Mundane Magic
Followup to: Joy in the Merely Real, Joy in Discovery, If You Demand Magic, Magic Won't Help
As you may recall from some months earlier, I think that part of the rationalist ethos is binding yourself emotionally to an absolutely lawful reductionistic universe - a universe containing no ontologically basic mental things such as souls or magic - and pouring all your hope and all your care into that merely real universe and its possibilities, without disappointment.
There's an old trick for combating dukkha where you make a list of things you're grateful for, like a roof over your head.
So why not make a list of abilities you have that would be amazingly cool if they were magic, or if only a few chosen individuals had them?
For example, suppose that instead of one eye, you possessed a magical second eye embedded in your forehead. And this second eye enabled you to see into the third dimension - so that you could somehow tell how far away things were - where an ordinary eye would see only a two-dimensional shadow of the true world. Only the possessors of this ability can accurately aim the legendary distance-weapons that kill at ranges far beyond a sword, or use to their fullest potential the shells of ultrafast machinery called "cars".
"Binocular vision" would be too light a term for this ability. We'll only appreciate it once it has a properly impressive name, like Mystic Eyes of Depth Perception.
So here's a list of some of my favorite magical powers:
- Vibratory Telepathy. By transmitting invisible vibrations through the very air itself, two users of this ability can share thoughts. As a result, Vibratory Telepaths can form emotional bonds much deeper than those possible to other primates.
- Psychometric Tracery. By tracing small fine lines on a surface, the Psychometric Tracer can leave impressions of emotions, history, knowledge, even the structure of other spells. This is a higher level than Vibratory Telepathy as a Psychometric Tracer can share the thoughts of long-dead Tracers who lived thousands of years earlier. By reading one Tracery and inscribing another simultaneously, Tracers can duplicate Tracings; and these replicated Tracings can even contain the detailed pattern of other spells and magics. Thus, the Tracers wield almost unimaginable power as magicians; but Tracers can get in trouble trying to use complicated Traceries that they could not have Traced themselves.
- Multidimensional Kinesis. With simple, almost unthinking acts of will, the Kinetics can cause extraordinarily complex forces to flow through small tentacles and into any physical object within touching range - not just pushes, but combinations of pushes at many points that can effectively apply torques and twists. The Kinetic ability is far subtler than it first appears: they use it not only to wield existing objects with martial precision, but also to apply forces that sculpt objects into forms more suitable for Kinetic wielding. They even create tools that extend the power of their Kinesis and enable them to sculpt ever-finer and ever-more-complicated tools, a positive feedback loop fully as impressive as it sounds.
- The Eye. The user of this ability can perceive infinitesimal traveling twists in the Force that binds matter - tiny vibrations, akin to the life-giving power of the Sun that falls on leaves, but far more subtle. A bearer of the Eye can sense objects far beyond the range of touch using the tiny disturbances they make in the Force. Mountains many days travel away can be known to them as if within arm's reach. According to the bearers of the Eye, when night falls and sunlight fails, they can sense huge fusion fires burning at unthinkable distances - though no one else has any way of verifying this. Possession of a single Eye is said to make the bearer equivalent to royalty.
And finally,
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The Ultimate Power. The user of this ability contains a smaller, imperfect echo of the entire universe, enabling them to search out paths through probability to any desired future. If this sounds like a ridiculously powerful ability, you're right - game balance goes right out the window with this one. Extremely rare among life forms, it is the sekai no ougi or "hidden technique of the world".
Nothing can oppose the Ultimate Power except the Ultimate Power. Any less-than-ultimate Power will simply be "comprehended" by the Ultimate and disrupted in some inconceivable fashion, or even absorbed into the Ultimates' own power base. For this reason the Ultimate Power is sometimes called the "master technique of techniques" or the "trump card that trumps all other trumps". The more powerful Ultimates can stretch their "comprehension" across galactic distances and aeons of time, and even perceive the bizarre laws of the hidden "world beneath the world".
Ultimates have been killed by immense natural catastrophes, or by extremely swift surprise attacks that give them no chance to use their power. But all such victories are ultimately a matter of luck - it does not confront the Ultimates on their own probability-bending level, and if they survive they will begin to bend Time to avoid future attacks.
But the Ultimate Power itself is also dangerous, and many Ultimates have been destroyed by their own powers - falling into one of the flaws in their imperfect inner echo of the world.
Stripped of weapons and armor and locked in a cell, an Ultimate is still one of the most dangerous life-forms on the planet. A sword can be broken and a limb can be cut off, but the Ultimate Power is "the power that cannot be removed without removing you".
Perhaps because this connection is so intimate, the Ultimates regard one who loses their Ultimate Power permanently - without hope of regaining it - as schiavo, or "dead while breathing". The Ultimates argue that the Ultimate Power is so important as to be a necessary part of what makes a creature an end in itself, rather than a means. The Ultimates even insist that anyone who lacks the Ultimate Power cannot begin to truly comprehend the Ultimate Power, and hence, cannot understand why the Ultimate Power is morally important - a suspiciously self-serving argument.
The users of this ability form an absolute aristocracy and treat all other life forms as their pawns.
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Comments (33)
Awesome post, but somebody should do the pessimist version, rewriting various normal facets of the human condition as horrifying angsty undead curses.
Carrier's system still seems to create a circular situation where the smaller parts we reduce larger things into continue, in a sense, to be mental constructions. Electrons behave in ways Einstein called "spooky", and it takes very sophisticated systems to describe them, and then, the descriptions are probabilistic. The important thing is that we're still observing something, whereas the supernatural is basically a collection of spectacular reports that cannot be verified. How much greater would it be to have a third eye to read people's thoughts, in addition to the amazing eye you described? Would you really be bored by it, if you knew there was some bizarre quantum explanation? Heck, New Age types make appeals to all sorts of seemingly reductionist explanations. The problem isn't that the supernatural concept can't be broken down beyond one's mental process, it's that there is no phenomena beyond the person's mental process in the first place. Carrier's distinction only seems to ensure that you're debating pseudo-scientists instead of supernaturalists.
I recently had an argument at work over Barrack Obama's supposedly unverifiable Hawaiian birth certificate. I accessed all of the various websites showing the certificates authenticity. But everything I said or pulled up on the internet was met with disbelief. There was some alternate person my co-worker could point to saying the opposite. This was a debate on the reality of a perfectly mundane, real object. When people stop looking at the objective, outside world, there's unfortunately no philosophical argument that will pull them back in.
A nice touch.
The Real Ultimate Power: Reproduction.
Two compatible users of this ability can create new life forms which possess many of the traits of the two users. And many of these new life forms will themselves be able to reproduce, leading to a potential exponential spreading of the users' traits. Through reproduction users can obtain a kind of immortality.
Trans-temporal recall
Trans-temporal recog
Sister abilities which allow one to tap into the power of trans-temporal retention.
Also, I'd say the "Ultimate Power" is more a class of powers than a particular power in and of itself.
As to "the power that cannot be removed without removing you"... I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean. You think psychological consciousness is necessary for intelligence?
Actually, the Mystic Eyes of Depth Perception are pretty underwhelming. You can tell how far away things are with one eye most of the time. The difference is big enough to give a significant advantage, but nothing near superpower level. My own depth perception is crap (better than one eye though), and I don't often bump into walls.
But the whole post got started with the phrase "Mystic Eyes of Depth Perception"!
Pete, I mean simply that human intelligence is not peripheral to our personal identities in the same way as our clothing, limbs, face, etc.
James D. Miller, you forgot to include the link.
Possession of a single Eye is said to make the bearer equivalent to royalty.
I approve.
How many wielders of the Ultimate Power have been killed by humble microbes?
I can't believe I just saw a Type-Moon reference on Overcoming Bias. Impressive.
schiavo joke is hilarious. i wish everyone would find it hilarious
Aaron: Would you really be bored by it, if you knew there was some bizarre quantum explanation?
If you think of the explanation as "bizarre", then it's still magic to you and hasn't really been explained.
Anon of /jp/: thanks for pinpointing the Tsukihime reference for me. I was racking my brain - I was in that incredibly annoying state where I knew that I knew the reference, but I couldn't quite recall it ('Was it a Death Note reference? But that's not right!').
Perceptual psychologists have found that binocular vision has mostly second- and third-order effects. For example, it's necessary (but, as my own sad experience attests, not sufficient) for finding hidden pictures in magic eye images.
We get most of our ability to reconstruct 3D scenes from perceptual cues like relative motion and texture gradients. This takes enough mathematical mojo -- real-time 2D Fourier analysis for the latter, mapping between projective 2-space and euclidean 3-space for the former -- that they probably belong on The List in their own right...
Oh, it wasn't the first Type-Moon reference I've made (this month).
It's amusing to compare modern technology to the stated capabilities of the gods in various mythologies and religions...
Eliezer, exactly how many decibels of evidence would it require to persuade you that there is magic in the universe?
For example, see this claim of magic: http://www.clairval.com/lettres/en/2006/12/08/2061206.htm
How many times would a coin have to come up heads (if there were some way for it to test this) before there would be a chance you wouldn't defy the data in a case like this? If you saw 20 heads in a row, would you expect more of them? Or 40?
Possession of a single Eye is said to make the bearer equivalent to royalty.
Very good.
How about the miraculous ability to synthesise or isolate compounds of chemicals from the world that recreate sensations, or even push perception beyond the sensations for which it was designed? I'm always pretty impressed by that one.
Magic is supposedly intentional - it would require someone who could consistently make something happen against the expected likelihood. Before I'd bother even considering it.
'All other lifeforms' except some nasty little ones that impair us.
The rebels' time is almost done. Soon we will crush them utterly.
Devour Soul (level 6) This spell enables the Mage to extract Energy from the Bodies of Plants and Animals, merely by placing various Parts of them inside the mage's own Body. More advanced Mages can derive not only Energy, but physical Pleasure, from enhancing this spell with dark and eldritch lore found in Books of magical recipes, exotic Potions and the judicious use of Fire.
Eldritch Lore
"Posted by: Anon of /jp/"? I've been lurking on 4chan and OB for a long time, and I never expected them to come into contact...
I've heard there are vast shelters overflowing with fruits, nuts, and meats and giant baskets so large that the ones who created them placed them on wheels... and a tiny but infinitely powerful Master Scroll that allows those who possess it to take whatever they please.
Oh, and don't forget the Mystical Intertubes of Communication, which allow any person with access to the Tubes to 'post' their opinions for others to peruse. Even better, other Intertube users can append inanities to any of these essays with the minimum of thought and effort!
On the subject of magic, well, just a reminder that we can also get stuff that really does "smell like magic" out of basic physics. Consider this toy.
If you really want something that at least "looks like" magic and isn't "just a trick", well, physics does have some things up its sleeves. Heck, even on the level of basic Newtonian stuff, gyroscopic motion can seem kinda magical. It's there to be had, folks.
We are not doing very well so far. We can't even seem to keep the blighters out of our tiny, digital, deterministic and engineered computer systems yet.
For Feynman on the eye, see 34:40 in this video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3164300309410618119
Bloody brilliant! Wish I'd come across this before. My favourite thing is to take the mundane and beat people across the head with it until it looks amazing, but this is done at a ninja level.
With a device that can fit in your pocket, you can split the universe into 2^4000000 nearly-identical but divergent copies in one second.
As I rely quite thoroughly on God, I suspect I might fall outside your definition of rationalist. But.
You deserve a huge round of applause for pointing out so eloquently just how amazing so-called "ordinary" life is.
Let me add
Resist Parasitism: The power holder is almost completely encased in a self-regenerating barrier which blocks entrance to small parasitic lifeforms. In addition, his or her flesh and blood are filled with invisible essences which are fatal to most external lifeforms which attempt to steal his or her life energy. This allows the holder to survive even in environments completely infested with parasitic attackers.
Regeneration: The user of this power can gradually restore their physical body to full health following most illnesses and injuries short of death. Though material components may be used to hasten the process, regeneration can proceed without them and without any conscious effort whatsoever. The power may be used an unlimited number of times and may apply to multiple injuries at once.
Share Blood: The wielder of this power may speed another's Regeneration (see above) by contributing a portion of his or her life force. The contribution does not significantly affect the giver's health, although he or she is advised to drink extra liquids and avoid heavy lifting for the subsequent four hours. By custom, a wielder of the power is awarded cookies immediately afterward.