I definitely think electromagnetism is magical from our perspective.
Everything else is pretty crude and we have to start looking inward for anything resembling magic.
this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2025
111 points (80.7% liked)
Showerthoughts
37540 readers
1125 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
I argue that magic doesn't exist by definition. If it actually, provably, exists we define it as not magical. Why isn't magnetism considered magic? Because it exists and can be studied.
I saw something once along the lines of "if there was a novel where they harnessed a magical force that was thought to come from the sky, and it was used for everything, like powering devices that keep food fresh, and long distance communication, and said the majority of people had no idea of how it worked we'd call it lazy writing, but that's just a description of electricity" paraphrased a bit, but ye :3
Plus we can imbue crystals with thought and knowledge by inscribing them with complex runes and commanding them in a special language.
Main difference is that, in fiction, the "imbuing" doesn't require a billion-dollar fab.
I mean, there are a few intrepid techno-wizards trying to do it themselves, but it's a far cry from what Big Magic can manage.
Yes, but that bullion dollar industry only grew over time. The first crystals were made in small labs pushing the edge of magic. If you let a magical world develop industrialization long enough, surely they will try to optimize their magic as far as possible as well
That's how you tear down the fabric of space and demons ruins the world though.
looks at climate change
Oh...
We used lightning to trick rocks into thinking.
I saw one comment and was sure it'd be the Arthur C. Clarke quote. I like your one, I hadn't seen it before.
Give the book Ra by Qntm a read
The synopsis is strikingly similar... It's not lazy writing, I really enjoyed that book.
Software is the closest thing we have to magic spells. You need to know the correct "activation words" and make sure they follow the correct order. If that aligns, your magic spell works; suddenly there's something on the screen that just wasn't there before. Congratulations, you completed your first summoning.
And the magic words are powered by magic stones that we write certain sigils in it to make it think.
Don't forget to hit the sigils with lightning
I cast Alexa Play Back To The Jungle By Michael Guy Bowman
Me when I draw ritual sigils in silicon to summon demons that mimic the speech of humans to decieve us (I asked ChatGPT to explain special relativity)
lol no. Software is just a written form of logic.
Writing incomprehensible hexes onto stone wafers then harnessing lightning to make them think is where it is at.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Techno-mages enter the chat
As Arthur C. Clarke said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Came here expecting someone to have posted this quote, was not disappointed.
I think the MCU of all places summed this up perfectly and I think it was in Thor: The Dark World where Jane has fuck knows what and they operate on her in Asgard and she's giving medical terms and they're like "WTF just hook her up to the whoziwhatzhit and she'll be fine."
Magic, by definition, is supernatural. If you know how it works it's not supernatural ... thus not magic.
Show a sentinelese person a smartphone, they're gonna say it's magic.
load more comments
(7 replies)
load more comments
(12 replies)
What if magic was real, but required speaking actual magic words and we just haven't figured out the right words?
or if it required the appropriately complex sexy dance with pronounced hip thrusts?
"I'm gonna cast a spell of insanity!"
does the Time Warp
"Oh no! That pelvic thrust is really driving me insaaaaaaaane!"
Psychopaths have figured out how to manipulate, or cast a charm spell on people. That’s pretty magical to me. Those are still words, so I’m going to count them as magic words.
Not really a Hollywood style incantation, but results speak for themselves.
What if humans are actually remotely controlled by small alien ants?
Fire, electricty, gravity and magnetism is magic, and you cant convince me otherwise.
ILLUSIONS
Magic was never real. It was technology all along.
People were incredibly stupid when the churches didn't allow education for the masses.
A Yo-Yo would have made you a magician. It's not a magical feeling to be worshipped by idiots for knowing how a Yo-Yo works. It's just sad.
I kindof agree but I'd phrase it the other way round: people always tended to call things they don't understand Magic.
The inverse of Clark's saying: sufficiently explained magic is indistinguishable from science (credit: Girl Genius webcomic)
I think it's magic how the sum time sunk into a thing can be greater than the time it took to make the thing.
It's magic when 20 hours goes into a painting and it generates (5 minutes * 300) worth of emotions.
It took Tolkein more energy / emotion to make LotR than I'm willing to give appreciating it. But everyone combined has certainly outweighed what Tolkein put in. It's magic to me to think of "free" "emotion hours".
Everything else is so... crass. Transactional. A battery that holds X energy means the sum energy people can extract would be X at best. I have 7 hotdogs and so at most 7 people can each have one.
But art? Games? Puzzles? It's magic how there's basically infinite energy inside.
I think it’s magic how the sum time sunk into a thing can be greater than the time it took to make the thing.
It’s magic when 20 hours goes into a painting and it generates (5 minutes * 300) worth of emotions.
This is why I like music. I'm not spending 100 hours to make something someone will look at for 10 seconds.
I played this guitar part for 5 mins? You listen to it for 5 mins. (creation time may be multiplied by fuckups and overdubs/additional tracks)
Technology deals with mostly physical things, magic is mostly non physical. This isn't some official definition just a better one. Real magic doesn't deal with matter or energy in the ways most people are familiar with it.
view more: next ›