Nimornril
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Posts posted by Nimornril
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Reaving ravers ridicule random righteous rabbits: run reverse, rank rodents!
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Mean murky mermaid missionaries masterfully mangle many mingling millionare men
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No, it isn't spring here yet for another month or so.
Something more appropriate for the season:
The snow lies silent
I stand spellbound, observing
the cold starlit night
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Through bright summer night
among trees silent and tall
the brook babbles on
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Limping Lithuanian legionnaires left large lustrous lamps lit
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Intelligent inuits inscribe inherently ingenious inventions into ice
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Balancing books, beautiful bibliophile brunettes banished brawling barbarians
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Xhosan xerostomian xenobiologist X-rays xerophile xylem xylose
(Translation for those not X-men: a drymouthed african biologist specializing in alien life forms X-rays wood sugar from the bark of desert plants)
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Ridiculous red rabbits ravage reasonably ripe rhubarb
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Maybe moronic mighty martian millipedes multiply madly
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I've inherited insight into intelligent internet insurrections
(Edit: typo)
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Gigantic gnarled ghosts gargle gray goo gallantly
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Dancing devils denounce dark dragon's due debt
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Xenon-sniffing xenophobic Xantippa xylographs x-rated x-chromosomes
Edit: Translation: Xantippa, being afraid of aliens, inhales noble gasses while engraving pornographic chromosomes on wood
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vile veiled vermin vanquish vesuvian vessels
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From a corner a silent character watches, from deep inside the hooded cloak. A mug is raised in silent greeting and then drained. Perhaps a smile can be guessed from within the hood, but soon he returns to his idle lurking in the corner.
Defining Magic (Magic Article 1)
in Cabaret Room
Posted
That's not the only division possible. From a science point of view, science deals with the explainable and predictable, and magic is the unexplainable and unpredictable. In a way this is where you come to Clarke's "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" - because if it is utterly beyond your ability to explain, it *is* magic.
In the other direction, within a fantasy setting, if "magic" is rule-bound and explainable to the point where you can do predictions and repeatable tests, it becomes in-world science (Wheel of Time's channeling for instance).
In a way, our own conciousness also lands here, because it is unexplainable by us. Psychology and neurology can poke a bit on the edges, but there is nothing there that really explains how the human mind works. Maybe some day it, and metaphysics with it, will become less magic and more science, maybe it is inherently impossible for a human mind to grasp how a human mind works.