm. Maybe it isn't hungry, or it's afraid of me? Well, I'll leave these berries here and see if it comes back.

Do pokemons like being researched? Hell no, many of them are extremely hostile to human beings. Are they more powerful? Ya bet, at least in some cases. In primitive pokeworld, it's likely a human often didn't have much more options than to run for his life or grovel on the ground and pray. (Sure explains why some of them are/were venerated as gods.) Can you generalize traits of pokemon? Well, to an extent - but they are 400+ different species with different physiology, psychology, habitat and so on. Your intimate knowledge of magikarps won't likely be too hot when face-to-face with a Charizard.

But again, since these creatures exist, because they interact with rest of the world, you can know them to an extent, and that's enough. You might never understand why that Alakazam decides to stay in a little ball and bend spoons despite being more intelligent than high-end supercomputes, nor where does the energy it uses for its psychic powers come from. But the creature is there, and you can build a part of your society on that fact alone.


Isn't that only relevant for divine magic? Unless you ascribe to the god of magic deciding to make spellcasting completely random for giggles (which would also upset the arcane spellcasters, since their tried-and-true spells don't work reliably anymore), you'll still be able to empirically test arcane magic. Divine magic gets classified as literal miracles, though futile tests will be attempted on it anyways.
The division between arcane magic and divine magic is wholly arbitrary element of setting building. It need not be fact in any given setting. Indeed, most magical traditions I'm aware of display magic as "divine" by the D&D definition. If there's duality in magic, it's based more on who the magic comes from, not whether it's mechanistic or animistic.

[Tyndmyr]

Though its possible that the scientific method wouldn't work. If there is no deeper reason why when gesture x is combined with incantation y a fireball pops out while gesture x combined with incantation z gives you rain then science would be relegated to merely cataloguing the various spells and using trial and error to find new ones. This kind of magic is rare in fantasy, but I have seen it a few times.

Negative. Cataloging spells and finding new ones can be done in a scientific fashion. And there are all manner of possible experiments to be done even given that as a premise. Does volume of the incantation affect it? Can a tape recorded incantation suffice? Can you force a person to cast a spell? What happens when you alter one word slightly?

Either a positive OR a negative result tells you something of importance. And you can certainly optimize the process of teaching magic to people using science.


Not necessarily. In our world, yes that is how everything we've come across works, but what's to say magic works that way? It's not that everything works different every time it's that things just work, with no reason for them to work, and no connection between different working things. A mystical magic as opposed to a scientific magic. I'm just discussing this because I've come across magical systems in fiction, most recently in the Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (a surprisingly good fanfic), that characters have tried to analyze scientifically but they find that at its core magic is arbitrary. I guess thats what mostly defies science, if things are arbitrary. Science can deal with randomness, thats pretty much chaos theory, but arbitrariness overcomes it.

No, they don't discover that it's arbitrary. Don't take what he says as literal truth. It's sometimes not. HP makes some very important discoveries on the nature of magic, such as the reversed causality, and the partial effects from saying a spell almost, but not entirely correct. He also gets into some very deep stuff relating between magic and life that I won't get into here for spoiler reasons.

But yes, he most definitely learns some very valuable things through the scientific application of magic. There's some very significant hints about immortality being one of those things in chapter 20.


Edit: If I discovered that a particular gesture and word had a magical result, I would immediately do it again. And then probably a couple more times just to be sure. I would then record it in a variety of ways to ensure I captured it completely. And that I'm not crazy. I'd then demonstrate to a complete stranger to entirely rule out the crazy, and then teach him how to do it. If others can replicate it, then teaching is possible, and the rules are not unique to the person.

You then start dividing up possible sounds and gestures, and getting more people involved. Volume, if spread evenly over the admittedly large target space, should eventually uncover more strange effects. Each additional one will be taught to others, replicated and studied.

Things that work unreliably, if detected at all, can be confirmed via statistical analysis. That'll be detected when we're replicating by teaching spells to others. We'll also be analyzing the hits for any trends in words or movements that seem to go together more often. Some people will no doubt experiment with doing spells in different ways.

Hell, starting with a single known spell, you could get some pretty crazy stuff done.