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.
The curse of visible intent. Those afflicted by this find their innermost secrets such as fear, surprise, eagerness, alarm, desire, all show up in consistent facial muscle changes for all the world to read, a betrayal by their own flesh.
St Addahad's Symptoms. A small group of symptoms including fleshy growths, nerve clusters and neural pathways which result in a near permanent state of distraction as patterns of air pressure change are translated into thoughts and inserted into the mind with disruptively high priority. "Sounds" from all around, indoors and out, near and far, from nearby footsteps to distant thunderstorms or even one's own bodily functions all combine to make a state of prolonged focus nearly impossible to achieve, though this ability can be regained somewhat with practise.
As with many curses, St Addahad's sufferers describe benefits as well, such as being able to know things are happening without needing to see them, and to know which direction they are happening in, and some even report being able to balance without handholds. These trivial sounding benefits appear so addictive that most refuse to be treated. Efforts are underway to cause the onset of these symptoms by technological means, but there is debate on the moral issue of such experiments on humans as the necessary interventions cannot wait until the age of consent.
The Ultimate Affliction Unimaginable torment and suffering by subtle and cruel methods. A mind's model of the universe is realigned so it perceives through the flaws in itself, and senses an ability to change the world however it pleases, where no such ability can exist. The state of the world is observed, interpreted into 'events', and compared against imaginary desired states, and with each mismatch comes suffering, every moment bringing another opportunity to suffer. Taunted by confirmation bias, such a mind can be driven insane when the outcomes it desired and the outcomes it observed match on some occasions; believing that this is proof that it's delusion is real and if only it was better, stronger, cleverer, it could turn these incidents into a continual happening, only to keep discovering that Fate has a different plan.
Habituated into assigning labels to areas of concept space, each area is meta-tagged with "good" or "bad", and this is the subtle yet effective twist by which the mind is turned against the very reality in which it inhabits, and by the mystical wonders of self-reflection begins to generate it's own suffering. No other known suffering is so simply induced, so long lasting, so wide ranging and so difficult to temporarily calm completely.
Happily this most horrifying of all known curses has both a near term cure from a reworking of though processes to dismiss the "desired outcomes", though this can be very hard to induce; and apparently a far term cure, as our universe is trending towards states that many of these minds desire it to have. We theorise that as the universe and the desires match more and more closely, suffering will be correspondingly reduced.
That can be pretty useful. If everyone knows that you can't lie, they'll be much more likely to trust you. If you need money, you could just borrow it from someone and promise to return it with interest. They'll happily lend it to you, knowing that you intend to pay it back. You might change your mind, but you probably won't, so it's worth while for the interest.