Magic > Science

[TDK]

So, I have decided to drop out of engineering school to instead study the ways of wizardry. Or maybe sorcery.

I realized this was the BEST idea after watching Cats for the first time in years and realizing that Mistoffelees is not a stage magician. He is a goddamn full-blown sorcerer who throws motherfucking lightning bolts.

And I mean, science is cool and all, but it can't even COMPETE.

Magic 4 lyfe

[CABAL49]

Cats are actually very powerful druidic sorcerers. That's why they have nine lives.

[PyrosNine]

Cats are actually very powerful druidic sorcerers. That's why they have nine lives.

It's true. Mistoffelees is actually an incubus who has talents of Druidry, while Grizabella was a body stealing lich who cast mind seed, while Old Deuteronomy was actually a cat who was also a druid and used his talents to take the form of a cat.

The only problem with magic is that it primarily runs off belief. So it's all fine and dandy when you get your magic working with your friends, and can convince other people based on hearsay and friends of friends...but then you meet that one idiot who is like: I dunno! My sheer disbelief is such that it prevents you from performing the magic you would need to prove magic to me!

Then all you can use is technology, ala a weapon of percussion, and put something into his mind real forceful like, and as a lesson to all future nonbelievers (who will probably also not believe that you killed a dude to prove magic exists, but that is the price they pay for sheer disbelief) and then you go fly on your unicorns that you magicked into having the personalities of certain television ponies. That may or may not be voice actors horribly transfigured into flesh and blood simulacrums of cartoon horses.

Of course, then it will all go to hell when eventually one of your perverted adepts takes leave of his training one night to hit up a the local night life, and the next thing you know there's a Hooters staffed by every major ninja character (original staff numbers willing) in Anime and Games who not only have their counterpart's skills but also are slowly growing in awareness that their ninja skills and new physical appearance can be used for far greater, far lucrative things than serving hot wings and getting sweaty tips.

And then everyone gets a few more kunai in them. Self damn it, Dave! This happens every week!

[TDK]

Well, this thread went all Pyros real quick-like.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Clearly you have simply not gone sufficiently advanced enough yet.

[Amake]

Science can be explained in magical terms as a spell of unparalleled craft and scope, made to give us power over the natural world by naming all the things within it. It works so much better than any other magic attempted because a) so many people have contributed to it for so long, and b) so many people believe in it so hard.

This way, magic allows science to be real. Magic encompasses science. Magic is literally greater than science in every way. I thought of this years ago, but I'm glad to see other people are getting it too.

[TDK]

There's a bit in the "Dresden Files" book series (which is FANTASTIC, by the way) where a supernatural creature describes technology as "Mortal ferromancy", which I always found amusing.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Magic is for pussies.
Science makes me whiskey. Magic makes mead. Whiskey>Mead. QED.

[Locke cole]

Magic, if understood and trained, would be another aspect of Science. I mean, we have a word for the study of how the world works. If magic worked in terms of specific incantations, formulas and reagents, then it could be made formulaic and reproduced.

Magic's really just a word for stuff we don't understand and can't meaningfully reproduce. I mean, look at what we do with magnetism. Behold, we have harnessed this invisible force that once lay trapped within stones of power! But we have released it and bound it once again! We can force it into place with our command of lightning, and with it, our bretheren in the land of the Orient have divined a way to make their great horseless chariots fly! Fly with the speed of the swiftest arrow!

You see my point. It would only really be "magic" if it was truly random and could not be meaningfully influenced, only observed and feared. Oh wait, quantum physics.

[Amake]

Some people would say the words "truly random and cannot be meaningfully influenced, only observed and feared" describe the human psyche. That's also where most serious sorcerers agree magic actually takes place.

That's another way to look at magic, as the immaterial properties of our minds. Courage, for instance, is a substance which both feels and in practice works like magic, and it lacks any physical properties. If you could summon courage at will, no one would hesitate to call you a magician.

[phil_]

Ok, so, I've been planning become a sorcerer for a while now in preparation for the Rapture, since "Outside [new Jerusalem] are the dogs and the sorcerers and the immoral persons and the murderers and the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices lying," and like hell I'm spending eternity in a Borg cube. There's no way I'd get in on the bottom floor, anyway. Did God ever build a space ship? No. You've got 14,999 vertical miles of airless space-city there, and I will have no part in it.

Anyway, like I said, my plan is to become a sorcerer and get out of all that mess. I mean, I could just be an immoral person or an idolater, but, as anyone who has read Faust knows, witches throw the best parties. And since death would be dead along with Hades, us sorcerers could party with the monsters forever.

But, while I was skimming for that verse to quote, I found this:

"But, for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."

So, my advice for you, Aero, is to learn how to turn yourself into a dog.

[Locke cole]

Well, phil, if your plans involve researching magic and learning it through spellbooks, then you're not a sorcerer, you're a wizard. Just so long as your magic ain't inherent in you from birth, you should be safe.

[Aldurin]

Aperture Magic: We cast what we must because we can.

[Seil]

But... but

http://www.obviouswinner.com/storage/post-images/steampunk_girl.jpeg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=127 3666281188>http://www.diablo3demo.com/diablo3-female-wizard.jpg

But only just.

[Seil]

Future magic. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJp86_tj9KQ)

EDIT
You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Smarty McBarrelpants again.

God dammit.

[Intern Nin]

Ha.

Ha, I say. That is me laughing at your pathetic "magykks". For they crumble and fall in the face of SCYENCE, LOGYC, and TRUTHYNESS. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw9bny88OuY) No mere illusion stands a chance against a chant of physical laws.

[Thadius]

Yarr, magic be the superior of the two. For where magic lurks, one need not go far to also find pirates.

[rpgdemon]

If you could summon courage at will, no one would hesitate to call you a magician.

I would.

[Locke cole]

Yeah, I'd prefer to call you a valormancer. Or Valoreurge.

[TDK]

But... but

http://www.obviouswinner.com/storage/post-images/steampunk_girl.jpeg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=127 3666281188

But only just.

I've met that girl at a couple cons. She's actually a wiccan. YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID.

Also, I've seen steampunk wizards and junk before. They're pretty pimp.

[Locke cole]

Clearly, our best bet is to escape to Eberron.

[TDK]

I could dig that. Lightning trains and magical robots, ahoy!

[phil_]

Well, phil, if your plans involve researching magic and learning it through spellbooks, then you're not a sorcerer, you're a wizard. Just so long as your magic ain't inherent in you from birth, you should be safe.Honestly, the only source I'm going on here never bothers to define sorcery and witchcraft, hence why I used "sorcerer" and "witch" interchangeably. I figure, as long as I'm lighting magic fire without calling on YHWH, I'm witching it up.

Also, Eberron is cool; I could dig that. Lemme know when you get that Gate spell rolling.

[Magus]

Necromancers 4 Lyfe!!

[Aerozord]

Argument is pointless, because any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from science

everyone knows that

[Red Mage Black]

Can't really say we can summon courage, but then again, what you really need to summon up is fear first. Courage is when you're scared shitless, but you pick up the shotgun anyway and forge on. ((Alternatively, we have little potions called 'courage in a bottle', but it's less courage and more foolishness. At least with the fear method, you won't wake up with a headache and nasty case of the squirts.))

[Magus]

Argument is pointless, because any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from science

everyone knows that

I wish there was a scientific explanation for why eldritch demons are summoned by particular geometric designs painted in human blood. I really do.

[Seil]

Magic, you say? Blood, you say? Geometric patterns, you say? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o0ncJEu_oQ&feature=feedf_more&t=2m18s)

[Amake]

Can't really say we can summon courage, but then again, what you really need to summon up is fear first. Courage is when you're scared shitless, but you pick up the shotgun anyway and forge on. ((Alternatively, we have little potions called 'courage in a bottle', but it's less courage and more foolishness. At least with the fear method, you won't wake up with a headache and nasty case of the squirts.)) Yes, it's an important difference between a) using numbness, ignorance, reason, motivation, faith or what have you to diminish your fear and b) defying your fear. Only one of those are brave.