I hate it every time that the human character, even if he/she has a interest in science, would think that magic in Equestia is totally differently from science itself.

That is complete bullshit.

Thousand of years ago, we think that natural occurrences were made by gods until we figure they weren't. I found it kinda lazy to many authors when they don't make their humans characters try to figure how 'magic' works, but instead they made them just outright accept it.

The way "magic" is defined in the MLP universe does not fit with the traditional definition of "magic" on earth.

They are not the same thing.

"Magic" isn't actually the action of doing something that is impossible through science. Instead, Magic is the act of doing such things in a way that would take a different sort of effort, like kinetic energy, and using mana instead. How fast the action occurs also can be changed my the amount of mana used to do the action.

"Sorcery" however, IS the act of doing something that is not possible through human means, or even through natural law.

You are right in a way, but also wrong, but the misconception is very common so it's understandable. I hope my explanation was informative enough for you

Until next time,
Chr1sby

1442194 You have a point there, a science oriented Human wouldn't just scratch his/her head and say "Huh, I guess magic exists after all." and not try to learn how it works or if Science could be expanded upon to accommodate the complex and esoteric principles and mechanics of magic.

1442210 Maybe not, maybe so, based on the person option on the subject, but I'm tired of seeing that 'magic' is the only answer to every question in the world of MLP.

1442194
My theory is the person would try to learn as much about it as possible, Then scratch his head and cuss about how their basis breaks a lot of the laws of physics for Humans.

That or just downright deny its existence and claim hacks.

1442194>>1442207>>1442210>>1442242>>1442247>>1442265
...Y'all know anything about quantum physics? That shit is the REAL magic.
——But we actually EXPLAIN it rationally instead of saying "lol quantum physics I don't have to explain shit."
TAKE THAT, "MAGIC"!

Within Equestria magic seems to be integral part of nature. I think most stories recognize it as such. At least I have never seen any story that specifically recognizes it as supernatural. Although I suppose the stories that refer to Celestia as a god could arguably count.

1442194 Oh I have my own head fanon of what "magic" really is, that I was gonna implement in a story, but right now that story has to wait cause I need to update my current fic.

It involved Brits, and the 23rd century in an AU human timeline and inter-dimensional travel.

I've finished the basic timeline for the fic if you want to read it.

December 11th, 1775: British forces quell the American Revolution; the scattered remnants of Congress are captured and imprisoned, or executed.

September 22nd, 1916: WWI draws to a close with the Triple Entente victorious. The German Empire destroyed, its land becoming part of France and Britain, and a few independent nations. Germany is left with severely shortened borders. Austria-Hungary is completely taken over by the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire divided between France and Britain, also completely taken over.

November 19th, 1944: WWII ends with Germany and Italy being completely taken over by the British Empire. The Soviet Union controls all nations east of the former German border.

January 3rd, 1946: France joins the British Empire due to hostility from the Soviet Union and a degrading economy.

June 7th, 1968: BSA (British Space Agency) Lands the first men on the moon with the 7th Nelson mission.

June 20th, 1976: The national anthem of the British Empire changes from "God Save the Queen" to "Rule Britannia" as more nations are purchased or wilfully join the Empire.

October 17th, 1983: WWIII begins when the Soviet Union invades the Japanese mainland.

March 10th, 1994: WWIII ends with the surrender and collapse of the Soviet Union; nuclear weapons were never used by either party. The former USSR is assimilated into the British Empire; Japan, China, and other Asian nations submit to British rule when they cannot afford to rebuild their war torn nations.

January 1st, 2015: The last independent nation, Switzerland, joins the British Empire and humanity becomes united under a single banner, this day features the largest celebrations within the Empire. The flag is modified with the addition of a photo of Earth in the centre to represent the planet's unification.

May 29th, 2021: Lunar colony established.

April 14th, 2022: First manned mission to Mars.

July 18th, 2043: Artificial gravity developed for space craft; long term micro gravity complications abolished.

February 13th, 2121: First successful warp engine design developed; extra-solar missions planned by the Royal Navy shortly after.

June 6th, 2203: First contact with non-human sapient life starts a war. Upon hailing the vessel in hopes of peaceful coexistence the destroyer H.M.S. Atlantic RNR-2802 was fired upon and destroyed with no survivors.

May 27th, 2227: After the Royal Navy destroyed the massive Shal'lec fleet in the battle of New England, one of the Empire's key industrial colonies, the Shal'lec were never seen from again. The Admiralty has ships on constant patrol for the suspected rearming and second invasion fleet.

April 12th, 2228: Royal Navy has resumed its mission of peaceful exploration, still on alert for any Shal'lec vessels or colony worlds.

May 20th, 2232: Inter-dimensional rift generators are developed and explorations of different versions of Earth are possible. While alternate realities with humans are studied, the Empire has seen it in their best interest to leave them to their own accords. Dimensions featuring alien life forms on the other hand could be intergraded into the Empire if they choose and if they are advanced enough for a First Contact mission. Each dimension is carefully studied with probes before a human is sent, disguised as the native sapient life form via holographic emitters, lest they enter a dimension whose laws of physics are so different from our own they are atomised upon entering it.

It's only a rough draft that I intend to polish once I get back to working on this fic, but you get the gist of what happens; Britain takes over ze world!

1442194
If it exists, in can be explained through science.

1442287 Don't forget theoretical physics as well. Some of those theories border on the line between scientific convention, and outright mysticism in their foundations.

1442194 I think the most accurate description of Equestria is a phrase spoken by Thor when he was talking about Asgard in the Thor movie:

"Your ancestors called it magic and you call it science. Where I come from, they are one and the same thing."

Granted, even that's not a completely accurate description, but the point is that what began as magic eventually turned to science. It didn't go anywhere, it just... changed.

Magic is spellcasting, magic is supernatural, magic is overpowered as hell, and magic is unrealistic.
Magic comes from the body, either molded from someone's surroundings (like the Force) or the electrical energy conducted from within. (like Ki energy from anime/manga)

Basically i'm just talking a bunch of bs, but seriously, magic from MLP, Lord of the rings, Warcraft, and all that other stuff is completely unreal.
Magic in real-life is just something that happens without explanation, or an illusion that tricks the eye into believing something that is altogether physically impossible.

Magic comes from science:

It was Arthur C. Clarke that stated: "Any technology, sufficiently advanced will appear to us as magic."

All magic in the MLP world is science which is beyond our understanding. It would be something which we would not even begin to understand how to study, much less understand HOW it works.

"My magic comes from within."
-Twilight Sparkle-

This line suggests that Conservation of Energy is still in effect. The use of magic has been shown to tire everyone (except Discord... The physics defying bastard...) and even cause sweat glands to start operating, insinuating that there is some process in its use which heats the user. (Note: Sweat is not a mechanism based off of movement, in case you didn't know, it is a cooling mechanism which often operates whilst movement is occurring, due to friction.) Both of these are clear signs that there is a process going on which CAN BE EXPLAINED.
1442581 If it exists, it can be explained. Just because we don't know of it or haven't seen it at the moment doesn't mean we can't explain it. Plus, it's biological, and most things biological can be simulated, thus allowing experimentation, and thus, allowing explanation.
OP, thank you for putting something up where I can vent my opinions on science without actually making a thread myself.

1442194
We've seen on no less than three separate occasions in the series that magic in FiM canon falls under the "Sufficiently Analyzed Magic" trope. Magic in Equestria is basically studied as if it were another ordinary branch of science - Thaumaturgical Mechanics, if you will...

1442668

(except Discord... The physics defying bastard...)

Let us not forget Pinkie...

And, to clarify what I meant, it is that we have yet to even understand just what we should be asking when it comes to studying. At some point, we will reach a level of understanding that will allow us to explain it, just that as of right now, we do not have the means to do so as of yet.

Humans will find magic, We will manipulate it, Then we will have Hover Abrams with laser Cannons.

Its the circle line of Human Science.

1442194 In Feeling Pinkie Keen Twilight drives herself crazy because Pinkie's powers are closer to our definition of magic, and her powers are a clearly defined science (more like Newtonian physics with Relativity and Quantum mechanics as unknown but 'have to be there').
The irony there is in that episode, Pinkie proves herself a better scientist than Twilight, who is as religiously and close-mindedly dogmatic as the worst fundie. Pinkie didn't know why she got the feelings, but studied them until she could get a good correlation between a particular twitch and upcoming events. Bronies and Pegasisters, THAT'S science.

1443664 I told you I was talking out of my butt. But no, you see, magic is what you think you see magicians on the stage doing! ILLUSIONS.

1444629 Nah, that is "Magic tricks". which are just that, tricks, preformed by charlatans. I was talking actual human magic. Tricks are fine and dandy for entertaining children, but actual magic, applied correctly, can make it or break it for you. However, magic is, technically, any energy or event that is not Quantifiable or explainable by modern science. Basically, we can see magic in hospitals around the world every so often. We call them "Medical Miracles", like when a friend of mine lay dead on the operating table for ten minutes, and suddenly had his brain, for whatever reason it did, restart, kicking his other systems back in, after he had a botched appendectomy. Doc was halfway through signing the death certificate when the heart rate monitor started beeping again. That is real magic in the raw, random, almost impossible form.

1444734 So it'll be magic when I start shooting lasers from my eyes and disintegrating things at a whim.

1444761 While I can't actually rule it out, as best as I can tell, magic won't do anything like that. It will be able to manipulate the probability of someone inventing bionic eyes capable of that, then the probability of you both needing and getting them, but just outright doing that, yeah, don't hold your breath. Of course, even manipulating the probability, it is still rather low.

1444761 Although if that did somehow happen, yes, that would be magic, pure and clean.

1443634
Magic doesn't exist. It doesn't have laws, it doesn't have rites. Because it doesn't exist, and it never has.

1443634 1442251
I believe that my friend 1442210 is referring to this:

Let's examine what "magic" means within the context of the human perspective.

Magic is allegedly supernatural charm, spell or other method to dominate natural forces, is practiced in many cultures, and utilizes ways of understanding, experiencing and influencing the world in a manner akin to that of religion.

If we're talking about the traditional definition of magic (and I am!) as observed by real life "magical orders"—such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Theosophical Society—and not the far broader and less meaningful contemporary version of the word that is merely used to give a familiar name to all manner of superpowers in fictional settings, "magic" typically has four major defining attributes.

• Supernatural: paranormal, preternatural, super-ordinary; magic is not a normal occurrence in the world.

• Mystical: spiritual, otherworldly, transcendental, incorporeal; magic has spiritual significance that transcends conventional human comprehension.

• Esoteric: mysterious, secretive, cryptic, abstract; magic is understood only by a chosen few or an enlightened inner circle.

• Conceptual: imaginary, notional, fantastical, superstitious; magic is something that is only apparent to the mind and is dependent on faith.

Coincidentally (...or perhaps not), science is effectively the opposite to "magic" in regards to these four major attributes.

• Natural: normal, commonplace, inherent; science allows us to understand and reproduce natural phenomena through methodical study and experimentation.

• Rational: logical, analytical, worldly; science strives to be logically sound, not contradictory, irrational, nor unreasonable, and is concerned with matters of the real world rather than matters of spiritual ideology.

• Exoteric: familiar, known, public; science is highly accessible, capable of being readily and fully learned and applied by anyone.

• Material: perceptible, concrete, substantial; science is most often reliably apparent in its effects, and can be supported by physical evidence that can be repeatedly replicated using the same methods.

Now, switching to the context of the Pony perspective... let's take a look at exactly where Pony "MAGIC" falls in regard to these four attributes.

• Supernatural/Natural: "MAGIC" is something that is completely natural in the world of MLP:FiM, not a supernatural/paranormal occurrence.

• Mystical/Rational: "MAGIC", given how Twilight and other Ponies behave, is not necessarily overtly connected with spirituality, and in fact seems to have no real spiritual component to it.

• Esoteric/Exoteric: "MAGIC" is readily known and available to effectively the entire populace of the world.

• Conceptual/Material: "MAGIC" is physically-perceptible and easily apparent in the world, and can be replicated using consistent methods.

...From the context of Pony perspective, "MAGIC" has more in common with science than "magic". An interesting observation, wouldn't you say?

So, having established that "MAGIC" is not clearly the same as "magic", should we really classify "MAGIC" as being something synonymous or similar to "magic" from the context of human perspective... or is this a case of the word "magic" being used merely to give a recognizable name to their abilities?

My point is that, if one were to take practically every mention of the word "magic" out of MLP:FiM and replace it with some other word—for example, "psionics"—nothing changes other than the wording of a few sentences here and there. Ergo, the word "magic" is actually quite meaningless in this context—it's merely a word used to give a familiar name to the unfamiliar phenomena in the show, and could be easily replaced without consequence.

A great number of stories treat Pony "MAGIC" as though it were a similar to or effectively the same as "traditional magic" that I defined above. Personally I feel that this is somewhat of an error on their part to properly make observations, seeing as how I've clearly shown that it's really not like the meaningful concept of "magic" at all.

1443895
This is certainly true.
———But it still doesn't change the fact that Pinkie Pie is made of enriched Cartoonium, and her more notable feats not only in contradiction with the consistency of her world, but also often contradict her own internal consistency.

That's why I usually chalk any feats she does that go too far as "toonforce" and discard the results, instead of claiming that she can do inexplicable things that are clearly only meant to be silly and funny non-sequiturs, not serious parts of the episode's storyline.

1443895

Twilight, who is as religiously and close-mindedly dogmatic as the worst fundie.

Having trouble accepting completely novel concepts doesn't make you as bad as a fundie, let alone the worse of them

Quite the opposite in fact. Most reasonable people would have a hard time in the situation Twilight was in, though I agree Twilight was certainly well beyond the line that separates scepticism from close mindness.

1448946
Dan_s Comments is referring to the fact that, instead of acting like a scientist who would observe repeating correlations and incorporate them into their hypotheses, Twilight merely declared "impossible, I won't accept it" and purposefully looked for everything but the obvious, simply because she refused to consider the possibility that Pinkie had some kind of "predictive ability". Pinkie told her "you don't believe because you don't understand," which is the truth; various predictive abilities actually do have scientific credibility in real life—people often get achy joints before it rains, you can "smell" the difference in the air before a snowstorm, animals behave notably different before certain natural disasters, and numerous other examples exist, all accepted phenomena that were observed and many of them explained scientifically. That's where Twilight failed to be a proper scientist in Feeling Pinkie Keen.

In Bridle Gossip when the Mane Six were afflicted by the Poison Joke, Spike finds a book called "Supernaturals" that she may have overlooked in her search for a cure, but she insists that there's no need to even open it because it details superstitions or other useless information. It is here that we see the same flaw in her; superstitions and the like are stereotypes very rarely based on complete falsehoods—instead, they are based on a truth/correlation that was embellished into an illegitimate axiom through a faulty heuristic method. However, the underlying phenomena and responses to them detailed in superstitions can contain useful information when properly analyzed using logic and the scientific method.

1448113 Actually, magic does have laws. It cannot create something from nothing. The best it can do is convert energy into matter, something we already know happens. It cannot properly break the laws of physics, just make use of preexisting loopholes. Nor can magic, say, return the dead. Once the mind is gone, it's gone. The best you can hope for is to repair the body and trigger the brain to reactivate, resulting in a new, but similar being. Other than that, magic just follows chaos theory. Wait, why are we talking about this here? The guy below you summed it up pretty well for MLP:FiM.

1449249
Magic. Does. Not. EXIST!

You can't say that something has laws, let alone define them, when the thing you are talking about is fictional!

1449426 You do realize I could say the same of what mortals call God, right? Or the laws of physics, considering how often the actually do get broken? Anyway, not here to argue, was just voicing my thoughts. I'll be deleting my other replies soon. T- 60:00:00 until deletion.

1450355
God does not exist, either.

1450381 Wow, that probably got on a few peoples nerves...

1450653
Yeah, it did the last time I said it, too. But I'm not here to baby people's feelings, I'm here to be a bawss.

1450355

Or the laws of physics, considering how often the actually do get broken?

They don't, it's just us being wrong. Things that reality isn't structured to accommodate by definition don't happen. It's just that we only have approximations of whatever that structure actually is, which we keep updating and turning over to be more and more accurate approximations. It's actually a very good thing for physics when the laws get "broken," because it's a clue about what needs to be refined and taken into account.

This has actually been a problem at the Large Hadron Collider of late - The Higgs boson hasn't been behaving unexpectedly enough, and they've been having trouble finding clues to how to complete more of the picture.
Ditto Relativity - We know it's "wrong" on some level, but we can't seem to find any credible instances of it missing the mark. This is why astronomers are trying to get a good photo of a black hole, so we can see if the predictions about how it bends light will break down, and we can get our metaphorical foot in the door to whatever theory supersedes it.

And it won't let me delete my comments... Odd.

1449126
And my comment refers to the fact that referring to Twilight as being "as religiously and close-mindedly dogmatic as the worst fundie" is widely inappropriate, because the flaws in her conduct are far from reaching even close to that level.

It's kinda like saying that someone who makes a comment about Jews being cheap is as racist and antisemitic as the worse the SS had to offer.

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1442679 Whoops, didn't notice you went there first.

The way I see it, the stranger aspects of quantum physics are a lot more incredible than most conceptions of fictional magic.

1450935
Why delete your comments at all? Are you that embarrassed? Why run with your tail stuck between your legs? Wouldn't you rather want to stand for what you believe, even if others disagree?

You must not believe very strongly in what you have stated, then.

1449249
Actually, what I summed up was the fact that "magic" in MLP:FiM is by definition not magic at all, and that the word is merely being used as a placeholder to give an easy, familiar name to the phenomena in the show. It is otherwise meaningless and could be replaced without consequence.

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe, and also refers to a body of knowledge itself, of the type that can be rationally explained and reliably applied. What you are describing would apply under the definition of "science" as long as it could be explained through study, even if we don't currently understand it.

Ergo, still not "magic".

1450381
Yeah that's going a bit far man. This isn't meant to be a debate on the existence of a higher intelligent power, so let's not step on that landmine, okay?

1451475
Quantum tunneling still makes me tilt my head from incomprehension.

1451554 Not embarrassed, just sure that before long my notifications will be full of comments trying to convince me of the nonexistence of magic.

1453632
Are you surprised that people would ask for evidence?

1454749 No, not really. But magic is hard to prove, about as hard as any religion. I would have been more surprised if no one had asked. Which, come to think of it, no one has. Just kind of irks me when someone just flat says "It doesn't exist". Used to think the same thing myself, though.

1455194
Well, it's kind of hard to prove when you describe it as something that is covered by the definition of "science" instead.

Basically, anything we can potentially study and understand rationally will fall under the purview of "science".

1455411 Yep. A thousand years ago, cellphones would have been magic artifacts. Magic just blankets those parts of science we have yet to explore.