Is this world magical?

[GearheadWilliams 64]

Well, it really depends on your point of view.

Is this world magical to me? Yes, but only in a very specific way. Not in the way of how everything is connected and the very element of chaos, since I consider that an entirely different thing. I believe this world is "magical" because of how we control the events.

From what I've seen through the fictions I've seen where magic is real as it is, I concluded that magic is the generation of an event through the explotation of energy. This event or condition could be anything possible between the given universal laws, from making a source of light to causing someone's death. It's like typing a command in a game's console.

We do that, but in a different way from what we see in tales about magicians and mystical stuff. We exploit the laws of physics as we know them to make our own events, just that with larger limitations. This limitations are usually the product of not knowing enough about such laws to make a certain event possible or simply lacking the capability to generate enough energy to make it happen, whatever it is. In a way, you could say that magic is limitless technology.

Is this world magical? Yes, just that it's not the kind of magic you see in fiction; just like the fact that robots exist but they're different from what we see in movies or just the general media about them.

TL;DR: Any sufficiently advanced form of technology is indistinguishable from magic. Therefore, our world could be considered magical but limited.

Edited March 23, 2015 by GearheadWilliams

[Felix 1,363]

It's magical in perhaps a modern way. The things we've accomplished and can do are extraordinary. We, as far as anyone is concerned, are the only living things in the universe with these accomplishments. When you really think about life, it's almost insane to think about. So in a way you could say it's magical. Not in the sense of spells and witchcraft though.

[Taviscratch 453]

Photons and gluons are generally believed to be massless.

Photons are really cool and I mentioned them before when I explained how light is affected by gravity. Light acts as a wave and a particle and is made up of photons. Light can push you in space, too. You don't notice it on Earth because of inertia and even in space it is negligible.

 

Obviously it doesn't know anything. I don't believe inanimate objects have brains. But gravity is still knowledge. If I don't know the earth exists, I can detect its existence from the gravitational force it exerts on its surrounding objects.

 

If an incredibly massive object appeared one light minute (a convenient measure of distance for this example) behind me, then would I start being attracted to it instantly (in which case it's a form of faster-than-light communication)? Or would it take a minute before I fell towards it? Less? More? Some kind of signal is reaching me from that object to tell me to fall towards it.

I'll make this simple: It's all forces. There is no "signal" telling your body to move toward the object, it's gravitational field. There needs to be no signal. I suppose you could call it faster-than-light communication but all you could say would be "get over here!"

We, as far as anyone is concerned, are the only living things in the universe with these accomplishments.

Very likely to be untrue, I have calculated in another thread how many intelligent species inhabit just our galaxy alone and I came to a number between 20,000 and 70,000. There are at least 100,000,000,000 (one hundred billion) galaxies in the observable universe and you really think we are the only species likely to have made such accomplishments? I understand you said "as far as anyone is concerned" but I am very much concerned with this (more interested, really) as are many people. There are likely billions of intelligent species of life out there but I am unlikely to ever meet any. It's tragic, really,

[Hypn0ticD 1,213]

I don't think that this world has magic in the same sense if what can be found in Equestria, but I do believe that somewhere out there, there is some form of magic out there!

[Sanctified Absence 126]

Magic is a name given to science one does not understand yet. Anything possible is within reality, it is therefore under the domain of science by definition.

Edited March 23, 2015 by Sanctified Absence

[MysticShine 529]

By my definition, our world is not magical. That doesn't mean however, that there can't be "magical" things such as love and friendship.

Edited March 23, 2015 by Mountaineer28

[Taviscratch 453]

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I forgot who said this, but it's true.

That would be Arthur C. Clarke.

[Mrain901 216]

Throughout history, anytime people couldn't explain something they called it "magic." And it's no different now. Gravity and quantum physics and quarks and dark matter etc; isn't magic; we just don't fully understand it yet. People will call many things we can't explain with modern science "magic." But remember that in the past people called seasons magic, and weather, and many other things that we understand very well now. 

 

So no, I don't believe in magic. Emotions and music and art are the only things I might call magic, but even then it's simply out of the idea of human conciseness - there is a lot of psychology to explain it. Hell, I have a freaking tulpa, and even though I have an emotional connection and she's cool and all, she's not magic, it's psychology.

[1Bit 1,531]

Fascinating? Yes. Beautiful? Yes.

 

I wouldn't say magical though. Mainly because magic, in my eyes, is the unexplainable. Scientist's can describe almost every natural wonder on Earth, meaning the magic is no longer there. Not saying the planet isn't incredible, just not magical 

[baltosaa 86]

I believe magic exists everywhere, but it's plenty-obvious that Humans have no access to this magic..

 

(At least not all Humans.)