The universe didn't force you not to believe in magic. You could have spent your whole life believing magnets are magical stones, that the electromagnetic force is magical energy, and that computer engineers are wizards who conjure spirits from magic. And you could have been 100% factually and scientifically correct.
But you chose to believe that magic is by definition not real, because you didn't want to live in a world of whimsy and wonder. You defined magic as supernatural, in opposition to the natural world. While every scientist knows that nature is just a word for everything that exists. You chose to define magic in a way that it wouldn't exist, denying it through tautology and not through science.
Why did you choose that?
Because I use logic and rationality to observe and define the world around me as opposed to unfounded delusional thought. I didn’t “choose” to define magic as unreal, it simply is.
It’s not that I “don’t want to live in a world of whimsy and wonder”, I just don’t believe in the supernatural, and am not going to waste my time convincing myself of something that doesn’t exist. Same reason I don’t believe in a god.
Suppose we lived in the world of Dungeons and Dragons. Suppose our neighbour is an elf, my girlfriend is a halfling, there's a dragon living in yonder mountain, and in the castle tower there is a wizard who ponders a magical orb and creates magic potions. Clear, undeniable magic, as you and I currently define it. Would your arguments not be equally applicable in such a world?
If dragons, wizards, and elves were part of the natural world, then they would not be supernatural. And thus, because you choose to define magic as supernatural, they would not be magic. So even in such a world, you would continue to say magic isn't real.
If you and I cannot even imagine a world that has magic, then your claim is unfalsifiable. It cannot be empirically tested; any possible result will be used as further evidence of your tautological theory. Therefore, your theory is scientifically meaningless. It may be true, but it doesn't scientifically matter, because it doesn't tell us anything new about the world. It's just a pointless linguistic game.
But we don’t live in a world of dragons, elves, etc. There are no wizards or potions or magic. There are no spells or incantations any more than there are midichlorians or the force. If those were real, then yes, you could say magic is real. But there are no supernatural forces, only natural phenomena which can be explained by science.
it isn’t necessarily meaningless, as the nonexistence of magic or the supernatural further reinforces the fact that everything can be explained by the very real laws of physics, whether or not we have the current ability to do so.
Our ancestors would’ve thought electricity is magic, but it’s not. They would’ve thought machines are magic, but they’re not.
Your statement about this being a pointless linguistic game is true. You are trying to argue that things which are not magic can be called magic, but you are wrong. By its very definition, magic is a supernatural force. You can’t call something supernatural when it isn’t, that’s just blatantly false.
You’re free to use the word however you please, but don’t act surprised when people call you out for being objectively wrong.
You just like didn't pay attention at all, did you? Did you get bored and think about football when I was talking about the scientific principle of falsifiability?
Sure. I can go with this. I actually once met a woman who jokingly referred to herself as a half elf.
She had a rare genetic condition that caused the uh... not the outer lobe of her ear, but the little inner thingy that you can push on to close your ear canal...
... that thingy kept developing something sort of like a non malignant cyst... not quite that, but basically, it made that part of her ear keep growing.
Sort of the inverse of an elf ear. Not the outer lobe growing to a point, but the opposite part.
How can that be explained? Magic? Did she slip through from the DND realm?
Nope. Long medical history, lots of study.
But... would you call that clear, undeniable magic?
If you've got a tummy ache, and I know enough about the ingredients and creation process of pepto bismol to create a weird, pink, strange tasting concoction that you slurp and then wow poof 5 minutes later, no tummy ache...
...is that magic?
I am not being facetious. I have literally no idea what your definition of magic is as you refuse to define it, only attack others by asserting that they tautalogically believe magic is not real.
Can you actually define magic?
Sure. Observable phenomena caused by things that aren't real. For example, money isn't real, and therefore the economy is magic. Gender isn't real, so gender roles are magic. Alchemy isn't real, so turning lead into gold is magic. Astrology isn't real, so horoscopes are magic. The state isn't real, so laws are magic. Hyperspace isn't real, so the Millenium Falcon is magic. A medieval man suddenly transported into the modern day would have no concept of electrical current being real, so from his point of view computers are magic, but from our point of view they aren't. Placebos aren't real, so the placebo effect is magic. This definition accounts for every single example of magic by virtue of the fact that it uses the concept of reality, which means different things to different people. Thus, magic is able to mean different things to different people. The more reality someone believes in, the less magic they see in the world. But an antirealist or a solipsist would see everything as magic, which indeed I do.
This is not how anyone actually uses the word, though.
That's because this person is arguing semantics, poorly, in bad faith.
Magic isn't real. No one is choosing to live in a world without whimsy, there are plenty of ways to be mystified by natural phenomena. Look up coronea borealis - suddenly you'll be captivated by the night sky again (at least a part of it, I'm still having trouble determining which of these stars is actually Arcturus). For an even simpler example, fireflies. If you aren't captivated by fireflies because they don't actually have fire in them, you're probably just an idiot (or allergic to them, though I've never met anyone allergic to fireflies). Magic is simply a way for the primitive mind (and by association primitive society) to explain away things that seemingly had no tangible cause.
Magic isn't real because the collective knowledge of humanity has matured past the need for it.
See, its particularly wild because they started off by asserting that atheists assert that magic is definitionally not real.
Then they described themselves as an anti realist solipsist who does not believe in reality.
I'm not a solipsist. Antirealism and solipsism are as different as socialism and communism. I'm an antirealist. And yes, I don't believe in reality. Thus, to me, everything is magic.
You write like someone who's never been hungry.
Yeah, it's really weird, I just don't experience hunger. If I don't take my eating disorder meds, I lose dangerous amounts of weight while feeling totally full and sated. I can work a 12 hour shift on a few crackers and water and it's fine, except for the dread I feel when I look at the scale and realise how much work it'll be to regain that weight. And it's not like I can easily afford enough food to regain the weight, I'm poor.
See, I don't agree with most of what you've said in this thread. That being said, having seen your responses, I also don't think you're a bad person.
I would recommend that you seek some kind of help because no amount of powerful thinking will allow you to escape the reality that is needing to eat food and drink water. These things do have a measurable effect on the mind, whether you want them to or not. If your interpretation of reality is preventing you from doing this, then it is a problem (or this may be the root cause of your interpretation, I don't know enough about you to say).
That being said, I'm not going to police what you think. If your interpretation let's you live life with a more positive outlook, go for it. Sincerely, though, start eating and drinking water regularly. I understand times are rough, but you can't neglect this - it will kill you. Hopefully that isn't something you want.
I hope you have a nice day.
Oh yeah no my lack of appetite is a huge problem, that's why I sought a doctor and got prescribed eating disorder pills. I was just stunned by your insight. You know almost nothing about me, and you still knew I have an eating disorder without being told. We weren't talking about anything to do with food but you nailed it.
Well, thank you for the compliment, but I merely guessed. The reason I guessed hunger was because, having intimately known it myself, it's something that will force you to interact with 'reality'. I understand that those with eating disorders have managed to harness that 'mind over matter' perspective, which is probably what's led to your own unique perspective.
Allow me to apologize for the way I've conducted myself. I was expecting you to become angry, as I'm used to seeing with online engagements where one side is shut down the way that you've been in these comments. It was wrong of me to talk about you in any way that's not positive, as your composure proves your intelligence.
I may not agree with you, but I certainly find you interesting. You have earned my respect. Please, though, try to make sure you eat more than crackers throughout the day. If not for your sake, then for the sake of more interesting conversations in the future.
Yes, I go to great effort to eat as much as possible every day. A few weeks ago I attended a workshop on emotional eating. Everyone else was there to learn how to stop emotionally eating, but I went there to learn how to emotionally eat, and I succeeded. Turns out the key is to make yourself believe that nothing will make you happy except food. You need to take on a quiet sort of dread and maintain it through the meal. I learned the skill, but I don't use it very often because it's a lot of work to endure such misery. It's my emergency tactic in case I'm not eating enough and I can't get any food down the normal ways.
And I don't do 12 hour shifts anymore. Fuck that.
That's an interesting concept, it almost seems unhealthy - obviously unless you're struggling to eat enough yourself. Is that the advice you gained, that you should dread not having food while you're eating it? Forgive me if I'm overstepping, but it makes more sense to me that you should dread not having food outside of the actual meal - that way when you're eating you can enjoy your food and alleviate the dread. Unless I'm misunderstanding what you've written?
Are there any foods you particularly enjoy? Maybe another trick you can try is trying something that you've never eaten before, that way you can add the extra layer of exploration onto your meal.
Do you feel hunger pangs at all? I'm curious what your normal relationship with food is, is this something you learned to push through or is it something else?
Yeah, 12 hour shifts are impossible. I was working 80 hour weeks at one point and I will never go back if I have the ability to avoid it. How often were you taking those shifts?
Enjoying food every day just isn't an option. Yeah, I can enjoy a 5 star meal at a great restaurant, or chocolate, but day to day food isn't enjoyable, and it can't be. Even if I were rich and could eat at a fancy restaurant every day, the novelty would wear off and it would be back to normal. Your enjoyment of food mostly comes from your sense of hunger. I don't have one. I usually get about three bites out of a given meal that taste good. The rest is work.
So you’re basically saying that anything you don’t understand is magic… That’s the same irrational thinking as people who explain things by simply saying “god did it”.
Money is very much real, either as gold/silver/etc, fiat, or ones and zeroes on a bank account or crypto wallet. Gender is not “real”, but it is a very real social construct. The state is a very real entity and its laws are very real rules set in place and enforced.
You’re correct in saying that alchemy, transmutation of lead to gold, astrology and horoscopes are not real. Yes, they are magic. The one thing they all have in common is that they do not exist in any form other than fiction, and neither does magic.
No, I didn't say anything I don't understand is magic. You're just making bullshit up. I have a deep understanding of all of the magics I described above except for alchemy, which I'm barely a novice in. And they're still magic, even though I understand them well.
Okay. It’s pretty obvious you’re just arguing in bad faith and using mindless semantics to debate the non existence of a fake thing. I’m done engaging with nonsense.
Enjoy your wishful thinking.
Ok, so your definition of magic is anything with complexity and alterability that is not well understood by the perceiver or subject.
So basically, ignorance.
I mean I guess I agree with you that the ignorant will label things that function in ways they do not understand, or take issue with, as magic.
So then! Your original posted meme does not work that well then.
Not sure why you posted a meme where atheists are dumb for defining magic as not real, thus precluding it from being real, when you yourself are an actual antirealist solipsist who does not believe in reality.
Pretty much a perfect example of the classic right wing authoritarian strategy of painting your opponents as bad because they believe in bad thing, when they themselves actually believe in the bad thing.
The 'No U' rhetoric.
No, I understand all the magics I listed except for alchemy very well. You're full of shit.