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Comment by forgotmypw17 | Hacker News Reader

Magic is older than humans. Animals rely on magic -- subtle intentional interactions with quantum mechanics in their everyday lives, it is second nature to them. For a take on it accessible to someone with a science-centered mindset, try looking at the book Entangled Minds. Not just "higher" animals, even earthworms. We humans think we're so much smarter, though... We deny even the possibility of its existence :)

Amazing to see how quickly my comment is downvoted away, within seconds. You must be very quick at checking your references. Try this thread posted parallel to my comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26449135

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I googled Entangled Minds, apparently "Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality" by Dean Radin. Immediately I thought "Oh, I guess that's quantum in the meaningless "woo" sense, like Deepak Chopra" and scrolling down the amazon page was a blurb by Chopra! – "Dean Radin brings parapsychology into mainstream science. The revolution has begun." Radin is a parapsychologist, even a former President of the Parapsychological Association. I consulted wikipedia on parapsychology, to refresh - it's been a very long while. The article begins

"Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, as in telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, a.k.a. telekinesis, and psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example related to near-death experiences, synchronicity, apparitional experiences, etc. It is considered to be pseudoscience by a vast majority of mainstream scientists, in part because, in addition to a lack of replicable empirical evidence, parapsychological claims simply cannot be true "unless the rest of science isn't." ... Parapsychology has been criticised for continuing investigation despite being unable to provide convincing evidence for the existence of any psychic phenomena after more than a century of research."

Uh, possibly fair enough. But apparently in his book

"Radin shows how we know that psychic phenomena such as telepathy, clairvoyance, and psychokinesis are real, based on scientific evidence from thousands of controlled lab tests."

A good summary of the book, thank you.

Your comment is being downvoted because you're using the word 'magic' to refer to quantum mechanics that are generally imperceptible at the larger scale (including earthworms), in response to a comment specifically using the term 'magic' to refer to ritualistic behavior that's intended to (but doesn't) cause a desired result.

If it is imperceptible, then how can you tell whether or not it works?

Actually, I think your point is very interesting. I have observed unusual behavior in animals that could easily be attributed to ‚precognition‘ - magic!

Yet, for them, it's just another survival tactic.

Well, take a hound dog, for example. He has many, many, many more olfactory cells in his snout than humans. Imagine you and a dog are hiking along some unmarked trail. The dog, unbeknownst to you, notices the smell of gas. Maybe it bothers her, and she decides to walk away from there. You follow the dog, away from the trail, and discover that a couple of hours later, there's an explosion at the exact spot. There was a leaking gas pipe a dozen feet below, and the dog had noticed it.

That's a very nice story, but not at all what that book is about.

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