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Comment by TheAceOfHearts | Hacker News Reader

This might be a bit pedantic, but I've never liked the term "supernatural", it's tautologically meaningless. If there were aliens or magical beasts roaming around, they would be natural.

As for magic, I despise people that claim magic isn't real. The world is made of magic and it's all around us. When you lose the ability to recognize the magic of reality you die a little inside and the world becomes a little bit less bright. The fact that the term magic gets hijacked to mean something negative and harmful is bullshit, and it should be reclaimed.

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I couldn’t disagree more. Magic is not real. The “magic” of reality is precisely found in its non-magical roots. Nothing is more beautiful than an understanding of the natural world. Fully understanding how the universe works illuminates the world and makes life brighter. The hand-waving act of calling something magic robs the us of that enlightenment. If you mean to say “wondrous” or “fascinating” in your use of the term “magic” then yes, we should strive to hold on to the wonder of life. But we can’t claim that the word “magic” means something that it does not.

I came to this conclusion after being raised in a religion that discounted and discredited any explanation of how the world came into existence outside of simply saying it was created by god. As I learned about science I realized that to believe god created the universe by the wave of a hand was to rob the universe of it’s beauty.

I realize that some overlap can exist between these ideas but in general, that is not the norm.

> If there were aliens or magical beasts roaming around, they would be natural.

Sure, and if my grandmother had wheels she would have been a bicycle.

I think the two categories you describe are orthogonal - rational people are open to the potential of alien life forms, but, similarly, would deny the possibility of 'magical beasts'.

(Depending on what 'magical beasts' might actually entail - your second paragraph seems to re-purpose the word to something closer to fascinating, if I'm reading that right. Though in context it feels more like supernatural than merely wondrous.)

Magic is the word for the gap in our understanding when we witness something that we don’t understand.

I love your interpretation of the importance of magic in maintaining our sense of wonder in the world.

I don’t think so that is the correct interpretation of magic.

Does Gandalf not know what he is doing when he casts his spells?

We also don't fully seem to understand (electro)magneticism, yet almost everyone is using it daily :)

I have found truth in your take recently in my life when previously (majority) I was against such a notion. Out of curiosity, could you expand on what you might be able to describe as magic from your perspective? I understand it is a slippery _thing_ or _suchness_ to describe but I appreciate any attempt. Thanks!

I realize you are asking OP so pardon me, but Physics appears to be completely arbitrary at its root. That arbitrariness to me kind of looks like magic.

Essentially since it all stems from a dimensionless one OF zero :P

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