XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: Taemon@zonnet.nl   
      
   On 23-5-2014 19:08, Paul S. Person wrote:   
   > On Thu, 22 May 2014 17:44:04 +0200, Taemon  wrote:   
   >> That doesn't work either. I can tell if something is magic. It's easy;   
   >> magic doesn't exist.   
   > When you say "magic doesn't exist", is this intended to be:   
   >   
   > a fact, like "masses attract one another"; or   
   >   
   > a logical statement, like "in Euclidean geometry, the sum of the   
   > angles of any triangle is 180 degrees"; or   
   >   
   > a falsifiable statement, like "all crows are black"; or   
   >   
   > a non-falsifiable statement, like "God does not exist"?   
      
   The fourth one.   
      
   >   
   > I agree with you in the falsifiable sense, that is, I prefer to regard   
   > unknown phenomena as scientifically explicable, because experience has   
   > shown that they generally are, at least in the long run, whether I can   
   > understand the explanation or not; however, if someone /should/ prove   
   > that some phenomenon is caused by magic, well, that's how science   
   > advances: by falsifying its falsifiable statements, leaving us with   
   > statements that may be false, but which have not yet been falsified.   
      
   Well... magic is a bit like God in that regard, in that it might be   
   impossible to prove it even if it does exist; there is always a better   
   explanation. Clarke's law works the other way around, too. I wouldn't   
   believe something to be magic /because/ I would first believe it to be   
   some fact of engineering that I don't understand. Likewise if some   
   shining entity landed in front of me and turned water into wine, I'd   
   first think of a practical joke, then a hallucination, then an alien,   
   then I don't know - but I would not believe that that is the Biblical god.   
      
      
   >>> If an engineer uses some hitherto-unknown principle of physics to build   
   >>> an anti-gravity generator that looks like a magic wand and uses it to   
   >>> levitate objects, then how could someone who is unable to understand   
   >>> the physics prove that it's not magic?   
   >> They couldn't, obviously. But not being able to prove something isn't X   
   >> was never an argument.   
   > Are you doing anything here except merely asserting that "magic   
   > doesn't exist"?   
      
   Yes, I said that not being able to prove that something isn't magic   
   doesn't mean it is magic. See again the God example. I can't prove God   
   doesn't exist, that doesn't make me any less of an atheist.   
      
   > Note: as with, presumably, Clarke and yourself and everyone else, I am   
   > taking "magic" here to refer to something like what is depicted in the   
   > Harry Potter books.   
      
   Yes, me too.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)