What if blatant magic isn’t seen as magic? “No idiot it’s just what we do!”

>>96032886
I’m serious. What if a human mage goes up to an elf and the elf is like “wtf that’s not magic”.

>>96032899
We've done this all before, it always ends up with two positions:
>magic is when even complete knowledge of how the natural world works can't explain the supernatural
>magic is always part of nature and just hasn't been understood yet, into infinity and beyond
Pick one, it really doesn't matter.

>>96032899
Am I the mage? My immediate response would probably be "Who the fuck asked you, knife-ears?"

>uh, akshually, it's not magic because I'm not CALLING it magic!
Okay retard.

It doesn't matter what it's "seen as", it matters how ot functions in the game.

>>96032920
Magic can't ever be a part of nature, by definition.

>>96032924
This is how Christians did it. “It’s not magic, it’s better!”. Even though their priests were attempting to summon fucking demons in private. “It’s okay when I do it!”.

>>96032942
>supernatural logic
By definition the supernatural is a proxy. It is all relative. What is supernatural to us is not supernatural to supernatural beings. Also, magic and nature were seen as synonymous or intertwined by most persons for thousands of years. Nature was the domain of the gods.

>>96032942
Don't. You'll start the autist off.

>>96032954
It doesn't matter what's supernatural to us. It doesn't matter how it's seen.
What matters is how a game establishes its terms and functions, and how consistently the behaviors of those terms and functions are. Then, it's the duty of the players to control their characters within those functions, and of the GM to enforce those functions.
The apple is round and red, regardless of whether or not your eye can register its shape and/or color. It's about state of being.
A fantasy game can have laws of physics that aren't natural in our world but natural to their world, and also have forces beyond/above the nature of their world that also aren't natural to us. It's state of being doesn't have to behave like ours.

I'm sorry you're still having issues understanding this.

>>96032958
The autist already started.
-> >>96032858 (OP)

>>96032942
>by definition
Fuck off, Aquinas.

>>96032942
The unnatural is an opinion. What is natural to one is not natural to another. The supernatural is an oxymoron based around familiarly, or morality.

>what if we used a different word
It wouldn't make any fucking difference at all.

>>96033061
Only in our world.
A fantasy game doesn't have to operate on real world logic or perspectives.

>>96033080
Even in a fictional world, reality is reality. It’s like trying to argue you can create a fiction without math. You can’t. If a thing exists at all, even in fiction, you can just assume it’s physics, even fictional. If any spell works at all, it’s a consequence of causality.

“No it HAS to be magic. It IS magic in my setting!”

Wanting magic to be magic no matter the perspective or angle doesn’t really work. It’s meant to be ironic and one sided and closer to perception.

I don’t think God would see His Miracles as capital-m miraculous the way humans see it. What He does is not all that cool or impressive to Him. He is just He. Does a human gauk at himself for being godlike to an ant? Most humans just step over them. Or they don’t notice them at all.

Makes me laugh when magic can be deconstructed to the point of pissing off the grognards who claim it can’t be deconstructed. It’s like atheist scientists and Christians throwing tantrums when you point out how their ritualistic shit is indistinguishable from witchcraft, because you constructed it all back together, seeing the logic behind it.

Artificial =/= Art. Machines are artificial but like Tolkien himself note they're more similar to tyranny than to the perfection Elves used their powers. The person who made the image seems to be a retard trying to force a narrative.

>>96033192
>Artificial =/= Art
Um. Retard alert. It doesn’t matter how ugly and blocky and cubic something is, it still has an essential design. Art is in the eye of the beholder.

And yes, Tolkien did see machines as the dark twisted version of natural art. Elves make things to look beautiful. Mordor isn’t one to care how their tools look, as long as it inspires fear.

>>96033192
The words artificial, artifice, artifex, etc, quite literally come from art, moron. Art is inseparable from nature. Period.

Tolkien knew well the tension of technology and the threat of the machine. Tolkien explains the use of magic in his mythos and how it relates to machinery. Tolkien had thought through, with great clarity, the difference between the magic of the elves and that of Mordor.

He observes that the hobbits do not understand the difference between the magic powers exercised by the elves and that of Sauron: “the Elven queen Galadriel is obliged to remonstrate with the Hobbits on their confused use of the word [magic] both for the devices and operations of the Enemy and for those of the Elves.” Tolkien says the lack of a proper word (other than “magic”) for the work of the elves portrays the same confusion in our own minds and mythologies.

He goes on to explain the difference: “Their [the elves’] ‘magic’ is Art, delivered from many of its human limitations: more effortless, more quick, more complete (product, and vision in unflawed correspondence). And its object is Art not Power, sub-creation not domination and tyrannous re-forming of Creation.”

Tolkien elucidates the dilemmas we face as technology snowballs and threatens to blow up in our face. Put simply, the magic of Mordor is the machinery of murder. It is the pursuit of power for its own sake, and perceives the natural world merely as a raw material to be exploited, distorted, and destroyed. In the films, we see this in full display as the wizard Saruman destroys Fangorn—chewing up the forest to fuel his machines of war. The realms of the Elves, in contrast, at Rivendell and Lothlorien, are havens of harmony, beauty, and peace created by elven magic.

The distinction elucidates our own continued, confused, modern relationship to technology. Do we use our increasingly sophisticated gadgetry and expanding knowledge in an elvish, creative, and artful way to bring light, beauty, and truth to the world, or do we use technology to manipulate, make money, and thus gain more power in the world?

>>96033206
>Art is in the eye of the beholder.
Not for Tolkien. He believes there's a direct relation between goodness and beauty. Sorry to break your bubble, but next time use other thing to peddle your narrative.

>>96033192
The word "artificial" comes from the Latin words art (meaning "skill") and fex ("to make").

>>96033206
>Art is in the eye of the beholder.
It really is. How many famous painters were ostracized in their day?

>>96033227
ChatGPT response.

>>96033227
That said, I get what he meant.
For the elves, it wasn't 'magic' as others thought, because it was part and parcel of their existence. It wasn't strange, or mystical, they are millenia old beings who grew up seeing, experiencing, practicing what others called 'magic' their entire lives.

>>96033095
I didn't say fiction, I said fantasy.
Fantasy is the faculty or activity of imagining things, especially things that are impossible or improbable.
Given that it's impossible to have something unnatural/supernatural to a world like ours, the world of a fantasy game can have aspects that are unnatural/supernatural to it.

I'm sorry you're still having issues understanding this.

>>96033239
So anon is correct? See >>96033227

He truly thought humans could be making more beautiful things. This is what the elf race represents. Mordor is applicable to the modern day world. He absolutely saw the war machine, modern industry, as a form of hideous wickedness, or sorcery.

You’re just muddying the point because you’re suffering a bout of cognitive dissonance. You’re arguing for the sake of arguing.

>>96033254
Yes. The point is magic is a bar, or an angle. It is higher for some, lower for others. Wonderland isn’t all that wonderful to the natives. They take it in stride.

...Can someone tell me what the point of this thread is again?

>>96033212
Yes, and the word "Memory" and "Mind" all come from the same root, as does "arm" and "armour". They however don't mean the same. Why is so hard to accept you're wrong? Move the fuck on my man.

>>96033257
>I didn't say fiction, I said fantasy.
These are synonyms. Fiction is fantasy. Fantasy is fiction. Even science-fiction is a form of fantasy. Fantastical science. It’s unavoidable, really. The sufficiently educated physicist no longer views Star Trek as science fiction, but hard fantasy.

>>96033270
Lol. I can see the links between mind and memory, and arm and armour, lol. That you can’t means you’re some sort of autistic person who can’t into semantics. Sad! Probably Chinese to boot!

>>96033258
>So anon is correct?
No, you're not. Because you tried to relativise beauty when you said that everything depends on the eye of the beholder, a point of view Tolkien firmly opposed. The other guy is just copy-pasting a response from ChatGPT, literally.

You people are weird.

>>96033270
The mind is your memory. Ever hear of memory death?

>>96033285
>Goalpost shifted from "they mean the same" to "I see the links"
Concession accepted.

>>96033292
>Because you tried to relativise beauty when you said that everything depends on the eye of the beholder
Because it does. What the elves do isn’t magic to the elves, just art. Considering something to be magic to begin with is a form of art. Whether you consider artifice to be beautiful or not depends on you. It’s not necessarily hideous pr ugly. Tolkien is however a naturalist. He loved nature. He thought human could be living with nature a lot more beautifully and closely.

>You people are weird
Not as weird as ESLs who try to twist the passages of literary greats like Tolkien.

>>96033297
They more or less are the same, yes. The mind is the memory, and you arm yourself with weapons. Armouries don’t just denote armour. You really struggle with words. You sound like a fun person.

>>96033292
>The other guy is just copy-pasting a response from ChatGPT, literally.
It’s actually from an article years ago. That you can’t distinguish arguments from AI is funny. The more literate one is, the more likely they’ll be labeled as “just some stupid AI!”, wow.

You really are losing this one!

>>96032899
my mage/ wizard, being well versed in his craft, would start a academic debate and dare the elf to elaborate on his statement

>>96033267
It’s meant to highlight that magic is psychological, or social, rather than truly phenomenal. This upsets autistic people who need to separate everything into lots of redundant little boxes, refusing to see where the tropes and ideas come from.

Instead of talking about social paradigms like in Mage the Ascension, you have a bunch of losers arguing that “noo, magic always has to be magic no matter the perspective, nooo-“, which… doesn’t really work.

You can’t try to make a setting more neat or realistic with these people holding it back. They want everything to remain stagnant.

>>96033332
So just ignore them?

>>96033340
You can’t ignore them. When you tell these people that Tolkien’s elves don’t see themselves as magical beings, they take it like you’ve just insulted their religion. “What do you mean the fairy people in the woods aren’t magic?”. They are confronted with the realization that magic is psychological, or social, not a specific thing (beyond the chemistry in the brain leading up to “wow, it’s like magic!”). Yes, the elves are magic, to the men and hobbits who are less than familiar. Yes, Gandalf is a wizard to both elves and men and hobbits, the way elves are magical to men and hobbits. They struggle seeing that magic is a bar, or an angle. Higher for some, lower for others. The elves look to the wizards the way men look to the elves. How is this so hard to understand? Do people really think that a cellphone wouldn’t be magic to a medieval person? It absolutely would.

>>96033363
>When you tell these people that Tolkien’s elves don’t see themselves as magical beings, they take it like you’ve just insulted their religion.
It’s a variant of calling miracles magic by any other name. You’ve just attacked the world view they held.

>>96032942
>Magic can't ever be a part of nature, by definition.
- posted from my pile of sand enchanted by sigils so tiny the human eye can't see, which accesses the Akashic record and lets me speak to others across the world so swiftly I cannot tell where they are.

>>96032858 (OP)
"Magic" is just shit that's not real, so if someone can demonstrate it in front of me, it cannot be magic.

>>96033581
Saying “magic isn’t real” is about as useful as saying cold isn’t real, or dark isn’t real, or holes aren’t real.

It’s closer to an absence. It’s a nuanced existence. It is a black box that is white within.

>>96033267
People who don't play games have a not-so-stealthy /his/ thread.

>>96032899
>I’m serious.
No you're not.
https://archive.4plebs.org/_/search/image/tbnw83bxT7k2yvMdteVykA/

>>96033657
Reminder that all fantasy tabletop games are incorporating /his/ to varying levels, and getting angry about history being brought up in the board about make believe is a coping mechanism for when you’re corrected or your preconceived notions are proven flawed, even wrong.

>>96033668
The image raises good points.

>>96033674
Fuck. Off.

>>96033332
>It’s meant to highlight that magic is psychological, or social, rather than truly phenomenal
Oh, you're that one dumb fuck that keeps going on about how magic is like social science or whatever. nvm then

>>96033657
Did he get banned from /his/? Why does he keep taking his shit here? Why don't the mods just ban-
Wait, forget that last question, I remember this is /tg/, the mods are lazy fucks here

>>96033612
No, it's actually very useful because it makes a point about reality.

Nobody says anything they actually use is magic. Antibiotics aren't magic, space travel isn't magic, quantum tunneling isn't magic, aircraft aren't magic, nukes aren't magic, LLMs aren't magic, the internet isn't magic, phones aren't magic, Wikipedia isn't magic. Every single one of these things would have been an unimaginable miracle to a medieval peasant, but because they are real (unlike the dumb shit the medieval peasant believed in, like dragons and unicorns), we don't call them magic.

>>96033703
You really don’t think there’s an essential lead up to something being considered or called magic?

>>96033741
>he doesn’t think physics is magical
You don’t love or appreciate nature. Lol.

>>96033684
The image is bait made by an autist who refuses to understand what magic is and doesn't have the mental capacity to stop arguing about it.

>>96033754
No, I don't think this is quite the place for it, given that this is where people talk about tabletop games, and the way magic is defined in its form i.e. fluff does not always match nor follow the necessities of how magic functions i.e. crunch, meaning that within the purview of an actual tabletop game such as Dungeons and Dragons the question of the economic impact of Goodberry upon the local community is generally superseded by the need to give the Druid something to do during downtime aka "whatever the fuck magic actually is" is usually wholly irrelevant compared to how it works to complete your game.

That and without going into a specific setting and context, all talks of what "magic" is might as well be the equivalent of mental masturbation, since the special power shit aka magic differs in form and function from game to game.

In short, there's no goddamn point talking about this without answering the question "what system", fucko.

>>96033878
What is magic to you? Go on. Say it.

>>96032858 (OP)
Elf taps his knuckle on a tree and it splits open into a perfectly formed treehouse with an extra walking stick, because the elf has total awareness of the world around him and knows exactly the right spot to hit at exactly the right time.

Human casts Tree To Treehouse and the tree "magically" splits open into a treehouse with the magic doing all the heavy understanding.

>>96033877
I don't think it's "magic" when I let go of an object and it falls to the floor, no.

>>96035330
>he thinks gravity isn’t borderline magic
lol

>>96035525
Touch grass

>>96033061
>I chose to define a word wrong, which nullifies any possible meaning of it.
>As you can see, I'm quite wise.
I don't really have a dog in this race, but when the crux of your argument is just making a categorical error and then plowing through it anyway like an ox, you don't really have a leg to stand on. Just because you can equivocate shit until there's a gray area doesn't mean a distinction doesn't exist at all, and the circular reasoning of causality is something you're imposing; it's not a facet of the concept itself.
TL;DR you're being a retard.

>>96032858 (OP)
>>96032899
Traditional games?

This fucking thread again?

>>96032858 (OP)
An ancient form of magic that our predecessors considered evil was predicting the phases of the moon. The Aztecs believed that forecasting the weather was a divine power.

>>96032899
The inverse would be more interesting. An elf being astounded at human acts as if it were magic.
The human will unconsciously perform a spell that cools their body under high temperatures even whilst asleep. They call it sweating.
The human has a low level spell against poisons that eject it from the body once consumed.
The human cast a ward before sleeping so that it automatically wakes up under loud sounds or severe pain.

>>96033674
Reminder that your inane ramblings have nothing to do with actually playing tabletop games.

>>96036590
What? This is natural philosophy. Which won out.

To the physicist, or naturalist, something isn’t truly supernatural, it’s our inability to comprehend it. Even metaphysics is just bigger physics to the physicist.

Yes, the supernatural is about as real as holes are, or cold, or darkness, etc. It’s a lacking existence. It lacks assessment.

This isn’t really hard to grasp, either.

>>96036835
I know, I already tried to kill it before it started here >>96032920 but it looks like summerfags fell for the bait again.

>>96039592
If you weren’t stupid yourself this sort of logic (magic is always natural and it’s an opinion to boot) wouldn’t piss you off either. That’s literally what magic is.

>>96039563
>>96039607
Nobody cares.
Start playing games, fuck off of the board, or kill yourself.

>>96039785
Are you perhaps angry because this took so long for you to figure out?

>>96032858 (OP)
It wouldn't be. If it follows natural laws of the unvierse that you can learn and manipulate, it's no different from using algebra to build a house. It's just a matter of putting ingredients together in the right order, like cooking.

>>96039888
“Noooo it’s magic because I said it is and no matter what it will ALWAYS be magic!”

Telling someone magic is just a relative point of view is like assaulting someone’s religion.

>>96033741
You sound like a sucker.

Just look at the consciousness phenomenon. Weird as shit. Based on particle interactions and laws of this universe. Fields and quantum shit and all that. It’s fucking amazing to me. Magic.

But humans coped with their limitations by fantasizing about imaginary worlds where everything is better to help with the pain of being (currently) limited. So much so they're in some Stockholm syndrome relationship with those limitations.

But yes. Physics is magic. To me. It’s all incredible. Whether magic is magic sort of depends on whether you see it as that.

>>96033741
>the internet isn't magic, phones aren't magic, Wikipedia isn't magic
Nah they are. We’re living in a practically Atlantean era and we’ve access to what is essentially the Akashic records.

How is science not bloody magic?

All scientists are sorcerers to some shade. That's why they seek theories of everything to unify different layers of reality. It's as if scientists believe as-above-so-below and as-within-so-without. Scientists believe in summoning entities that transcend the body like AI and wish to become transhuman themselves. Don't forget scientists' quest for immortality either…and think about their obsession with seeking patterns, their inclination to turn patterns into geometrical representations, and their wish for theory to be beautiful! Scientists might as well wear robes and dissect bodies on altars- no, wait, they're already doing that… Christ, they might as well sacrifice materials in rituals to gain a material back with transcended properties. Oh wait…

It may be shaped differently. But it’s all quite indistinguishable. Mad scientists are wizards. “No sense of right and wrong“, “Sweet, man-made horrors beyond my comprehension”, “It’s not a matter of could, but should”, “All success requires sacrifice”, “oh my science, what have I done…”, etc.

If you don’t think there’s a dark arts side to science you really need to update your information.

>>96040052
>Telling someone magic is just a relative point of view is like assaulting someone’s religion.
Sorta. Religion is a fairly recent concept. Natural laws, religion and magic weren't distinct to ancient people. The world worked how it worked. 1+1=2, things fall when dropped, sacrificing to Zeus keeps me safe, watering my crops makes them grow, reciting this prayer can cure a snake bite, I'll get a cold if I stand in the rain. It was all just how the world operated. Magic and religion didn't develop into distinct concepts until... well, to some extent they still aren't. Say your prayers. Wear your lucky jersey to the game. Recite the pledge of allegiance. Magical thinking is just part of what humans do, because we try to imagine causal relationships. We all do it, all the time. If I act or believe or feel the right thing, then good stuff will happen.

>>96033267
Rehashing dead horse topics that have little to nothing to do with games or how they're played, to further rot the board that's already well into critical condition.
Which is why any attempt to bring up the fact that this doesn't matter for games has been brushed off, and will continue to be brushed off whenever brought up.

>>96033273
>even when explicitly provided the definition of fantasy, he still doesn't know what it means

>>96040158
>Religion is a fairly recent concept. Natural laws, religion and magic weren't distinct to ancient people.
See, modern day fantasists are autistic and separate everything into neat little boxes redundantly, refusing to see how it all blended and overlapped in the past. They don’t see all the surviving essences today. They don’t see how miracles are magic by any other name. When you tell them that Christians weaponized semantics to protect their own rites, they just roll their eyes and go back to pretending that clerics aren’t wizards or that Moses or Solomon weren’t seen as wizards by the Greeks. It’s the same with machinery - “noo machines aren’t magic nooo” - even though the ancient Greeks were perceived as wizards due to their strange and arcane contraptions.
>Magic and religion didn't develop into distinct concepts until... well, to some extent they still aren't. Say
They aren’t different at all. Magic and religion are indistinguishable. Even the realm of science has become religious.

>>96040178
It matters in my games pretty often. I try to write the religions in my game as genuine syncretic traditions that are roughly organized in the way ancient religions were. Does it massively impact the actual gameplay? Probably not. My players don't care that much why there are so many gods worshipped at this temple, why there's a shrine to the evil goddess over there, why the priests are standing next to the king, et cetera. But it's a fun part of the world building, to me. And me having fun building the game is what creates a game that's fun for my players to play in.

>>96040185
Yes, we know you’re an autistic idiot who can’t into semantics or how things overlap.

>>96039563
>>96040052
>>96040072
>>96040108
>>96040158
>>96040187
What system?

>>96040195
Are you cool enough?

>>96040230
Answer the question

>>96033540
>a caveman sees forging as magic, so my ordinary sword shouldn't ever rust and should be able to hit ghosts!

>>96040234
I only help cool people sorry

>>96040249
Guess you can't help yourself then

>>96040242
You are actually retarded lmao
Magic has never not been “wow it’s like magic!” exposure logic
It’s magic because it’s “magical”

>>96033273
>>96040194
>yo bro, check out these fantasy novels, they're really good
>hands over a copy of Murder She Wrote and a copy of Revelation Space

>>96040108
Peopla also ignore how a lot of magical stuff and tropes are just a distortion of descriptions and interpretation of stuff that are more technological advanced than the people describing it
The distortion is a thing because of the still lacking technological level of the people inheriting the stories
Now we are slowly understanding the technological nature of many mythological stuff
So magic or science is basically a matter of perspective

Magic is a basically a cargo cult

>>96040193
>Does it massively impact the actual gameplay? Probably not.
The fact that this is uncertain reveals how little it has to do with your games.
Worldbuilding isn't gameplay, and neither is infodumping about how "super special" your generic ass cosmologies and theologies are.
You suck so bad that you can't even commit to writing a novel or drawing a comic, where your fanfic of regurgitate concepts could be more appropriately executed.
You can't get your players to care about it, you can't get potential readers to care about it, and you sure as hell can't get strangers on a board meant for actual games to care about it. You're a waste of space.

>>96040194
>semantics
FATAL is the plane's best doorstop, bar none. When you get the cats to truck over, the time is great, and their apples will prime to very often. I just don't want anyone fish like salad wrenches, know what I mean? The FATAL PbtA coffee table decoration was one of, if not THE, definitive icon of the quantum space.
Agreement, or die.

>>96040369
Wow that's a lotta projecting, anon. I'm sorry you feel so badly about yourself.

>>96040256
Why don't you just tell us why your ordinary sword should violate the rules of the gane just because of the perspective of lesser people?

>>96040350
Okay, but system are you talking about, you creep?

>>96040387
>no u
Your concession is accepted.

>>96040403
But the sword doesn’t violate anything. It is magic because the caveman hasn’t seen such a weapon before. Metal smiths were seen as wizards for thousands of years due to their lesser known ways or esoteric crafting techniques.

>>96040350
>So magic or science is basically a matter of perspective
Yep. Even the gods are just aliens. I’ve always seen religion as a variant of believing in aliens. UFOs are modern day fae, abducting people and bringing them back changed.

>>96040440
>UFOs are modern day fae, abducting people and bringing them back changed.
Kinda a bad analogy. Fae replacing people was an excuse made up to condemn others. Abductions are invented to make the abductees feel that they're special. I see the first blush similarity you're going for, but the purpose the myths serve are complete opposites.

>>96040440
Tell a double digit iq Christian that their God is a big ass higher dimensional alien and they’ll scream at you.

Tell a triple digit iq Christian that their God is a big ass higher dimensional alien and they’re agree with you.

>>96040428
Swords typically rust over time and can't hit ghosts.
You're trying to suggest that a faulty perspective gives it magical properties, which violates the rules of the game.
So can you tell us why you can't just play the game, or are you going to deflect again with some nonsense that has nothing to do with the game?

>>96040466
>Kinda a bad analogy.
Not. One. Bit.

>>96040470
>triple digit iq Christian
lol
lmao

>>96040484
>Ignores point
>posts pictures
Enjoy that.

>>96040493
I think you ignored your own point.

>>96040497
That... doesn't mean anything.

>>96040503
I’m just pointing out that myth and religion is all a proxy. A placeholder. There are many similarities between tales of faeries and changelings and abductions and modern day UFO encounters. They’re all lacking, imaginative interpretations. Ignorance is a form of art.

All these things take different shape but they’re quite similar. That’s all.

>>96040466
>>96040493
You act like people haven’t been connecting the two over the last century

>>96040574
What I did was point out why it's a bad analogy.

The myth in one is a condemnation of why some people are naturally evil.

The myth in the other is "look at me I'm special."

They both involve people being abducted, but that fact alone doesn't make it a good anology. A good anology would be if the myths served the same function. Those serve opposite functions.

>>96040646
>The myth in one is a condemnation of why some people are naturally evil.
A post event copium, just like the theological mental wanks over the bible, a book that has little to 0 spirituality

>>96040677
No idea what your comment is supposed to mean, anon. But yes: you're correct that we create myths to explain things we don't understand, and therefore create a framework for understanding them. It certainly is a form of coping, or rationalizing, that our brains are excellent at.

>>96040646
Anon, most alien abduction stories today are just that: “I’m special!”. This doesn’t mean it’s not suspiciously similar to older stories of “I’m special!”. “Why did they let you go?” “Idk I’m special!”

Humans as far back as Pompeii were etching sentences into walls that look indistinguishable from modern day shitposting. Humans are predictable.

>>96040646
>A good anology would be if the myths served the same function. Those serve opposite functions.
Myth isn’t necessarily meant to follow a function beyond a game of telephone across the ages. Ignorance outnumbers truth and this is scary.

>>96040701
I think you haven't read the myths you're trying to analogize to. Those aren't "look at me I'm special" stories. They're "my baby is intellectually handicapped or disabled because monsters stole my real one, and this isn't my actual child, so it's ok for me to infanticide it."

>>96040350
Science is a method within a branch of philosophy called Empiricism. Science is not truth or technology. It's a philosophic tool for testing hypotheses. It's one of several subdivisions of philosophy concerning truth, discrete from others which employ no empiricism, like Geometry and Mathematics.

Magic, depending on what you're discussing specifically, is either a discrete philosophic worldview, or a technology, or both. So they aren't the same thing at all, and they aren't used the same way. They aren't competitors for a slot in the human mind either, they are historically different subjects people have studied at the same time, much like religion.

The entire discussion is predicated on a misunderstanding of what science even is, what it encompasses, treating it like an ideology or a worldview instead of like a process.

>>96040735
>Those aren't "look at me I'm special" stories. They're "my baby is intellectually handicapped or disabled because monsters stole my real one, and this isn't my actual child, so it's ok for me to infanticide it."
Anon these can easily overlap. “My child is a genius because he’s not actually human”. This happened. “He’s so good at what he does he’s probably some weirdo changeling”. You can play both angles. Weird how you think humans couldn’t. If your loved one suffered some disability in a time of ignorance you’d be making up some dumb excuse too.

>>96040779
>they are historically different subjects people have studied at the same time, much like religion.
That's just wildly false. "Religion" as a discrete topic of inquiry doesn't appear in Western thinking until around the enlightenment. Magic was an integral part of ancient (and I'm even argue modern) institutions and customes and, to the degree to which it was distinguished, it was only distinguished as "magic" when it was done "by people we don't like." Usually it was "just how the world works." Making sacrifices wasn't just about appeasing Zeus. It was about supplying meat to your table and paying your taxes and participation in your community. They absolutely were not discrete "fields" until the elightenment.

>>96040695
>create myths
Not how it works
Many myths, though, are mere retelling of factual events including the "magical" elements which often is just technology poorly described or poorly passed down through retellings, which now, that we have a sufficient technological know-how, are starting to make sense

>>96034029
Friendship.

>>96040779
NTA, but science merely being a one sided process to apply wasn’t how the greatest scientists in history saw it. Yes, there is one sided, fallible human science, but there is also eternal, empirical science lying in wait for all time, ‘the music of the spheres’ as Einstein put it, whether we listen in on the symphony or not. Information is just information. That’s what the word science even means. Science as a process is just… a process figuring out other processes… but those processes it tries to figure out are external, universal, separate from it. Science comes from scientia, meaning knowledge, or information. There’s going to be information out there even when we are long gone.

>>96040831
Okay, but what system?

>>96040695
You say this, even agree with it, and yet you find issue with persons treating demons and faeries and angels as some form of alien lifeform? Lol. God is an alien and always has been an alien.

Science is magic taken casually.

>hur dur, magic is against nature!
Religious people took magic and nature to be the same, and their religion WAS their science for their time. Their religion was how they explained nature.

>>96040871
>you find issue with persons treating demons and faeries and angels as some form of alien lifeform?
Huh? Where did I ever say such a thing? I absolutely treat figures of make believe as figures of make believe, no one any better or worse than any other.
>>96040827
>Weird how you think humans couldn’t.
I never said that either, anon. I said it's a bad analogy because the things being appealed to aren't analogous, because the purpose of the stories was completely different. That's not about "what is hypothetically possible." It's about an analogy being bad. Sure: your hypothetical is perfectly possible, I guess. But since alien abduction stories are about the abductees claiming to be special, and changeling stories are about claiming that a baby isn't really yours, are incredibly different purposes, the fact that they both include abduction doesn't make it a very good analogy.

>>96040911
>I said it's a bad analogy because the things being appealed to aren't analogous
If it’s such a bad analogy why is it so often pointed out how similar ufo abduction stories are to changeling tales?

>>96040904
You literally are pulling this shit out of your ass, also, what system is this?

>>96040911
How about you Google “ufo and fae similarities” and shut up. It’s everywhere.

>>96040926
Why do conspiracy theorists use bad analogies to support their conspiracy theories? I honestly couldn't tell you, anon. But people straight up believe the Earth is flat. So apparently there's all kinds of stupid in the world. But now you can make better analogies, and contribute a little less to the dumb. You're welcome.

>>96040936
No? Norse legit thought the earth was the corpse of a dead giant. That’s a very tame example of what people believed.

>>96040937
It'd still be a bad analogy. That a lot of people are pretty stupid isn't a point in your favor, anon. What's your argument? That analogies are good or bad based on how many people use them? That's absurd. Try to actually address the point.

>>96040911
>>96040945
You don’t need to wear a tinfoil hat to use basic critical thinking skills.

https://brehonacademy.org/from-the-fairies-of-folklore-to-ufos-the-fascinating-story-of-the-secret-commonwealth/

>>96040937
>expecting anon to do basic research
They won’t, now that you made the request.

>>96040952
That's a non-sequiter, you retard. Languages that don't have the word for "blue" will tell you that the sky is green, but that still doesn't have anything to do with fucking traditional games

>>96040959
So you’re claiming it’s a bad analogy because you originally called it a bad analogy and even though it’s pointed out as a very good analogy you can’t cope with the fact that you originally called it a bad analogy, so now you’re trying to justify why it’s a bad analogy, even when it’s not a bad analogy.

>>96040981
Except we’re not talking about colours, moron. But sure, why not. Indians thought the sky was a giant ocean since it was blue.

>>96040959
>That analogies are good or bad based on how many people use them? That's absurd.
Most people know what an analogy is. Most people see a link between UFOs and faeries. Even Christians accuse UFOs of being demons. It’s hilarious.

>>96041001
What does any of this waffle have to do with playing traditional games? Can you even fucking answer that, or are you a massive coward?

>>96041018
Why do you always resort back to “yeah well how does this relate to games?” when you’re btfo? But more than that, do you really think history and myth have nothing to do with the imagination, or that the imagination has nothing to do with tabletop roleplaying?

You’re such a low hanging fruit picker.

>>96040853
That is because they weren't "Scientists," they were Natural Philosophers whose work frequently went outside the bounds of the scientific method. Much of Einstein's work was strictly non-empirical theory, yet he was able to prove things logically (which isn't Science by definition) that in some cases we have later at great cost been able to empirically test and find to be true--and some which we STILL can't test and might never be able to.

Magic, in the sense it is often discussed in fantasy, actually usually is empirically testable, but is more often discovered through some rational process, sort of like how Euclid did geometry.

>>96041033
>That is because they weren't "Scientists," they were Natural Philosophers
Science IS (has a ) natural philosophy and natural philosophers WERE the scientists of their day. Non-point.

>>96040558
You're not pointing this thing out, you're asserting it.

>>96041033
>they were Natural Philosophers whose work frequently went outside the bounds of the scientific method
Uhhhh. Einstein was perfectly methodical. He was a fan of absolute simplicity. “If you can’t explain it well enough, you don’t understand it well enough”. He was not a mystic like Newton, who just knew how things worked. Einstein knew how things worked, but he had to prove it.

>>96041051
Pointing something out and asserting something to be true is pretty easy when it’s overwhelmingly obviously the case.

Yes. All religion is a proxy. A placeholder. Faith has never once required truth. That defeats the whole point and purpose of it.

>>96041030
Because this is a traditional board games thread, you wanker. Andi t should be about fucking traditional games, not whatever miserably confused and diseased vomitus you've been expelling onto this board.

If you're going to commiserate about history, go to fucking >>/his/ . If you're going to talk about how magic is seen in a game's setting, fucking bring up the game setting. What you're doing is the equivalent of a fat dump lord walking into a school playground and taking a fat reeking diarrhea shit all over the basketball court while screaming how this shit is educational.

So name a system so we can talk about it, or get the fuck out already, you inconsiderate dumpwad of a robot.

>>96040977
>If I just keep dissembling, no one will notice I never addressed the point!

>>96040993
>>96041012
Changeling myths are about: "that's not really my child. It's ok if I kill it because it's disabled."
UFO Abduction myths are about: "I am special look at me!"

That is why it is a bad analogy. Neither of you can address this fact for a simple reason: it's correct and a shitty analogy.

>>96041044
Your sentiment is close to correct but reversed. Scientists were and are still a portion of natural philosophers, and the Sciences are a subcategory of discipline within that umbrella. What I take issue with is blanket use of the term "Science" to include things that don't employ the Scientific Method. Things like Geometry and Mathematics predate Empiricism as a philosophy. This muddies the waters as to what a character denying that something is magic actually means.

In the original post to which I respond, the poster makes the tired claim that Magic is simply science that is not understood yet. This is part of an ongoing and retarded meme about the Elves actually having le super science. This is not what the text being quoted is actually saying. What it is rather saying is that to the Elves, "Magic" is a terminology they associate with the Enemy (Sauron) and this is something that unintelligent people read, and presuppose that this means that Galadriel's mirror is actually an Ipad or something.

What it actually means, however, is that the Elves view their art as a philosophic discipline, not as occultism. This is different from it being hecking science, though. It's clearly not heckin' science, and we know this because by Tolkien's express words, Elvish things are superior not because of the secret of their construction but because the Elves are in some small sense divine.

>>96040853
No dude. >>96040779 is right. Science is a process for understanding and learning information. It's not a religion or ideology regardless of however much "I HEART SCIENCE" pseuds want to treat it like one. Not all scientists believe in a grand unifying theory. The fact that stars emit radiation isn't Science™. It's just a fact.

>>96041234
What makes you think changelings are the only part of it? There’s parallels all over the world.

>>96041270
>It's not a religion or ideology regardless of however much "I HEART SCIENCE" pseuds want to treat it like one
So it’s a religion? Because they do indeed treat it that way. Say men can’t get pregnant and you’ve just been branded a witch.

>>96032899
>What if
What a pointless fucking question. Do you know how TTRPGs work?

>>96039563
Let's say, instead of talking about "the supernatural" we were talking about something that IS supernatural, rather than the term "supernatural" itself.
Ghosts. Alright?
In my setting, ghosts exist. Are ghosts a supernatural phenomena?
>Well, if I define natural as anything that exists, then they're nt supernatural because they exist.
Do you see the problem here? The problem is that you are deliberately defining the word is a retarded way. Yes, you're correct, but only since you're defining the word with the most retarded logic possible.
Here's another definition: Supernatural laws are just laws that inherently break lower laws. It's called SUPERnatural because SUPERnatural effects are above break or disunite lower, natural effects. There.
Now: Are ghosts supernatural? Yes, because there's all kinds of other laws that need to be bent, broken, or modified for ghosts to exist. SUPERnatural. As in above natural, not OUTSIDE of nature.
Do you comprehend what the fuck I'm saying yet?
Probably not, considering this conversation has been part of /tg/ autism for years.

>>96041732
>Let's say, instead of talking about "the supernatural" we were talking about something that IS supernatural, rather than the term "supernatural" itself.
That makes no sense. It’s the same thing. This is why threads like this get so bad. Because you’re fundamentally not smart enough to see the irony.

>>96032942
And something can't exist without being part of nature, by definition

>>96041802
>>96041880
You’re just going to make him dump out another wall of text

>>96033257
Fantasy is a type of fiction anon

>>96041732
>Supernatural laws are just laws that inherently break lower laws.

Anon if they can be "broken" then they weren't laws in the first place. Natural laws are descriptive, not prescriptive

This whole fucking thread like an Amelia Bedilia skit gone retarded

>OP wants to discuss the psychology of magic
>thread immediately devolves into diarrhea because people can’t accept that magic is purely psychological
I’m sorry this happened to you OP

>>96041959
Blame actual, genuine, legitimate retards like >>96041732 for preventing actual, genuine, legitimate discussion.

>>96041959
What’s hilarious is those same people will say shit like “depends on the author” or “it depends on the setting” in other threads. But it’s totally not subjective! Totally!

>>96041898
inb4 “no it’s not, stop ruining definitions!”

>>96041959
Until you can clamp down which setting we're talking about, meaning which form of magic we're actually looking into, then you can fuck off, OP

>>96042011
See >>96041994

You don’t even realize you’re agreeing with him, lmfao. You are that retarded or something.

>>96032858 (OP)
Then it is science or art, the pic you posted answers your question. Tolkien's elves and wizards have a better understanding of God's design and can do shit normies can't. The end.

>>96042042
“Noooo it’s still magic nooooo you can’t just say the fairy people in the forest aren’t magic nooooooo- what do you mean the machines of Mordor are wicked sorcery- machines can’t be magic nooo”

>>96042065
Who in the fuck are you even quoting?

>>96042159
Scroll up.

>>96042162
So, your imagination?

>>96042187
No. >>96033363

>>96042215
So, yeah, your imagination

>>96042237
Not my imagination at all. This has been going on for years. Saying something isn’t magic is an attack.

>>96039607
I really don't care.

>>96042521
Yeah, right, I totally believe you*

*I don't believe you at all

>>96033316
i've seen a sharp increase in anons sperging that some other anon is an AI because they're using proper grammar lol

>>96040440
>UFOs are modern day fae
Correct, but not in the way you think, Jungian Skeptic or Clarkeian Ancient Aliens believer.

Tell me, Humanity's technology has increased how much in the last 500 years?
What reason would make you think only Humanity's technology would improve?

okay dude but what if, like, magic was real... and real was magic?

>>96041234
>UFO Abduction myths are about: "I am special look at me!"
The significant majority of abductees don't want others to know of their experiences, and wish they didn't have them, and certainly that they will never have any more.

It's one of the easiest ways to tell hoaxing grifters from legitimate abduction experiencers. Abductees at best feel confused but tolerant of their experiences. They basically never go seeking the limelight. Typically they go seeking help or answers or are just trying to process their trauma, and then someone says they want to publish their story etc.

I'd suggest you actually do some research on the topic before making presumptions. I'll agree that it has no real connections to the changeling stuff anon is trying to connect it to. But you're just talking out your ass as well.

>>96033363
Don't forget that hobbits are described by the omniscient narrator as using magic to conceal themselves, while the hobbits themselves don't perceive themselves as doing that.

>>96042828
>I'll agree that it has no real connections to the changeling stuff anon is trying to connect it to
It’s actually quite apt, depending on your interpretation of changeling. The game Changeling: The Lost even has a take on traditional UFOs and Ayys. Autists have been seen as ‘out of place’, historically, and it’s quite sad, really.

>>96042828
>>96043224
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/izua43/has_there_been_any_research_connecting_medieval/
https://www.crossroadsgazette.com/p/from-fairies-to-aliens-abductions-231
https://hekint.org/2017/01/30/from-changelings-to-extraterrestrials-depictions-of-autism-in-popular-culture/

>>96032858 (OP)
>What if blatant magic isn’t seen as magic?
Sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from technology.

alternately

Technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.

>>96041341
Huh? Someone else claimed those stories were analogous. I pointed out that it's a bad analogy. Yes: other stories exist, too. I have no idea what point you're trying to make.

>>96043232
Just because people keep bandying about the same really terrible analogy over and over doesn't make it better, anon.

>>96040478
Show me a ghost. I'll stab it with my sword.

>>96043446
It continues to be a good analogy, thobeit.

>>96032858 (OP)
Jesus tg needs a worldbuilding general ffs this retarded shit needs to be contained like 40k

>>96043920
It already exists. You think the freaks that keep posting this shit ever use it though?

>>96043946
the problem is that this isnt worldbuilding, its pedantic bullshit from an idiotic autist and /x/tard with a heavy dose of /his/trionics. These threads are designed to be ego stroking and debatebro bullshit with little else. The guy thinks he's smarter than everyone else here because he thinks were all retards for imposing different setting limits on the concepts of magic, nature, and the supernatural, and that "its all psychology dude".

Arrogant Dunning-Kruger dipshit who thinks were the stupid ones for not entertaining his totalizing bullshit about magic and the supernatural.

>>96043973
Why the fuck doesn't he ever get banned then?

>>96043973
>he's still buttmad
lol

>>96043982
Because he hasnt actually broken any rules to a degree that warrants banning, unfortunately.
And its hard to nail someone who doesn't avatar, spam the thread, engage in political talk, or be egregiously racist.

Want to know something funny, the dude can never refute the definition of magic that states it as incantations and rituals. Every time you bring this up to him, he'll ignore it as if it doesn't exist or matter to his definition of magic that uses all of its definitions at once. There is an "objective" idea of what magic is, and its literally saying an incantation or doing a ritual that alters the world. But to him, magic is some nebulous nonword that means awe or wonder about an unknowable thing and nothing more. He conflates the scientific definitions of magic from various disciplines like sociology, anthropology, psychology and others (already a fucked up thing) with the colluiqual definitions of magic as if they are all the same thing.

Its a total disregard for linguistics and how language works. But he's found a pattern and fuck everyone for not realizing the brilliance of this pattern.

>>96037590
I'm stealing this.

>>96044070
I have to wonder if he tried this routine on reddit and got punted for it, and that's why he keeps spamming this place

>>96044115
Possible.
Or he found a target rich environment where he can spread his newfound "knowledge" and "expertise" to the unthinking uneducated proles and peasants.

>>96044070
You've been blown the fuck out repeatedly.
>Its a total disregard for linguistics and how language works.
Are you being a coping retard on purpose?

>>96044135
I'd pity him if he wasn't so annoying. Or if he didn't just ignore every single attempt to actually form a discussion by sticking to a system that explains how they view the supernatural stuff in it and why they do.

>>96044185
Oh hey, the retard is here.
I love the way you shitsuckers love to ignore how magical rituals and incantions function and how theyre conceived to effect the world, as known by literally everyone whose seen or read of them, in order to be a pedantic little numpty focused exclusively on the exact wording in a post and declaring yourself a winner when the other person disregards you as a pedantic debatebro desperate for a win.

But to refute your idiocy, software isnt a ritual or incantation because it relies on well known physical cause and effect, unlike rituals which work on words, nonwork gestures, and symbolic materials to cause effects via noncausal means. A softly spoken poem that causes a fire to appear nearby with no other input or actions is an incantation, a fire started by a lighter that is operated by electrical impulses sent through metal and silicon via complex physical cause and effect is not an incantation.

Please stop being a pedant focused exclusively on the exact words written but instead on the arguments presented.

>>96044237
I, we, accept your concession.

>>96044239
You are a bizarre little freak and no one loves you.

>>96032946
lol you're a redditor

>>96044237
>words, nonwork gestures, and symbolic materials to cause effects via noncausal means.

>cause effects through noncausual means

If the ritual is causing something to happen than it's not noncausal anon. For something to be noncausal it has to be entirely spontaneous and unconnected to anything else. If I can through chicken bones in the air and mutter words to create a fire ball than I'm following some kind of natural law that allows such a thing to happen.

>>96044070
Since when were jannies obligated to follow the rules?

>>96040187
>See, modern day fantasists are autistic and separate everything into neat little boxes redundantly
They're not neat and the entire point is to avoid redundancy.

>refusing to see how it all blended and overlapped in the past.
Blended entails there was difference, and the modern meaning does not have to homogenize according to all prior use. Once again, a "wandering word" creates a long series of definitions.

>They don’t see all the surviving essences today.
We do, and consider them separate meanings of one word, then settle on a subset narrow enough to write game rules for.

>They don’t see how miracles are magic by any other name.
There is in fact meaning to the "because God willed it" versus "because I asked a djinn" differnece. Your pathological inability to understand the importance of relative social approval does not erase that there was such a categorization as far back as we have record of rituals.

>Magic and religion are indistinguishable.
No, it's an element of many of them, but not all religions perform rituals. They are VERY rare, but do exist.

>Even the realm of science has become religious.
Which does nothing to erase the differnece its underlying empirical reductionism holds from occtism assuming all events have actors to them.


>>96041880
Not by those to which "artificial" is an antonym.

>>96041994
The differences in "magic" between settings are quite simple jargon of a form that games people actually play have need of to define rules.

>>96043249
It's important to note that empiricism and reductionism have fairly trivial constructions where they do not apply, and without them the inverse Clark analysis stops working.

So societies that find only some fields of "magic" possess these properties rendering them impregnible to available reason could hold that only those are "True Magic" and the rest gets the IRL psionics treatment, save for actually working. Presumably including the namesake sufficiently studied psychics.

>>96041880
Your pathological refusal to accept that words like "nature" and "magic" have narrower meanings does not change that semantics are intrinsically ambiguous because language frequently relies on context to differentiate multiple meanings of a single word.

Definitions are fundamentally descriptive, and so all that is necessary for you to be wrong is enough people to say the words mean something else. I'd say that the number of replies you get arguing otherwise are a sufficient sample to declare that other definitions than yours exist, and because you're a blinkered midwit relying on that not being the case almost all your arguments are Not Even Wrong.

To counter this, define the contranym "literally" for me.

I don't understand this thread. What are you guys talking about?

>>96045287
One side asserts that anything that exists or could exist is, depending on your terminology, material/natural/non-magical, just by the fact that it is part of a reality, thus defined by certain rules or lack there-of to make it into a commonly understood phenomena

The other side is quetching that you *must* be able to have something truly supernatural, but any and all examples they cook up, be it God or wizzard-kind of magic in truth are all natural/material/non-magical since they are just natural phenomena of their settings - they can't accept this and thus seethe uncontrolably

Also there are a bunch of people filtered by philosophy who are stuck in the middle and make tautological falacies like "fantasy magic is magical because its magic"

>>96045310
>The other side is quetching that you *must* be able to have something truly supernatural
With the emphasis on "be able to" rather than "must", in that the OPTION to categorize is essential to WRITE A FUCKING GAME.

>but any and all examples they cook up, be it God or wizzard-kind of magic in truth are all natural/material/non-magical since they are just natural phenomena of their settings
By your pathological inability to understand words have more than one meaning, with "nature" having many with extant outgroups let alone ones sound in a counterfactual. For the rest of us able to read a fucking dictionary and notice they give more than one meaning to the word, you are Not Even Wrong.

>>96045322
Dispite the big words you still fall into the third category of confused brainlets

Yes, I am using nature only in the sense of whole reality. Yes, if we use nature in a more granular context and magic in a less philosophical and more layman "gee wiz we don't see that in our world" kinda way, then magic obviously can and does exist in every fucking fantasy setting where the word magic is used.

But this has absolutely nothing to do with the overarching truth that in all of such settings, if properly examined, magic would just be another boring-ass natural phenomenon, or that elves from magic-land wouldn't react to shock of humans seeing their self-sweeping brooms with a "what, you guys don't have phones?" kind of response.

>>96037590
>An elf being astounded at human acts as if it were magic.
funny, but if humans are common in that world the elf will just look like a retard (then again everyone makes elves 1000+ yo braindead retards nowadays).

>>96045371
>Dispite the big words you still fall into the third category of confused brainlets
No, that's you being completely and utterly lost in the sauce of comparative mythology and insisting everyone else should abandon any hope of actually understanding things by ignoring the divisions therein.

>But this has absolutely nothing to do with the overarching truth that in all of such settings, if properly examined, magic would just be another boring-ass natural phenomenon
Not necessarily, because differing useful epistemologies and causal mechanisms can create quite important to recognize differences. Stop insisting that EVERYBODY must reduce to the absolute broadest strokes, because that's not compatible with WRITING A FUCKING GAME.

>>96045287
Some sperg that keeps showing up to spam his pet theory on the concept of "magic" being related to unrelated subjects because he's too stupid to just get a blog for this shit.

And also pointedly refusing to talk about traditional games the entire time.

>>96043982
Jannies intentionally and actively worsen the board by protecting spammers and trolls. Google "mining the chans".

All OP wanted to talk about was the psychological angle of magic. Because that’s all magic is. But one autistic freak obsessed with “incantations and rituals” wants magic to be magic no matter what, or no matter the perceptive angle, so here we are, an entire thread wasted because of some idiot who can’t accept that magic is quite literally whatever-the-fuck. “Magic”. He’s losing his mind over it.

>>96046416
Nobody gives a shit about the "psychological" side of magic when you're playing D&D, OP. Also, quit talking about yourself in the third person, it's embarrassing.

>>96046420
What makes you think we’re playing Dee en Dee?

>>96045705
We would get to the games part had you not started throwing tantrums preventing us from getting to that part.

>>96045371
>magic would just be another boring-ass natural phenomenon
>"what, you guys don't have phones?" kind of response
What an odd perspective. It seems you conflate the idea that just because something becomes familiar, it therefore changes its nature (or, rather, supernature) entirely to become non-magic. It's akin to claiming technology doesn't exist because people can go "what, you guys don't have computers?", therefore it's all just stones and pebbles all the way down. It's almost as if the concept that "magic is beyond nature" still eludes you to this day... it's been months of this.

>>96046452
Then get on with it. Who's stopping you?

>>96043973
>"its all psychology dude"
Wow, I thought that slav weirdo autist would've killed himself by now. I'll bring back that fun pic that broke his brain last time.

>>96045194
>Not by those to which "artificial" is an antonym.

Things can be antonyms with out being exclusive opposites anon.

>>96046416
>But one autistic freak obsessed with “incantations and rituals” wants magic to be magic no matter what
No, it's at least one person saying that as a static meaning covering the vast majority of /tg/ usage, at least one person shitting on you for not understanding how definitions actually function, and at least one person shitting on you because YOU'RE the one wasting these threads insisting that a pile of poorly-described macro-historical and psychological analysis overrides basic game design principles.

>>96046460
You by shitting on anyone who tries, as seen in >>96033095.

I once had an argument with my friend over the elemental bending in The Last Airbender. I pointed out it wasn’t magic to them. He immediately retorted “How? They are throwing around fireballs.”. I explained to him that they weren’t weird or unnatural to the people in that world. He couldn’t grasp that. He only looked at it from our end, not theirs.

What’s funny is there is also an episode where the characters say just that: “It’s not magic, it’s bending!”.

I really think wanting magic to always be magic, even in fiction, is a callback to religious pangs of wanting something to be more special than it is. They’ve traded their world for an unreal one, however. Escapism truly is sad.

>>96046490
Well, anon, by all means. Go ahead and start talking about gaems, now that the big bad anon isn't going to bully you about it. I'll wait.

>>96046480
You are so stupid lol. By default they don’t know everything if they come across something they don’t know. Don you even know what physics is? L

>>96046490
You need to calm down. You’re acting like a child.

>>96046511
>literally repeats what Patrick says
>doesn't even see what that means
Hilarious.

>>96045229
The words I choose to use and how others define them is irrelevant as I'm not arguing words I'm arguing concepts.

When I say "nature", "the natural world" or "natural law" I am describing the physical world as it exists and if you're arguing that magic is something exists beyond the physical world than you're arguing for something that can interact with the physical world but doesn't exist within it which is nonsense.

If you're trying to argue that nature is just a subset of things we call "nature" and magic is just a subset of things we call "magic" than your argument is stupid and tells us nothing about either beyond what you define them as.

>>96046521
The joke in the image is flawed, anon. If you really think this is a win, it’s really fucking sad. Lol.

>>96046530
The only joke in that image is you for still failing to understand it. You are quite literally stuck in a loop of your own stupidity and can't accept it, it's hilarious.

>>96045478
You really are retarded. Wow. I’m not even that guy.

>>96046538
But you only put forth a paradox. Those aliens don’t know everything about physics, if you suddenly go and claim they don’t know everything about physics. L

>>96046554
>still thinks its a paradox
>still doesn't understand it makes complete sense if you accept magic as supernatural
More, you're fucking hilarious.

>>96046565
>he thinks the supernatural isn’t natural in truth
This is your error.

>>96046574
And yet I'm not the one stuck in an imaginary paradox of his own refusal to understand what "supernatural" means.

>>96046485
>Things can be antonyms with out being exclusive opposites anon.
...The singular purpose of the term "antonym" is highlighting words of opposite meaning. It only requires that such exist for the term "nature" to have an extant outgroup.

>>96046523
>The words I choose to use and how others define them is irrelevant as I'm not arguing words I'm arguing concepts.
No, it's extremely relevant because the concepts in question are described using said words and the subject is the logical validity of objective magic.

>When I say "nature", "the natural world" or "natural law" I am describing the physical world as it exists and if you're arguing that magic is something exists beyond the physical world than you're arguing for something that can interact with the physical world but doesn't exist within it which is nonsense.
But because every single one of those terms has alternative meanings, it ISN'T nonsense, it just means a different set of definitions is in use from yours. Again, you don't seem to understand what semantics are, you don't demonstrate any grasp of ambiguity being unavoidable, you just assert a single very specific set of definitions that make your conclusion a tautology.

>If you're trying to argue that nature is just a subset of things we call "nature" and magic is just a subset of things we call "magic" than your argument is stupid and tells us nothing about either beyond what you define them as.
This "criticism" functions perfectly in the mirror, because your argument is NOTHING but insisting on your meanings of the words, as seen with your refusal to engage somebody else attempting the manner of construction in >>96041802.

>>96046540
Then don't join in on highly-recurrent bullshit like this.

>>96046554
It's only a "paradox" because you cannot grasp that the common use of the hypothetical is different from your retarded jargon.

>>96046574
It isn't, hence the "super" prefix. As definitions are descriptive, the word's existence disproves you.

>>96046580
The supernatural is an oxymoron buddy. Under natural philosophy, the unnatural is purely an opinion, just like magic. Simple as. That’s the beauty of magic. It’s not the same for everyone. It’s personal. “Magic”.

>>96046480
Anon you seem to not understand what "the laws of physics" are. They are a description of behavior of things that happen. This hypothetical you are offering is essentially,

"What if aliens knew everything that can happen and then something happens that they didn't know about"

If there can be a causal behavior that can be observed, than physics has to be changed to incorporate it. You're constructing a premise that is internally contradictory and thus doesn't actually show anything. This doesn't prove anything other than you don't understand how to construct hypotheticals or understand how they can be used to show things.

>>96046584
>The supernatural is an oxymoron buddy.
You're approaching some new levels of desperation now! Can't wait to see what you try next. Maybe English definitions don't count because you're a slav?

>>96046583
Sorry. Humans evolved. Natural philosophy won out. Everything that is “supernatural” is just a proxy or a placeholder for nature we don’t understand. Simple as. It’s a veil. A curtain. A stage. That’s magic. Gravity is still borderline magic today.

>>96046590
See >>96046521

>>96046593
Why are you posting an image of Ricky Gervais? He literally agrees with me. His standup special is called “Supernature”, and he opens with this very same logic. Supernature is still nature. Metaphysics is still physics. God damn you want there to be something more out there, in fiction, it is like you’re fictionally religious.

>Still no talk about traditional games despite all the opportunities in the world to
>Just sperging about definitions from one fuck intentionally misunderstanding them
Thanks mods

>>96046606
>a comedian agrees with me, check mate!
I genuinely wasn't expecting a deflection that weak.

>>96046598
You’ve been explained how that image makes no sense, and was made by an idiot. Stop disrespecting Patrick Star.

>>96046621
See >>96046565

>>96046615
A comedian who isn’t an idiot. Yes. Keep doubling down I guess.

>>96046583
>But because every single one of those terms has alternative meanings, it ISN'T nonsense, it just means a different set of definitions is in use from yours. Again, you don't seem to understand what semantics are, you don't demonstrate any grasp of ambiguity being unavoidable, you just assert a single very specific set of definitions that make your conclusion a tautology.

Anon arguing solely on semantics is retarded, I'm refuse to engage in word play and will only speak on the inherent concepts that underly the words we use. If you refuse to engage with words outside of the ways you choose to define them than this argument is pointless because you've defined your terms around your argument rather than a way that's actually useful in understanding anything

>>96046628
>this one comedian who makes jokes named a show after a word I don't understand
>that refutes every accepted official definition of what supernatural means
Talking of doubling down!

>>96046565
What is supernatural to you? Something that goes against nature? Nature doesn’t work against itself. If anything happens at all, it isn’t truly supernatural, since it happened, and if anything *happens*, it is natural. Causality is natural. You can’t just say causality suddenly isn’t natural. It happened.

>>96046598
Anon trying to refute how the laws of physics are defined isn't an argument it just shows you don't know what you're talking about.

>>96046646
Look up the definition.

>>96046648
See >>96046580

>>96046641
Keep posting ironic reaction images because you’re desperate, I guess?

>>96046565
Anon if your argument that magic is supernatural relies in you agreeing that magic is supernatural you have a pretty shitty argument

>>96046480
The aliens understand all of human psychology and culture perfectly.

The dipshit /tg/ poster says something they don't understand at all.

But he says it anyway.

So what did they read?

>>96046654
That definition doesn’t fly in regards to modern day physics sense. Perceptions change and evolve, anon. Just like magic.

>>96046656
Nothing ironic about it, I'm giggling away happily at how stupid you are. I bet you're still stuck on this one: >>96046480 but the "supernatural is an oxymoron" was really the icing on your retarded cake so far. Give us a cherry for the top!

>>96046669
You want the supernatural to truly be something more than natural. I only ever see religious people and children obsessing over fantasy pulling this shit. In real life I mean. You’re probably one of those.

>>96046654
>well how do you define supernatural anon

>Idk why don't you figure that out for me

>>96046659
See >>96046480

>>96046660
Your mum's number on a toilet door?

>>96046667
Unless, of course, there were aliens who knew all the laws of physics and had a complete understanding of science, which would then make supernatural... what?

Imagine ruining a thread because you can’t cope over the fact that the greatest fantasy author of all time knew that the supernatural was ironic and contradictory

>>96046675
>You want the supernatural to truly be something more than natural.
Yeah, it's almost as if that's the defition. It's even in the name, it means "beyond nature". How aren't you getting that?

>>96046678
I don't need you to figure it out for me, I need you to go read it for yourself so you understand what's being said.

>>96046681
An alien UFO is borderline magic, or supernatural, to us because we don’t understand it, not because it’s literally going against nature, you twat. To the alien it’s just alien technology. Natural.

>>96046681
>Your mum's number on a toilet door?
The aliens know every single telephone number that has ever existed and ever will exist.

They see a telephone number written on the toilet door saying "Call me for a good time, xoxo >>96046681's mom."

They don't recognize the number, but it's real.

How is this possible?

>>96046693
What we know today would have been “beyond nature” to persons of the past.

What they’re trying to explain to you, is that the supernatural, like magic, is relative.

>>96046698
>>96046708
How much of a brainlet do you have to be to not understand that the whole "aliens who know everything witness magic" thought experiment is there entirely so you don't get caught up in the weeds with this irrelevant bullshit?

>>96046702
>weakest no u
Sad, your mum's still a whore.

>>96046584
>Under natural philosophy, the unnatural is purely an opinion, just like magic.
And under legal theory, "the state of nature" is solely man's circumstances absent a society. Stop trying to use semantics, you don't understand how they work.

>>96046590
>Anon you seem to not understand what "the laws of physics" are.
They're the product of a specific set of philosophical approaches that hold no guarantee of generating truth. Thus, the absolute limit case is not actually required to be all-knowing.

>This hypothetical you are offering is essentially,

>"What if aliens knew everything that can happen and then something happens that they didn't know about"

According to your crippling inability to grasp that your definitions are not what anyone else in the thread uses.

>If there can be a causal behavior that can be observed, than physics has to be changed to incorporate it.
And if it can't because it's not computable and the causation has unobservable intermediary steps?

>>96046596
Using assumptions disproven IRL is fantasy worldbuilding 101, from creatures that never existed like elves to obscure contradictory bullshit in depreciated physics theories like phlogiston.

>>96046635
>Anon arguing solely on semantics is retarded
Then stop doing it by building your arguments entirely around definitions!

>and will only speak on the inherent concepts that underly the words we use
No such thing exists because the words are wholly social constructs with unavoidable ambiguity.

>If you refuse to engage with words outside of the ways you choose to define them than this argument is pointless because you've defined your terms around your argument rather than a way that's actually useful in understanding anything
...Says the one constantly making statements that the words must refer to only one specific thing and attempting to use it otherwise is retarded.

>>96046720
Not as stupid as the guy who can only say "ur mum" when his stupid post is successfully disproven.

You've said "the aliens know everything," and then "they don't know this thing." Well then, you have outlined a straightforward paradox.

>>96046720
Not as stupid as the guy who can only say "ur mum" when his stupid post is successfully disproven.

You've said "the aliens know everything," and then "they don't know this thing." Well then, you have simply contradicted yourself. There's no interesting thought experiment here.

>>96046722
>tells someone to stop using semantics because they don’t know how semantics works
>doesn’t know how semantics works
It’s ironic.

>>96046728
It hasn't been disproven, though.

I told you the aliens know everything about science and the laws of physics, to rule out any attempts of going "hurr durr but UFOs look like magic to us", and leaves you with absolutely no side-tracks to slip down in your stupidity. They witness an event that does not fit with nature, it does not fit with the laws of physics, or their complete science.

Now, a wise man would say "ah, I understand, so that's what magic is, then", whilst a retard would get confused and, incapable of grasping this concept, would keep repeating "aliens not know everything!!1!". Hence, this picture >>96046480

Hence, your mum's a whore.

>>96046722
You really need to calm down. Are you underage?

>>96046747
>I told you the aliens know everything about science and the laws of physics
Okay, but you’re effectively claiming that they don’t, once you bring in something they don’t understand. It’s a simple flaw, or paradox, in your scenario. You can’t separate magic from physics. A fireball is fire.

>>96046757
>Okay, but you’re effectively claiming that they don’t,
See, and that's why you're funny. You're trapped in a paradox of your own making.

>>96046722
>this thing that just happened wasn’t physics
>but it happened
>but it’s still not physics
>but that makes no sense
>yeah because it’s magic
>but it happened, so something made it happen
>nope, it happened but it’s still not physics
>that makes no sense
????

>>96046771
Another victim of the self-created paradox. It should've gone like this:
>this thing that just happened wasn’t physics
>but it happened
>but it’s still not physics
>but that makes no sense
>yeah because it’s magic
>oh... yeah

>>96046760
At this point I’m praying you’re a troll and not actually this low IQ. For your sake.

>>96032858 (OP)
It makes sense. I mean we use magic daily. That's what that Insane Clown Posse song is about, magnets are magic, we just know how it works

>>96046782
No, it just seems you genuinely are too retarded to grasp this concept, hence the paradox you keep putting yourself in. Go on, try it again, see if you can break out of it. It's funnier if you don't, but still...

>>96046747
There fundamentally zero difference between an alien UFO and a strange old man shooting lightning out of his butt. They’re both “magic”. Out of the ordinary. Unexplainable.

>>96046789
I’m serious. You are extremely depressing. It’s like arguing with a Christian over how someone couldn’t survive inside a fish for a week. They don’t care that it’s physically impossible.

>>96046791
Except the aliens who know everything about science, nature, and the laws of physics know exactly how the UFO works, and can model it and explain all the steps. But the strange old man shooting lightning out of his butt is completely inexplicable to them, they can't work out where the energy is coming from, what even provoked the lightning to manifest, or how the wizard is even guiding it against all the laws they do understand.

That's the whole point of the thought experiment.

>>96046795
You shouldn't be depressed, the old saying is "ignorance is bliss", you should be ecstatic. You being trapped in a paradox of your own stupidity isn't my fault.

>>96046646
Here you go insisting on specific definitions! That's a semantic argument, no matter what bullshit you try using to weasel out of it.

>>96046660
>The aliens understand all of human psychology and culture perfectly.
And for all the definitions of the word "magic" based on specific classes of phenomena?

>>96046685
No, Tolkien's understanding was that there was an element of subjectivity to magic, which is not "ironic" nor "contradictory". The individual elves and hobbits understanding (or lack thereof) were each internally consistent and earnest, but happened to differ. His point was fundamentally the ambiguity you insist cannot be, that "magic" held separate consistent meanings based on the speaker and context.

>>96046708
>What we know today would have been “beyond nature” to persons of the past.
But we arrived at it SPECIFICALLY by studying the confines of the natural. That we failed to verify any of the assumptions of what lied outside it does not make such a thing an impossible logical construction, and so a concrete definition of "supernatural" remains coherent.

>>96046740
I'm quite confident I have a better understanding because my brain has room for more than one meaning per word.

>>96046771
Yes, things can happen that aren't "physics". Because the term "physics" is rather late in the development of reason, and so was defined in relation to many assumptions that have since proven false. The limits of this are partially preserved in the common usage of the hypothetical, which is given SPECIFICALLY to highlight that "physics" does not NECESSARILY mean "all that exists".

Fuck's sake, even modern scientists have it technically limited to "matter", "energy", and "force", so a function that's not quite any of those can slip out anyways. Would be very tricky to devise a sound hypothetical for, but IS logically valid.

>>96046610
We don't need to directly discuss traditional games for this to be relevant to /tg/. Here is one of the most significant developers of OSR games (as well as one of the creators of D&D 5e) outlining this very topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMAIYaw0ebE .

Arguing that the discussion isn't relevant to /tg/ at this point would be like arguing that Gygax's "nits make lice" forum post isn't on-topic. As might be surmised by the author, this topic is highly relevant to his games IC and L&D, so the distinction is important. Likewise, the GURPS setting Alchemical Baroque centers on the distinction between natural philosophers and witches, so the topic is again highly relevant to /tg/.

Anyway, to sum up the video who those who won't watch it,
>1) There are two types of "miracle workers": Natural Philosophers and Holy Men.
>2) Natural Philosophers i.e. "Wizards" are scholars of magic, the equivalent of scientists of their time. Magic is just augmented understanding of the laws of nature, not supernatural at all.
>3) The supernatural exists, but magic is not supernatural, and the supernatural is not magic. Magic is the sole province of God, who being omnipotent is above and beyond the laws of nature and can ignore them as he pleases. Literally nothing else is supernatural; magic, especially, is not supernatural. Holy Men aren't supernatural, they just invoke the supernatural power of God.

>>96046798
>But the strange old man shooting lightning out of his butt is completely inexplicable to them, they can't work out where the energy is coming from, what even provoked the lightning to manifest, or how the wizard is even guiding it against all the laws they do understand.
Nah they totally do. They’re higher dimensional and are looking at everything inside and out. In fact, they’re the ones responsible for the magic system in the first place, since only higher dimensional beings can play around the conservation of mass or where mass/energy spontaneously exits. It’s only supernatural to lower loser three dimensional lifeforms, kek

I don’t care how weird or strange or hocus pocus your magic is, pal. There’s still going to be essential information to it, and a hypothetical point where it’s no longer seen as magic or supernatural.

Your argument is that you want magic to be unexplainable forever. You’ve waged a war against intelligence.

>>96046816
Curious how you didn't lead with any of that, OP, instead of going

>dudes
>what if like
>duuuuuuuuudes
>what if
>not magic
>was
>magic
>duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuudes

>>96046810
>No, Tolkien's understanding was that there was an element of subjectivity to magic, which is not "ironic" nor "contradictory".
He literally says it’s contradictory in his letters. Magic is meant to be ironic.

>>96046810
You need to stop using capitals in your posts. It’s not making you look good. You come across as a teenager defiant of his lessons.

>>96046822
Not gonna read all that, but I saw the bullshit strawman of
>Your argument is that you want magic to be unexplainable forever.
No, as I've repeatedly said, my argument is that nature does not contain supernature, because by definition supernature is beyond nature. Hence, aliens who know all of nature cannot explain how supernature functions. Because supernature is magic.

>>96046843
>No, as I've repeatedly said, my argument is that nature does not contain supernature, because by definition supernature is beyond nature
Then you’re an idiot, because by nature we mean existence period. Does your idea of magic exist? Then it’s natural. Sorry.

>>96046843
So higher dimensions are supernatural because they are beyond nature as we know it. But to go and claim it’s not nature to those higher dimensional beings is just silly.

Even in Tolkien’s works, everything is just Song, or Music, to Eru. The same way Einstein saw physics as ‘the music of the spheres’.

The supernatural isn’t supernatural to supernatural beings. It’s as simple as that.

>>96046843
Yes. That’s what you’ve said. It’s supernatural because the aliens cannot explain it. Don’t backtrack now.

>>96046798
They clearly don't know everything about science, nature, and the laws of physics, that is assumed by your scenario. If they knew everything they would know how the wizard did his magic.

I suppose we could assume he did some sort of illusion. Knowing everything about the laws of physics doesn't mean I can't be bamboozled by a bit of sleight of hand. I doubt you'll be satisfied with this explanation, though.

>>96046847
>Then you’re an idiot
I always know I'm going to be treated to something incredibly stupid when I see this from someone like you.
>because by nature we mean existence period
Cool, guess what? Supernature means beyond existence, then. It doesn't matter what bullshit attempt at redefining "nature" you try, the fact that "supernature" inherently means beyond it will always trump your attempts.
>Does your idea of magic exist? Then it’s natural. Sorry.
See, we're back at you being stuck in a paradox of your own making. This is how retarded you are, you genuinely cannot grasp a simple concept like what "supernatural" even means.

>>96046843
>Because supernature is magic.
And super-nature is still nature, but super. Cope.

>>96046445
You can replace that with any other game, that won't change the fact your /his/ spam is worthless.

>>96046810
>And for all the definitions of the word "magic" based on specific classes of phenomena?
What did the aliens read that confused them, anon? They know everything about humanity. But a human posted something that confused them. Can't explain that.

>>96046855
>>96046863
>>96046861
See >>96046480

>>96046876
>supernature, which literally means beyond nature, is just nature
We need a new word for you, brainlet just isn't strong enough any more.

>>96046868
>Supernature means beyond existence, then.
Then it doesn’t exist. You’ve now made a huge blunder. If anything exists, it is physics of a kind. Nature is nature no matter the nature. Existence is just existence.

>>96046887
You’re so cringe is incredible. I can tell you’re panicking too. This must be some sensitive topic for you.

>>96046881
See >>96046660

Still haven't gotten a real answer to this question.

>>96046888
>Then it doesn’t exist.
Incredible, when faced with a simple concept like a clear definition of what magic is, your response is to shut down your brain and deny a concept can even exist... despite me having repeatedly explained it for you. You are truly retarded.

This entire thread is just a long winded argument about interpretation and gamist mindset vs narrativist mindset.

Interpreting what magic is has always been subjective. Virtually every culture, religion, or spiritual philosophy has some level of rites, practices, and incantations intending to invoke some sort of element or dispel some unknown entity.
Whether or not they draw a distinction between these and magic is dependent on time and culture mostly.
And the idea that sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic is a valid opinion to hold, although it's not the ONLY valid opinion like some people seem to believe, especially when you're talking about fiction.

So in real life and in fiction what magic is or isn't is entirely subjective.

However (comma),

This is an entirely narrativist perspective on magic and is unhelpful for a gamist roleplayer at best. (and completely annoying sophistry at worst)
A gamist isn't worried about the narrative explanation of what magic may or may not be, but on what magic is in reference to the world so that it can be made into useful tangible mechanics.
From a gamist perspective no one gives a shit about the relativistic nature of magic and who defines it as what, because it has no bearing. Concrete definitions are what matter.
This is also a completely valid position to hold, because we're on /tg/ and the nature of what we discuss should be related to games.
Now that doesn't mean everything has to be droll discussion of mechanics, but it does mean people will throw out conversations that don't have any relevance to any game mechanics.

Anyway happy arguing.

>>96046897
Anything else you'd likely to falsely attribute to me to protect your ego and stop you acknowledging you neither know what "supernatural" or "natural" means, nor how a simple concept like >>96046480 even works?

>>96046901
See >>96046681

>>96046685
>ruining a thread
This thread is shit from the very beginning.

>>96046911
>>>96046901(You)
>See >>96046681
My mom's number on a toilet room door is clearly part of human culture, so no, I still haven't gotten an answer. The fact that your brain is so infinitesimal that you actually think that's an answer makes it clear that you are too retarded to breathe.

>>96046832
Does he actually use the word "contradictory", or are you hallucinating that because you cannot understand words being ambiguous? It's a pretty consistent issue you have, inserting your own specialized jargon meaning of words where normal English is supposed to be.

>>96046838
There's not that many methods of emphasis and this entire shitshow is a midwit incapable of letting go of his first rabbit-hole of reasoning. This thread is utterly undeserving of the respect of text absent attempted tone markers.

>>96046863
No, because "the laws of physics" are not all-encompassing by their own terms, they are merely the most successful explanatory framework we have IRL. Nothing about this guarantees the impossibility of a non-physical occurrence.

>>96046876
Not necessarily, the narrower definitions of "nature" can easily fail to apply at the "higher" station.

>>96046878
The original hypothetical is "saw", not "read". They know everything about "the laws of physics", not "humanity". Your "no u" will not be addressed itself.

>>96046912
No, it went to shit with >>96032924.

>>96046919
They read magic.

>>96046911
The issue here is you can’t see the irony of the supernatural, or how it’s a soft description rather than a hard definition.

>>96046902
Please stop hyperventilating.

>>96046921
>No, because "the laws of physics" are not all-encompassing by their own terms, they are merely the most successful explanatory framework we have IRL. Nothing about this guarantees the impossibility of a non-physical occurrence.
Sorry, the poster said "science, nature, and the laws of physics." You can go reread it.

>The original hypothetical is "saw", not "read". They know everything about "the laws of physics", not "humanity". Your "no u" will not be addressed itself.
Read the series of posts. The aliens KNOW everything about human culture and psychology, but a human says something they don't understand. How?

The answer is, it's just a logical contradiction that you've made up to prove magic is real.

Aliens know everything about good posts. They read your posts, and didn't understand them. Therefore, your posts are bad.

>>96046932
Really, that's your attempt to deflect, that "supernatural" is just ironic? Fuck, I've seen some sad shit from you so far, but that's really bad. No, "supernatural" not ironic.

>>96046941
What a weird thing to pull out of nowhere. Wait... are you getting out of breath typing? I'm sorry this is so physically exerting for you.

>>96046921
The laws of physics =|= physics as it is

The laws are our observations and the theories are our explanations.

But there is physics regardless of our ability to assess it. Magic is literally just unassessable physics. You’ve even said this yourself by claiming aliens don’t understand it. But it’s still physics.

>>96046956
>No, "supernatural" not ironic
Yes it is. It’s not supernatural to supernatural beings. Often the capital-w wizard doesn’t see themselves as a capital-w wizard. They’re too transcendent for that.

>>96046907
This

>>96046968
>ice isn't ice to ice elementals
This is how retarded you sound.

>>96046921
No, it went to shit with >>96032858 (OP) made by a retarded spammer.

Thank god this garbage bin reach the bump limit. Hopefully that wretched fag of an OP will wait at least a month before shitting out another one with precisely the same worthless talking points.

Good thread OP

>>96046988
Ice is natural to ice elementals. It’s not unnatural to them. It’s not supernatural.

Yes you’re retarded. You’re the one who fundamentally doesn’t understand what nature is, or how the supernatural is just a way of looking at it.

>>96047006
>didn't understand the analogy
Okay, we'll try it one more time. Is ICE considered ICE to an ICE elemental?

>>96046932
>irony of the supernatural
No such thing because you keep using "irony" just to say it disagrees with your retarded constructions.

>it’s a soft description rather than a hard definition.
In aggregate IRL, which is not the context of the discussion.

>>96046942
>Sorry, the poster said "science, nature, and the laws of physics." You can go reread it.
No, >>96046480 is merely the laws of physics.

>The answer is, it's just a logical contradiction that you've made up to prove magic is real.
No, it's a logical construction trying to beat into your head that magic is logically valid. The only person in this conversation that appears to care about "real" is you, to the apparently willful exclusion of the unreal matters of /tg/.

>>96046959
>The laws of physics =|= physics as it is
The limit case of knowing all laws of physics is.

>But there is physics regardless of our ability to assess it.
Incorrect. While it appears to comprise all things in our universe, there's rather large gaps in our understanding for something not quite physics to lurk, so aliens who know all there is about matter, energy, and forces being abruptly confronted with something that is none of these can in fact be surprised.

>Magic is literally just unassessable physics.
Or any of the very long list of common usage of the word throughout history, from acts of Mesopotamian priests through millennia of European occultism to today's fantasy fiction slop.

>>96046968
>Often the capital-w wizard doesn’t see themselves as a capital-w wizard.
According to your colon. The current expectation of the counterfactual fantasy settings is that it's a well-established title routinely self-identified with.

>>96047041
>>Sorry, the poster said "science, nature, and the laws of physics." You can go reread it.
>No, >>96046480 is merely the laws of physics.
This post: >>96046863
Linked this post: >>96046798

You are very stupid.

>No, it's a logical construction trying to beat into your head that magic is logically valid. The only person in this conversation that appears to care about "real" is you, to the apparently willful exclusion of the unreal matters of /tg/.
Magic is an incoherent category which only makes sense to impose from an outside point of view, your tiny brain is very stupid and unable to comprehend this.

>>96047041
>>Sorry, the poster said "science, nature, and the laws of physics." You can go reread it.
>No, >>96046480 (You) is merely the laws of physics.
To be fair, he is right on this one, I did intend for the aliens to understand all of nature completely. It was because last time we had this thread, a couple of retards got stuck on the concept of humans not knowing everything about our reality, so I gave them a hypothetical of an alien species who knew everything about how our (our actual real-world reality) works. That way, we could rule out species ignorance of science to lead them to the idea of magic being supernature, literally things that don't fit a perfect and complete scientific model that explains how nature works.

But instead they got caught in a paradox of their own making, spinning constantly on the idea that the aliens didn't know how nature worked, regardless of how many times they were told otherwise. They just literally refuse (or, as I suspect, are incapable of) admitting that magic is when complete science can't explain something with the full and total alien understanding of the laws of physics.

>>96046907
>gamitht
>narrativitht

>>96047097
>They just literally refuse (or, as I suspect, are incapable of) admitting that magic is when complete science can't explain something with the full and total alien understanding of the laws of physics.
You going to answer my hypothetical about the aliens understanding all human culture and psychology, but being unable to explain a /tg/ poster's posts? I guess those posts are magic too?

>>96047128
I already did, retard >>96046924
Your mum is still a filthy whore.

>>96047164
Ah, so the posts ARE magic. Gotcha.

>>96041898
And you're intentionally ignoring the fact that form of fiction features impossible concepts that don't have to reflect a plausible or real world.

>>96047028
Yes. Is ice natural or unnatural to an ice elemental? Answer me.

>>96047041
At this point everything you say is just an eyesore.

>>96047179
>Yes
And just like a supernatural being would see supernature as supernature and not nature, an ice elemental would see ice as ice and not fire.

>Is ice natural or unnatural to an ice elemental?
It's...
>Answer me.
... lol, no.

>>96047172
You can’t think interchangeably. What happens within the bounds of fantasy is possible within the bounds of fantasy. To the persons within the fantasy, it doesn’t actually violate anything. It’s their nature.

>>96047195
You can’t even support your own argument anymore. Wow.

>>96047170
I actually thought you were just shitposting to start with, but your weird insistence made it clear you genuinely thought you had a point.

>>96041880
>And something can't exist without being part of nature, by definition
You might say that's impossible.

Now let's say there was a genre focusing entirely on including impossible aspects.
A work in such a genre could have aspects of it that exist in its world without being a part of that world's nature.
But you'll never understand this, no matter how many times it's explained to you.

>>96047127
I'm sorry commonly understood terms you don't agree with trigger you. Here I'll rewrite my post so it doesn't contain words that make you angy.

This entire thread is just a long winded argument about interpretation.

Interpreting what magic is has always been subjective. Virtually every culture, religion, or spiritual philosophy has some level of rites, practices, and incantations intending to invoke some sort of element or dispel some unknown entity.
Whether or not they draw a distinction between these and magic is dependent on time and culture mostly.
And the idea that sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic is a valid opinion to hold, although it's not the ONLY valid opinion like some people seem to believe, especially when you're talking about fiction.

So in real life and in fiction what magic is or isn't is entirely subjective.

However (comma),

This perspective on magic effects the world narratively and is unhelpful for a mechanics oriented roleplayer at best. (and completely annoying sophistry at worst)
Those that are concerned primarily with mechanics aren't worried about the narrative explanation of what magic may or may not be, but on what magic is in reference to the world so that it can be made into something useful for the game.
From that perspective no one gives a shit about the relativistic nature of magic and who defines it as what, because it has no bearing. Concrete definitions are what matter.
This is also a completely valid position to hold, because we're on /tg/ and the nature of what we discuss should be related to games.
Now that doesn't mean everything has to be droll discussion of mechanics, but it does mean people will throw out conversations that don't have any relevance to any game mechanics.

Anyway happy arguing.

I'm sincerely sorry my use of common terms offended you.
I hope now you will deem my post acceptable for your delicate sensibilities.

>>96047207
Supported my own argument already, just needed to try to get you to understand how retarded saying "It’s not supernatural to supernatural beings" was. Which part has confused you this time?

>>96047209
I did have a point, it's just too intelligent for you to understand. You need at least a 70 IQ.

>>96047222
Yeah, definitely, your point was that you didn't understand the hypothetical presented to you, so you made a flawed one that still ended up with the same answer as "magic". I'm impressed you didn't pick up on that.

>themanticth
FATAL is the plane's best doorstop, bar none. When you get the cats to truck over, the time is great, and their apples will prime to very often. I just don't want anyone fish like salad wrenches, know what I mean? The FATAL PbtA coffee table decoration was one of, if not THE, definitive icon of the quantum space.
Agreement, or die.

>>96047200
>You can’t think interchangeably.
>says the person who doesn't realize a world not like ours can't have aspects that aren't like ours that also aren't natural to that world too

>>96047219
>This entire thread is just a long winded argument about interpretation.
That magic is subjective, or interpretive, was OP’ s point to being with.

>>96047229
Bro, posting these images with your every post doesn't make you look smarter or above-it-all, it makes you look like a retarded Twitter reject who was too dumb to make it even on X.

>>96047254
That’s just exotic physics. It’s still physics.

>>96047258
Awww poow baby upset by some pictuwes, waaah. Maybe don't be a retard and you won't get them?

>>96047255
OP also spent an entire thread nattering about semantics instead of specifying he didn't want to talk about how magic is actually interpreted by a particular game's setting's inhabitants, but on his own warped misunderstanding of real life shit. The fact he couldn't name a single game he wanted to discuss regarding the subject, instead throwing a temper tantrum anytime anyone asked, shows OP never wanted to make any kind of point in good faith and just to sperg about their pet topic yet again.

Alright, kids, I've (>>96046480) had my fun showing you up and I'm off now for some Pimms in the sun. And because I'm a kind and generous teacher, I'll let all you brainlets trapped in your paradoxes get some replies in before the thread dies, it's my gift to you. Charity, if you will.

>>96047278
Not the anon you're insulting. I'm not upset by the pictures, you're just very annoying. Also stupid, but I just thought I'd try to help.

>>96047258
It's an imageboard. Replying with images is part of the point.

>>96047267
And if the text in question makes a point of using one of the narrower definitions of physics specifically highlighting how the magic doesn't fit it?

>>96047305
>It's an imageboard. Replying with images is part of the point.
Notice how literally nobody except the one dipshit is posting various reaction gifs? Because we don't do that here?

>>96047292
Is this cope? We could have discussed games if someone didn’t force OP’s hand. “Nooo magic isn’t subjective magic is ALWAYS magic!!!1” isn’t good discussion since it ignores OP’s point.

>>96047255
People aren't arguing with OP because he's incorrect they're arguing with him out of stubbornness and because he's a jackass.

Yeah magic is subjective on like a grand scale, but it's also author defined. If I'm the author of something and I say:
"In this world this is magic, and this is supernatural."
there's no argument it is what I said it is.

You can try to dance around that fact, but you'll just be incorrect at that point.

>>96047310
That one dipshit is also the person who tanked this thread because he can’t accept that magic is purely an opinion. He can’t do it.

>>96047318
OP had over 300+ chances to do so, and only one single anon made the attempt >>96046816
So no, nobody "forced OP's hand", this was a shitty stealth thread to begin with, and nobody's fooled by your acting either, OP

>>96047319
So you’re mad because he’s le mean? Not because he’s absolutely fucking correct? These are indistinguishable to people on the internet. “Why are angry?” “Because he was RIGHT!!!1”.

>>96047319
>Yeah magic is subjective on like a grand scale, but it's also author defined. If I'm the author of something and I say:
"In this world this is magic, and this is supernatural." there's no argument it is what I said it is.
This still doesn’t make any sense. A man is free to say “No it’s not magic” even in fiction. It’s like you’re implying people in fiction can’t have their own opinions. The fact of the matter is, omnipotence is a paradox, even in fiction, and an author can’t actually write just anything. He can’t make a fiction without math, for instance. That level of logic is unavoidable.

I'm thorry commonly underthtood termth you don't agree with trigger you.
Here I'll rewrite my potht tho it doethn't contain wordth that make you angy.
Thith entire thread ith just a long winded argument about interpretation.
Interpreting what magic ith hath alwayth been thubjective.
Virtually every culture, religion, or thpiritual philothophy hath thome level of riteth, practitheth, and incantationth intending to invoke thome thort of element or dithpel some unknown entity.

Whether or not they draw a dithtinction between thethe and magic ith dependent on time and culture mostly.

And the idea that thufficiently advanced thcienthe ith indithtinguithhable from magic is a valid opinion to hold, although it'th not the ONLY valid opinion like thome people theem to believe, ethpethially when you're talking about fiction.

Tho in real life and in fiction what magic ith or ithn't ith entirely thubjective.

Thith perthpective on magic effecth the world narratively and ith unhelpful for a mechanicth oriented roleplayer at best.

(and completely annoying thophithtry at worst)

Thothe that are contherned primarily with mechanicth aren't worried about the narrative explanation of what magic may or may not be, but on what magic ith in reference to the world tho that it can be made into thomething utheful for the game.

From that perthpective no one giveth a thhit about the relativithtic nature of magic and who defineth it as what, becauthe it has no bearing. Concrete definitionth are what matter.

Thith is also a completely valid pothition to hold, because we're on /tg/ and the nature of what we dithcuth thhould be related to gameth.
Now that doethn't mean everything hath to be droll dithcuthion of mechanicth, but it does mean people will throw out converthationth that don't have any relevanthe to any game mechanicth.
Anyway happy arguing.
I'm thintherely thorry my uthe of common termth offended you.
I hope now you will deem my post atheptable for your delicate thenthibilitieth.

>>96047267
The physics of a fantasy game can be unlike ours and be natural to it, and have aspects that aren't natural to it that operate outside of their physics.

You'll never get it.

>>96047354
It's cause he's a sperg that made this topic to argue, not cause he genuinely cares about discussing anything

>>96047354

I'm not mad at OP at all I joined this thread at like post 300 or so, this was my first post:

>>96046907

You can believe me on that or not.

I'm just offering my unfiltered dogshit opinion on why this thread is so volatile.

You can be right and still be a jackass and being a jackass naturally attracts vitriol that's self evident.

OP wants other people to believe in his all encompassing worldview and doesn't really acknowledge alternate perspectives.
I don't think he even really has a point as such, or at least any point that's actually relevant to /tg/ considering how he barely makes any reference or acknowledgement towards games.
He just wants to discuss philosophy on /tg/ for some inexplicable reason.

Which would probably go a lot better if he framed it that way and actually accepted alternative opinions, but this is 4chan so c'est la vie.

>>96047382
Alright you got a chuckle out of me. That's actually pretty funny.

Fuck you though, still. Have a good one.

>>96047403
>and have aspects that aren't natural to it that operate outside of their physics.
That’s still all quite existent, and it’s like saying metaphysics isn’t physics of a kind. This is just the physicist’s point of view. Otherwise it’s a moral argument, if something is truly unnatural. Is homosexuality unnatural?

>>96047427
>OP wants other people to believe in his all encompassing worldview and doesn't really acknowledge alternate perspectives.
What? OP is saying that magic is so worldly it HAS alternate perspectives. It IS subjective. It IS an opinion. “Magic”. If it exists, it can be seen as magic. Or not. What is magic to one is not magic to another. This is something Tolkien also understood well.

>>96047627
That's not acknowledging alternate perspectives, that's conflating every form of superstition and belief system into one giant big sloppy stew, vagueposting about "philosophy" to pretend they all have a direct unifying thread, and then sperging when someone challenges it by screeching about Tolkein again and again and again

>>96047655
>That's not acknowledging alternate perspectives
Yes it is. Magic is whatever-the-fuck. Deal with it.

>>96047682
Fuck off, peckerwood.

>>96047615
>Is homosexuality unnatural?
If we're talking about our own real world, no.
If we're talking about a plausible fictional world, no.
If we're talking about a fantasy game, that depends what's established as natural, unnatural, or supernatural for that game's world.

>>96047627
No OP, or at least others imitating him I can't be sure, has repeatedly stated that magic MUST ALWAYS be subjective and open to interpretation. Which is definitively not the same as expressing that it is generally subjective in a real world sense.

He's also repeatedly expressed that there can be no such thing as the supernatural. His belief is that there is only the natural and a lack of understanding.

You can understand how these beliefs are incompatible with what others may believe, yes?
This is what's attracting the vitriol it's annoyingly smug and reductive philosophy masquerading as game related wisdom and intelligence.

>>96047723
Okay so it’s moral. Physicists don’t care about that. Nature is just nature to them.

>>96047655
>conflating every form of superstition and belief system into one giant big sloppy stew, vagueposting about "philosophy" to pretend they all have a direct unifying thread
Syncretism was common everywhere supposedly contradictory beliefs interacted. Even monotheistic religions like Christianity and Islam performed ridiculous amounts of it. Nowhere is this more clearly seen than in occult traditions. Voodoo and Hermeticism are literally, foundationally to their very core, syncretic practices. Later on, European Thelema would go on to incorporate astral projection, Kabbalah, qi from Chinese mysticism as well as both kundalini and raja yoga.

>>96047725
>No OP, or at least others imitating him I can't be sure, has repeatedly stated that magic MUST ALWAYS be subjective and open to interpretation
Yes? That’s literally what magic is. The alternative is claiming magic is some specific thing, and you’ve just declared war upon other things that could also be considered magic.

“Define magic at your own peril, to the detriment of everything else out there that can be described as magical”.

>>96047755
And what does this have to do with tabletop games, anon? Nothing? Thought so.

>>96047757
>and you’ve just declared war upon other things that could also be considered magic.
No, because words can have more than one meaning. Those other things simply get separate ones. The difference between them must be distinguished by context. This is how words ACTUALLY work.

>>96047768
Yes? Magic has a ton of baggage. It’s a “wandering word”. Its meaning shifts and changes over time.

It’s almost like magic is subjective…

>>96047793
>Its meaning shifts and changes over time.
No, it picks up a very long list of meanings divided by time, place, and context. They remain worth distinguishing so that this history can be discussed clearly in ways your reductive prescribed definition does not allow.

>>96047757
If magic is always subjective to the experience of people, and those people choose to define it as something definitive rather than subjective. Does that make magic subjective or definitive?

Must magic be subjective by its very nature or are you merely presupposing that and arguing with anyone who disagrees?

I don't really have the patience to belabor this point, and I don't really care about your own view of it.
But not understanding other perspectives is pretty autistic broseph.

>replying to a bait thread that's already past bump limit

>>96047761
All of this is significant in The Invisible College, GURPS Voodoo, GURPS Age of Gold, GURPS Thaumatology, CJ Carella's Witchcraft, Armadgeddon, Nephilim, Nightbane: Through the Glass Darkly, Aquelarre, and countless others. Frankly, most RPGs that deal in the occult with anything more than passing interest.

>it took him over 380 replies to namedrop any games

>>96047768
Yes? That’s semantics.
>>96047811
Magic is definitively subjective.

>>96047805
Yes! That’s semantics! Magic means one thing to one, another thing to another. It’s just the way it is… Magic has never been a hard definition more than a soft description, to be sure. Something can look exactly like traditional magic but still not be seen as magic. Look at science. Look at Christianity.

>>96047811
>But not understanding other perspectives is pretty autistic broseph.
OP’s entire point has always been that magic is subjectively perceptible. You’re just wanting to argue for the sake of arguing!

>>96047748
No, it's about what a fantasy game establishes as its nature, because nothing unnatural exists in our real world, and in plausible fictional worlds by extension.

>>96047962
Naturalists in that fantasy would would just see it as natural you realize. That’s the whole philosophy. That’s it’s natural.

>>96047841
Okay, then fucking start. What is magic in The Invisible College like, bucko?

>>96047970
Only if you're a boring cunt and turn magic into another science.

>>96048140
All magic is a science *if it works*

>>96047940
OK one last try just for you alright.

Magic is subjectively perceptible, however subjectivity is mutable by its nature.
If something is subjective it can be interpreted. It's the opposite of objective, which is to be self-evident.
If something is open to interpretation and as vague a concept as magic is it can be defined as strictly and objectively as one wants it to be defined.
To these people magic now is no longer subjective, it is an objective thing that they have defined a certain way.
Things that exist outside of their paradigm of understanding of magic are no longer magic, they are something else.
This is the basis of the distinction between godlike miracles and heretical magic in the Christian sphere of influence.
Both are supernatural one is magic the other is not.

Given all this we can determine that magic is not universally subjective at all times.

These "systems" of magic are defined exclusively as magic to these people therefore they are magic. To argue against this is to argue against words having specific meanings.

This is the milieu that RPGs and fiction in general operate under.
To the fiction writer magic is whatever they decide to define it as. Just as it was in the past defined by real people with different definitions.
These definitions are valid understandings of the concept of magic, given that to our knowledge it doesn't exist, thus these objective definitions are magic in any meaningful sense of the word.

If someone perceives magic as being an objective concept it is objective. The nature of subjectivity is that it bows to objectivity.
Because you cannot say that a person's perception of a thing that doesn't exist is incorrect magic as an objective is simply just as valid as magic as a subjective.
Multiple different objective interpretations also don't automatically make them wrong or inherently subjective.

If I say "Grass is green" that's an objective statement. If I say "Grass is yellow" that's also an objective statement.

>>96048300
>If I say "Grass is green" that's an objective statement. If I say "Grass is yellow" that's also an objective statement.
Um.

>>96048300
If you're entire point is "magic is what people say it is" than this whole discussion is pointless.

>>96047930
So then you agree that magic isn't actually a thing that can exist just an arbitrary label that's used to describe shit people don't understand

>>96048300
>grass is green and grass is yellow are both objective statements

Do you mean to say "grass reflects specific wavelengths of light"? Because interpreting those wavelengths into colors is subjective.

>>96048337
That's what it has always been. Yes. Magic exits the same way cold, or darkness, or holes, exist. It's closer to an absence.

Conversely, the chemistry in the brain that leads up to "wow, it's like magic!", be it positive or negative, is very fucking real.

If things like mystery and wonder, and horror, etc, make magic, then ignorance is the greatest magic of all. Ignorance is art.

>>96048319
They're incomplete statements and expose a certain frame of reference. It doesn't change their objectivity.
Both are factually correct.
It may be more correct to say "Grass can be green/yellow," but it doesn't make them incorrect.

>>96048356
Ah yes excuse me for forgetting to add all of the necessary caveats to a simple example statement to illustrate a point that two things can be true at once with neither being incorrect.

>>96048323
I don't know why you're acting like it wasn't pointless from the start.
This entire thread is bait so that OP can jerk himself off about how enlightened he is on something that doesn't exist.

>>96047970
It's not about what it's seen as, it's a state of being.

>>96048140
Magic can't be turned into a science, because it's not natural, and science is explicitly natural.

>>96048874
Natural philosophy is the philosophy that anything that exists is just nature. Nature is nature no matter the nature. Even if it’s truly weird, exotic nature. It’s still nature.

>>96048879
>Magic can't be turned into a science
Does the magic work? Did the wizard cast a spell? It’s science. It may be wonky living science that doesn’t always listen, but it still happened. Causality.

>>96040735
Fairies were known to kidnap adults as well. They would kidnap them at night and do something to their paralyzed body and then return them. It was probably sleep paralysis.

>>96049163
>Natural philosophy is the philosophy that anything that exists is just nature.
No, natural philosophy is the philosophical approach to understanding the workings of the world absent supernatural influences. The reason this grew to be "all encompassing" is wholly inapplicable in the counterfactual where historic conceptions of the supernatural, or clear analogues thereof, are accurate, and so you are Not Even Wrong, because your constructions lack the requirements to be applicable in the first place.

>Nature is nature no matter the nature. Even if it’s truly weird, exotic nature. It’s still nature.
Your conception of "nature" is derived from real-life processes being intentionally ignored in many fantasy settings. Thus "truly weird, exotic nature" isn't, it's super-nature, a different thing outside the bounds of nature no matter what bullshit you spew insisting otherwise because the basic premises you express for that revolve around factors of IRL that are explicitly untrue in the counterfactual. Language is not beholden to the real, it is perfectly coherent and not at all ironic for a sound combination of words to mean things that can only be untrue.

>>96049183
>Does the magic work? Did the wizard cast a spell? It’s science.
No, science is not just "it happens", it's a rather narrow rational approach to determining natural law. Things that are not natural, empirical, or reductionist can easily fail axioms of the philosophy of science.

>It may be wonky living science that doesn’t always listen, but it still happened. Causality.
If it doesn't always listen, it's not science. Causality alone does not science make. Invariance in the rule and description by strict procedures is MANDATORY to be science.

>>96050508
>No, natural philosophy is the philosophical approach to understanding the workings of the world absent supernatural influences
Yes, and to physicists the supernatural is simply nature we don’t understand. This is very simple.

>>96050508
>No, science is not just "it happens", it's a rather narrow rational approach to determining natural law.
Narrow? No. It’s everything. There is going to be science to something, indeed everything, whether we notice it or it.

>>96050848
whether we notice it or *not.

>>96050843
>Yes, and to physicists the supernatural is simply nature we don’t understand
There are in fact many physicists TODAY who accept the existence of a separate category of "supernatural", because they're not all atheists or strict materialists.

>>96050848
>Narrow? No. It’s everything.
No it is not. Your attempt at constructing definitions is not how they work, the result is not how people in the field define it, and it renders the vast majority of the past discourse creating it incoherent. You are Not Even Wrong, continuing to insist upon premises that are incompatible with the requirements to be valid.

>>96049163
>I will continue to ignore what fantasy is and repeat myself because I have no other arguments, but must still respond
Kill yourself.

>>96049183
>if I ignore what fantasy is, that makes me right!
You can kill yourself too.

>>96050926
>No it is not.
Yes it is so.

>>96043973
It's sophistry.
The worst part about it is that is sucks everyone else into its corona of stupid bullshit; it's not just him being an asshole, it prompts me to be the same kind of asshole whenever he tries to yap about it.
These threads are completely fucking insufferable.

>>96033540
>akashic record

ok I will bite, what schizo bullcrap is that?

>>96052368
The Akashic record is an imagined database containing all information in the universe, past, present and future. They equated it with the Internet.

>>96052368
>>96052642
And silicon boards dont have sigils, they have connectors between components. A sigil is a magic symbol, the mere act of writing it can cause it to do things. The crazy lines on a silicon board cant do anything without the capacitors, chips, and other things attached to those lines. And all they do is funnel electricity around the board.

Its people being sloppy with their language to trick others into thinking computers are magical or resemble in any fashion the various magical practices and paraphernalia.

>>96052689
>he doesn't know that sigils are also using their versions of capacitors and chips, attached to those lines in a higher dimension, and funnel arcane energy through them
You'll never make it as a wizard, your thinking is too limited.

>>96053504
Youre an idiot who doesnt understand actual sigils, how they are purported to work, nor the definition of sigil. A computer circuit board is not a sigil or contains sigils. A sigil is a symbol that by itself can change or affect the world in a noncausal nonphysical manner (magically). Writing the Yellow Sign empowers and strengthens Hastur and his realm of Carcosa simply because it is the Yellow Sign. The same was and is thought to work for norse and celtic runes and many other symbols from across the world.

In this way we can see that circuit boards are not and cannot be sigils. They rely on physical causal relationships between metal, electricity, and various components to create physical effects. These are not sigils by any manner of looking a them, beyond the most broad and wrong idea of complex lines doing stuff.

>>96053642
>he doesn't know that sigils are also using their versions of capacitors and chips, attached to those lines in a higher dimension, and funnel arcane energy through them, even after it's been told to him
You'll never make it as a wizard, your thinking is too limited.

>>96053794
You are a literal retard. A sigil has nothing but the symbol. You can write in chalk, blood, feces, body limbs, or any other material and it will function and do things. A circuit board doesnt function without capacitors, chips, and other components, and has to be built on silicon with specific metals. It does nothing by itself and has no power.

IT IS NOT A SIGIL

Your weird little personal headcannon about how these things work is not the way they are conceived to work. Altering the sigil with other things, ie capacitors, necessarily breaks the sigil. You cannot add things to a sigil or else it stops being the sigil.

>>96053855
>he doesn't know that sigils are also using their versions of capacitors and chips, attached to those lines in a higher dimension, and funnel arcane energy through them, even after it's been told to him TWICE
You'll never make it as a wizard, your thinking is too limited and glaringly autistic.

>>96053868
That isnt how they work or function in any case ever, fictional or real life. You know nothing and are a retard.

>>96053876
>he doesn't know that sigils are also using their versions of capacitors and chips, attached to those lines in a higher dimension, and funnel arcane energy through them, even after it's been told to him THREE TIMES and still can't grasp it
You'll never make it as a wizard, your thinking is too limited, glaringly autistic, and clearly retarded.

>>96053889
Just stop responding to him. He’s getting btfo’d in the other thread.

>>96053937
But I'm having too much fun, he's so easy to trigger over imaginary things.

>>96053137

Oh, my sweat's vaporizing as the temperature's rising and I can't feel my legs below my knees anymore.