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ChrisHibbert comments on The Hero With A Thousand Chances - Less Wrong
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Yes, especially since we are talking about a world where magic works, something like that would be my first alternative explanation to the anthropic one. As I remarked in another comment, I would reserve judgment on which was more likely until I looked more closely at the data, especially at just how many times the world got lucky, because the improbability of the anthropic explanation is an exponential function of that.
The (narrative) fact that the leaders of this world believe that magic works isn't a convincing argument that magic works. For most of Earth's history, its leaders have believed in various forms of magic. You're still better off believing in natural causality.
Even if it turns out that there is something that looks like magic before you study it, it ought to look like science by the time you're done formalizing it.
When someone summons me from another dimension, they get a little bit of leeway to tell me it's magic. Because at the very least it must be a sufficiently advanced technology, and until I know better the axiom of identity applies.