If a phenomenon exists, it is natural. Supernatural simply cannot exist or in any way manifest itself. If someone does the impossible, it was never impossible.
Although that level of inclusivity is pretty hard to find.
But as far as magic systems go and so on, I prefer systematisation. The idea that magic can somehow be inconsistent with its own setting is a ludicrous idea to me.
Edited by TerminusEst on Sep 12th 2018 at 3:58:50 AM
Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele
Yeah. That's why I prefer paranormal, extranormal, anomalous, or other words that are less contradictory.
"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn
To be fair though, absolute rules are somewhat iffy to me. I like wuxia (and xianxia), as they have certain pretty well-established ways of working and you can bend things without breaking them pretty well.
Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele
Yeah, the “skeptic” who refuses to believe in magic even as someone is using magic to attack him is always irritating. It’s a bad interpretation of what skepticism is.
Just to piggyback off what Terminus said above, another thing to consider is that in Science vs. Magic the science side would do magic as well. As a natural phenomenon in that world it would be something you could, you know, do science on. I can’t imagine any scientist who would pass up the chance to apply to scientific method to a magic system.
They should have sent a poet.
Oh, bother.
Yeah, I always found the Flat-Earth Atheist to be somewhat annoying.
Disgusted, but not surprised
Shin Megami Tensei IV
A Miso-theist that want kill paranormal being counts as one, By the way?.
He knows that they exist. He just want erase them from existence.
Watch me destroying my country
Does anyone use that definition for the supernatural who believes in it?
Michael Critchon once did a lengthy speech about how he hated people that deny science and talked about how climate change believers were just sad.
....
Yeah.
There was literally 1 episode in the whole of the X-Files where the villain was just a serial killer.
I always felt like they could have used more of those.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 12th 2018 at 5:04:47 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Shin Megami Tensei IV
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
A climate change denialism isn't sceptic by the "everything involving rationality" definition of the sceptic movement. He's just dumb.
The Sceptic movement had the same issue that I have with many, Many ideologies of Center Left.
Is literally goodism. Take a basic value and acts like if is the greatest thing ever. You don't believe in the dumbest shit ever? Then logically you should be like us.
Edited by KazuyaProta on Sep 12th 2018 at 6:54:06 AM
Watch me destroying my country
I admit I may be a bit less fond of the skeptics alliance than I can be given I'm a Roger Penrose quantum physics fan.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 12th 2018 at 5:09:46 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
I'm not sure what you mean. Mind elaborating?
"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn
On the divide between magic and science, I'm making it a plot point in a story of mine where everything has "life forces", including oxygen and the most inanimate of objects. In the story, controlling these life forces is a plot point and its like using the Force. It's set 20 Minutes into the Future and those told of this just refer to it as magic. For emphasis, magic is a term for a certain of accessing these life forces.
When accumulating life forces from the air for attacks, they're Ki Attacks. As for science, it's treated as a term many came up with that can be done by manipulating life forces.
I hope you’re not talking about the whole “quantum consciousness” thing, because that stuff is utter nonsense.
Edited by archonspeaks on Sep 12th 2018 at 5:33:36 AM
They should have sent a poet.
If you go to the Rationality Wiki there's kind of a funny bunch of articles on it. Generally, Quantum Physics is the new Snake Oil for people who want to exploit "science mysticism" or "woo." Deepak Chopra being one of the guys who uses it to make a lot of money peddling fraudulent science claims under its banner.
However, Roger Penrose is a scientist who occasionally gets lumped into there because of his associations (particularly Stuart Hammeroff—who is eccentric and makes questionable conclusions but is a legitimate scientist) and his belief in linking quantum physics with consciousness.
The thing being that Penrose actually is an expert in his field (which is quantum physics), evidence has come out decades after the fact that validate a large number of his assertions (as well as discrediting the original challenges to his work), plus the quackery is from misreading his work.
The wiki basically saying, "Please stop making fun of this guy because while a lot of idiots like him, he is not an idiot and you probably don't understand what he's saying." There's also a certain level of amusement in that he's hated by the skeptic community while being considered the skeptic of theoretical physics. Particularly regarding string theory.
If you're a fanboy of theoretical physics, like myself, skepticism gets thrown around a lot when everyone wants to be the skeptic as well as the forward thinking paradigm changer.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 12th 2018 at 5:35:48 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Well, Roger Penrose talk about consciousness is 100% the truth of how it works, IMHO. What everyone else says it is, is bullshit.
Sort of like the double slit experiment. It's taking legitimate scientific research and saying it works like magic.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Sep 12th 2018 at 6:07:25 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
, Quantum Consciousness is complete bunk, and Penrose is rightfully laughed at for his attachment to it. The idea that human consciousness somehow can’t be explained by science is nonsense.
Moreover, simply being an expert in a field doesn’t make you always right, nor does it make you immune to criticism.
I’ll also point out that skepticism and forward thinking aren’t mutually exclusive.
Edited by archonspeaks on Sep 12th 2018 at 6:38:52 AM
They should have sent a poet.
I haven't commented on the rest of your post because I don't know anything about Quantum Mechanics and thus don't really have any reason to form a position about it, but I find this to be frankly baffling.
Unless you misstated I don't know why you would think that skepticism and being forward thinking are somehow contradictory. Skepticism is full compatible with accepting or seeking change, in-fact I would go as far as to say that it's orthogonal. You can be a skeptic and distrustful of change or you can be a skeptic who is very fond of change, both are fully compatible with skepticism.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Sep 12th 2018 at 9:40:22 AM
"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn
Quantum Consciousness is a variant of mind-body dualism that posits that human consciousness is a quantum phenomenon that exists separate from the body. It also posits that this mind cannot be explained by science. It’s been widely derided, scientists from dozens of fields have taken turns shooting it full of holes over the years.
It's a bird.
Sufficiently Analyzed Magic is probably one of my favorite tropes. There's just something very satisfying about characters sciencing the crap out of allegedly unscienceable things.
Still a great "screw depression" song even after seven years.
Shin Megami Tensei IV
I did make that effectively there scientists investigating everything. From both heroic and villainous sides.
There a very big rule for all of them.
Be Careful. Really careful.
Like. Ok, going too deep will summon demons and going even deeper will contact the Ultimate Evil of the setting.
But...what about the "safe" things?
Basically. They are reasonable scientifics that scream "You fool!! You have doomed all of us!!!" to their overtly eager colleagues.
The main character is a historian tho. While he had a casual interesed in the rules of magic (and help another person with his research), he's far more interesed in the history of the setting and negociations. Especially when war crimes are involved.
The reveal that history was actually hidden from him made him shocked but he quickly moved on for the hype of being among the first of documentating the truth.
Albeit he was worried for the Conspiracy Theorist. They certainly would grew up after such a event.
Edited by KazuyaProta on Sep 12th 2018 at 9:19:28 AM
Watch me destroying my country
Huh, so it's just applying the old flesh-soul dichotomy with a fresh pseudoscientific label?
How unfortunate.
I love this too, after-all it's a very logical trope. We've scientifically investigated every phenomenon we can and we discover new things every day, it's basic realism that if the scientific community knew about a confirmed form of magic they would science the hell out of it.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Sep 12th 2018 at 10:20:39 AM
"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn
Shin Megami Tensei IV
I remember watching a spanish fan-made video about how Naruto actually show a progression of Orochimaru experiments around several characters.
Full of Magi Babble but also really interesting due to see such a massive Trial and Error method around villains of the series which got their powers thanks to Orochimaru.
That's why I actually showed stuff as the mechanical progression of the Mecha-Mooks of The Federation. Or my favorite ones...
The Demo-seeds. Basically a way for Regular Humans to reach the powers of Gifted magic users or The Chossen One.
There also Power Armor, which is weaker, but more reliable. The Four-Star Badass Badass Normal use it a lot.
The MC as I said before, is pretty much a supported of "scientific" development. Even if his fields are Philosophy and history (especially war-crimes).
He ends up becoming one of the pioneers in the demo-seed research. Thanks to a actually minimal but easily visible help.
Being a willing human test subject.
Edited by KazuyaProta on Sep 12th 2018 at 9:28:39 AM
Watch me destroying my country
How unfortunate.
Basically. It’s well-known pseudoscience, but is depressingly popular.
Its supporters usually jump straight to the appeal to authority, pulling the “since X physicist believes it it must be true” card.
They should have sent a poet.
It's a bird.
Quantum Mechanics Can Do Anything kind of gets used like the new "some kind of energy" in many ways. Some people hear physicists use the word "observer" and immediately assume that the universe runs on Clap Your Hands If You Believe.
Still a great "screw depression" song even after seven years.
No I'm not.
I'm saying that having the skeptic characters always behave in a manner that is uncritical and lacking skepticism has poor implications, if a story has skeptics who are having trouble accepting what they're seeing with other skeptics more readily accepting it then I wouldn't have a problem.
But when there is a broad trend of skeptic standing in for "person who arbitrarily rejects obvious phenomenon out of pride or dogmatism" then it has negative implications on real life where skeptic opposition to supernatural claims is significantly more justified. It's not a problematic trope in my mind individually because obviously such people exist but the problem is when it's common collectively in that it suggests common bias amongst some authors.
It's always something weird but Mulder may say aliens when it's actually yeti, so to speak.
Later, the series retcons the entire alien mythology so that Mulder ends up humiliating himself by appearing on shitty Far Right talk shows.
Yeah she's a pretty good aversion, still her case is hurt by the fact that we only see the cases where it actually is something paranormal or anomalous. If we see the 90%+ cases where nothing happens her skepticism would look more reasonable.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Sep 12th 2018 at 6:59:10 AM
"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn