Magic Real?

[Sauron]

my personal opinon is that magic is real to those whom belive in it. Those whom belive in magic posseses it. Those whom have the magic are only limeted to what they belive the magic can do. Young, as we all were/are (age 2-6 years) did we not belive? When we got older was the beleif and magic not thrummed out of our mind, body, and soul by "science"? Persuaded that nothing could happen that didn't have a "scientific" explination. Whom here dosen't have a nameless sorrow? Something missing from this "normal" world. Has anyone here wondered what it must be like to be fine the way you are? Conforming to society kills individuality. Everyone becomes the same, life becomes as grey and hard as the concrete buildings all around us as we choke Gaia to death.People wonder why no one sees the magic that once flowed through the world? If everything has an explination, if the only things that can egist follow these set of rules, than life loses meaning. Everything explained no mystery, no enchantment. Our souls wither as the nameless sorrow within us slowly grows larger unclurling it's body and controlling us. And eventually we are consumed in the end and hope for magic and the hope for anything vanishes. In the end the desire to want magic goes away, washed away by the acid rain of oun "brilliance" our "science". Have we really come that far? This world will end in fire as the last great empire ended in water. At the height of Atlantis's splendor they used the tuoai stone as a weapon of war and it turned against them and ended them. We will nuke ourselves. This is where "science" will get us. In the end we will lose the desire to live, every last one of us.
And then entropy will win...

[Nita1Callahan]

It could be. A books like the one Nita finds could be out there somewhere maybe.

[wizardgirl06]

It would be very cool if there realy were manuals out there somewhere. In my personal opinion there aren't in reality but it's fun to imagine what would happen if you did find one.

Well, My personal stand point on this is as follows: I think that if there was no/is no magic in the world then how was it ever even thought up? i doudt anyone that far back when books first started touching apon it, people started getting hanged and burned for it, would have the ability to cook up such a story that would stick through the ages, taunting the minds and imaginations of everyone who hears about it. such as us and everyone who reads and loves and fantasizes about the things that go on in the YW series and other like it. Its a realy nice thought, thinking there are other things out there, untaimed and dangerous but such a great great thing. Jus think, somewhere out there there could be tones of people, thousands, that might be wizards, doing what Kit and Nita do. Just imagin the posibilitys it would rais! i personaly find myself stray towards all books i can find since i started reading these books (maybe a childish habit but one that has stuck with me for a while >.&lt. I love the thought, and hope every day that something like that would happen. I would love to be a wizards, and to get to the very core of it, I do belive in magic. with all my fiber and imagination and soul i belive. And hope that someday that belife will be come reality.

~Kynian

[MagikMelody]

Originally posted by Kynian:
Well, My personal stand point on this is as follows: I think that if there was no/is no magic in the world then how was it ever even thought up?

I think the same thing!

Anyway, i believe in magic. I believe in it fully. I think it is kidn of a version of the YW books. I believe people have specialties nd opposites. For example, almost every computer i try and use but my own (and even my own when i first get it) refuses to work. It freezes and has to be shut down. It happens constantly at school or friend's houses. I believe that means technology things are my opposite. AS for my specialty? im not sure. I always feel like i have some sort of connection with nature but also with emotions and feeling-people and animal alike.

I really hope someday i will know exactly what kind of magic really exists. my sister is Wiccan andtho i am not, i believe that is one kind of magic. Someday, i wil find out..... I just have to keep believing, right?

[bluesalamanders]

Putting aside for a moment the question of whether or not magic is real, why is it so hard to believe that the idea of magic could have been invented? Humans are storytellers by nature; anything we don't understand, we create a story to explain. The stars, the planets, the sun and moon, the seasons, the weather, disease, earthquakes, and so on...everything was "explained" by magic or gods or some such before we had any real understanding of the universe.

Blue

Yes, its true that humans were and still are story tellers by nature, why would that story be taken for so long? taken up as reality by so many? so taken that people got burned and hanged for it. Why would people belive such a story and find such need to kill people who they suspected used such powers? Yes we might be story tellers but I still find i hard to belive taht there is no such thing as magic and the human mind could creat such a woudnerful, wistful fantasy that is magic.

thats just my opinion though

~Kynian

[Locust]

After deliberating on this subject for a while, i realized that i DO believe in magic, although society has kind of forced me not to voice my opinion, mainly because people seemingly become narrow-minded when things don't seem to exist.

[Aradia Madrea-Nox]

Specifically to Kynian, but also anyone else interested in my long rant -

I agree in a sense that it's possible: a lot of people believe in magic, very strongly. However, as Sauron mentioned, many humans want everything explained by the rules of "science."

So, coming from a child of scientist parents, here's my explanation to what you have to say: magic and even the gods were thought up once to explain the unexplainable. In fact, they play exactly the same role as science - they serve to explain why something happens the way it does.

It is that reasoning that leads me to believe that "magic" - something unexplainable - is not what we perceive it to be. Instead, personally, I enjoy taking magic from books and dissecting it to see how it would follow natural laws (which, actually, much of it does, especially once you get into quantum physics - here's a good reference site).

I'm not saying there's no magic. I merely believe that it's explainable. Perhaps a better way to say what I'm trying to say is this: science is merely another branch of magic. We just accept it now because we understand it and can all harness it.

Imagine, for instance, the following circumstance: you go to a poor, developing country in which the people have never seen an abacus, let alone a calculator. You pull out your laptop computer and can do all sorts of things - research, math, writing, whatever.

To those people who've never seen anything like it, you have performed magic.

It is the unexplained that we call magic - not the unexplainable.


Wow. That was extremely jumbled and I'm not sure if even I can make sense of it. ^^; Sorry about that.

[bluesalamanders]

Aradia -

I agree and I don't.

Many things that we take for granted would be seen as magic only a century or two ago. As the quote attributed to Arthur C. Clarke goes, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

What I don't believe exists is magic. Unicorns that can purify water with their magic horns, a poem causing a person to transport from one location to another, pointing a stick at something and have it explode.

We can purify water with filters, move quickly with technological transportation, and make things explode with, well, explosives. There's a huge difference between magic and science.

You contradicted yourself once, though. Do you think magic is the unexplained, or the unexplainable? I agree that magic and the gods were used to explain what was otherwise unexplained, but I don't think that anything is unexplainable. There are many things for which we simply don't have the explanation yet.


And the reason people haven't given up on those stories, Kynian? Do you know how hard it is to change someone's mind, particularly about a belief or a "faith"? Until recently, we didn't know better - we didn't have real answers. With the recent explosion of scientific and technological knowledge, we're understanding the world around us far more than we ever have before. But people clutch to belief like a favorite toy, frantically resisting all attempts to dislodge it, no matter how logical or reasonable. Groups of people don't seem to be much different in that regard.

Blue

[Sean L.]

Of course, this may well be because those groups of people see what others try to tell them as illogical and unreasonable. Just as you seem to be the most ardent of atheists and accept science without question, those people know in their hearts that what they believe is right, and so anything you try and do to convince them otherwise is wrong; what might be logical and reasonable to you is not necessarily that to others.

To answer your original topic, perhaps it was invented by storytellers. But somewhere, somehow down the line something happened to make people believe in it. There are storytellers today that talk about magic and create universes that never have been and introduce explanations that haven't be introduced, but no one lives and dies swearing by these new worlds or faiths, whereas people do die, as Kynian correctly points out, in witchhunts, in Inquisitions, and more.

[bluesalamanders]

I don't accept anything calling itself science without question, Sean. The whole point of science is questioning, the very antithesis of the blind faith that is required by many religions. If someone could, through real, repeatable scientific testing, show convincing evidence of magic, I would change my mind on the subject. But nobody has.

And to your other paragraph - there were dozens and hundreds of different religions that haven't lasted this long. It wasn't invented all at once; it evolved, just like humans did. But today, people get into insane arguments and fights about which sports team is better or which computer operating system is superior. Why would we need a new religion? We have other things to believe in and fight about.

On the other hand, there are people who create new religions and faiths that people live - and die - by. We call them cults, usually, but all of our modern religions started out as cults. Who knows what will turn out from those cults in a hundred years?

Blue

[drama_queen _supreme]

Ok, so i have this book from the Spiderwick
Chronicles that expalins about all these different magical creatures in the book. (Well, it's actually my brothers but still...) So, one day I was just looking at it and I noticed the foreward. Throughout the whole page it asked the question, "What is real?" and that's true: what is real? Think about it. There are planty of things that we can't see that we believe are real. Atoms is one thing. Who here has seen an atom? Exactly my point. How many peolple have been to Japan? If you haven't, how do you know it's real? It's the same with magic. I very much agree with Sauron. I've always felt that I haven't grown up like my friends are because I still believe most storngly that magic is real and they "know" it isn't. But maybe it is. No one can say. So, there's my little bit.

Drama_Queen

[Sean L.]

Uh, the difference is that you can do experiments that prove it happens. Much like when you drop things, they fall, you can do an experiment that orginally led from Newton's dropping of the apple that prove the existence of tiny particles of matter.

Pretty much real, doncha think?

---

And Blue, so that means that you're not a big fan of the advanced quantum physics, with people able to influence their surroundings and whatnot by thinking about it right? Because that's "science"...supposedly. Go watch a movie called "What the %&#* D We Know?"

[Aradia Madrea-Nox]

Blue - thanks, I missed that in my tired rant. ^^; So. I believe "magic" to be the unexplained, but not necessarily the unexplainable. In fact, I believe that one day, we'll have explainations for all sorts of jazz that we currently would consider "magic."

And Sean - I hate to say this, but to disbelievers of quantum mechanics, I actually would not recommend What the #$*! Do We Know. Several - that is, many, many scientists agree that it doesn't... well, agree with given scientific laws at this current date.

I was pretty bummed when I found that out, because I really did adore that movie - still do, in fact.

Instead, there are a few books that are good reading. Unfortunately, I can't remember a single title - I'm going to have to ask my physics teacher tomorrw. ^^; I'll probably forget, so forgive me if I'm a few days late on updating some good reading.


That said, now would be a good time to start my history homework. ^^;;;;


Edit: Here are a couple basic web sites about it. I haven't read them, so I don't know how accurate they are, but I'm going to guess that, since they're wiki, they'll be pretty on the mark.

Quantum mechanics

String theory