Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - FS2 Required => Blue Planet => Topic started by: Apollo on November 04, 2012, 10:37:14 am
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WARNING: for the sake of convenience I won't use any spoiler tags, since I'll mainly be discussing spoilered topics and it would be a pain to cover up them all.
Let me begin by saying that I have no intention of being a dick and ****ing up an entire thread again. I only started this thread because Battuta said he'd be willing to debate this with me, and I didn't want to ruin the thread I was already on. A
Also, I am in no way criticizing Blueplanet. I always thought the stuff I'm discussing added a layer of mystery to it, and helped distinguished it from most other FS campaigns.
Now, I've always considered some of Blueplanet's narrative elements--for example, psychic communication--to be supernatural. Most sci-fi has some unexplainable or implausible elements, and it frequently ignores some laws of physics for the sake of coolness. For example, FreeSpace has explosions and sound in space, lasers that are visible and don't move anywhere near the speed of light, and subspace, a storyline device that has little or no basis in reality.
However, Blueplanet takes implausibility considerably farther than regular FreeSpace. The presence of psychic powers is a great example, being a superficially scientific stand-in for magic. I say superficially, because no matter how scientific you try to make it sound, psychic abilites are essentially a form of magic.
Any sufficiently rigorously defined magic is indistinguishable from technology.
This is a quote from (If I remember correctly) Larry Niven. I think it fits all the supernatural elements in Blueplanet fairly well--except for one. Samuel Bei's recovery from death is explained in essentially spiritual terms, without any attempt at all to make it seem scientific. This is the most blatantly fantastic element in Blueplanet, but certainly not the only one.
I am aware that the BP team has far more information than me, so I'll just make a list of questions I have. One of them probably come down to personal philosopy, although the the other two could potentially have a scientific explanation.
- How are psychic powers not supernatural?
- How is Samuel Bei's recovery from death not supernatural?
- How can Vishnu exist outside of time and be essentially all-knowing? How is he distinct from a physical god?
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Dude, Sams body was dumped in his suit before the vishnan ship jumped towards Sol, so he wasn't dead at all.
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1. There are no psychic powers in Blue Planet. There is no magic. The Nagari process operates through the same nonlocal processes as the Kayser and ETAK, through mechanisms connected to topologically dense physics in subspace. GTVI theorizes the exact transmission mechanism involves manipulation of action potentials in individual neurons, triggering sodium-potassium pumps through electromagnetic interaction along the cell membrane. This implies extensive computational modeling of the human brain on the part of the transmitter and a fearsome nonlocal sensor capability. (I could get further into exactly how Nagari works, but it would run into serious spoilers up through BP3.)
2. Why would Samuel Bei's survival require supernatural intervention?
3. Is 'Vishnu' a thing? Is it a 'he'? Do you know anything about general relativity and Minkowskian spacetime? The nature of the Vishnan Psyche has to be understood in the light of Minkowskian spacetime and the nature of subspace. There's nothing magical there: merely cosmological, speculative.
4. You've talked about 'energy beings'. Is an AI an energy being? It exists as patterns of information stored on a substrate. Is your mind an 'energy being'? It exists as electrical activity on a coded chemical substrate. What substrate do the Vishnans exist on? Where is the information of their existence encoded? These questions are explicitly answered for you. You should ditch the silly Star Trek notion of an 'energy being' and instead consider the nature of computation and information in physics.
You talk about implausibility going 'considerably father' than regular FreeSpace. Yet regular FreeSpace is already completely implausible on a moment by moment basis. Every subspace jump makes a hash of physics and causality as we understand it. Moreover, Nagari is simply based on a literal reading of material already in FreeSpace - the Hammer of Light, Lieutenant Ash's dialogue.
You're labeling stuff 'magic' because you haven't investigated the mechanisms, but it's no more magical than subspace. It would be easy to label a television magic without understanding a bit about the forces at play. You could have learned this from all the techroom material on the Vasudans, who believe there is nothing supernatural; all that occurs is by definition natural.
There are no psychic powers, no magic, and no supernatural elements in Blue Planet. There is a great deal of soft SF.
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Well, this was probably inevitable. I really need to start reading them tech descriptions.
1. From Techroom:
The inescapable conclusion of Project Nagari was that elements of the Terran and Vasudan populations were capable of decidedly non-mystical communication with alien species via the detection of modulated quantum pulses. What was not clear was whether the Shivans (and their lesser-known counterparts) were simply being eavesdropped upon, or whether they were intentionally reaching out.
You're right. Damn, I feel stupid right now.
2. It wouldn't necessarily. The command briefing implied that it did, but It could of been misleading.
3. 3. Is 'Vishnu' a thing? Is it a 'he'? Do you know anything about general relativity and Minkowskian spacetime? The nature of the Vishnan Psyche has to be understood in the light of Minkowskian spacetime and the nature of subspace. There's nothing magical there: merely cosmological, speculative.
:confused:
All that goes too far over my head for me to say anything.
4.4. You've talked about 'energy beings'. Is an AI an energy being? It exists as patterns of information stored on a substrate. Is your mind an 'energy being'? It exists as electrical activity on a coded chemical substrate. What substrate do the Vishnans exist on? Where is the information of their existence encoded? These questions are explicitly answered for you. You should ditch the silly Star Trek notion of an 'energy being' and instead consider the nature of computation and information in physics.
You talk about implausibility going 'considerably father' than regular FreeSpace. Yet regular FreeSpace is already completely implausible on a moment by moment basis. Every subspace jump makes a hash of physics and causality as we understand it. Moreover, Nagari is simply based on a literal reading of material already in FreeSpace - the Hammer of Light, Lieutenant Ash's dialogue.
You're labeling stuff 'magic' because you haven't investigated the mechanisms, but it's no more magical than subspace. It would be easy to label a television magic without understanding a bit about the forces at play. You could have learned this from all the techroom material on the Vasudans, who believe there is nothing supernatural; all that occurs is by definition natural.
There are no psychic powers, no magic, and no supernatural elements in Blue Planet. There is a great deal of soft SF.
OK, I see your point there.
Well, I have to concede that you were correct about all of that. I apologize if I annoyed anybody by making this thread.
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This is the beauty of Blue Planet 2. Everything about BP1 was conveniently explained once BP2 was released. Any dislike I originally had for BP1 was wiped clean with the Techroom entries.
battuta is awesome writer.
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I actually liked the whole "Vishnans are good Shivans are evil" narrative of BP1, but for storytelling purposes it was probably better to change that.
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One-dimensional entities are not necessarily bad, depending on what you want to achieve, but they do limit a great deal the narrative depth and scope of a story. BP would be bland and quickly boring if Vishnans were all-good and Shivans all-evil, much like if UEF was all-good and GTVA all-evil (or vice-versa !).
BP is grey. Full of grey. Grey everywhere ! ALL the grey. Gray ALL the things.
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One-dimensional entities are not necessarily bad, depending on what you want to achieve, but they do limit a great deal the narrative depth and scope of a story. BP would be bland and quickly boring if Vishnans were all-good and Shivans all-evil, much like if UEF was all-good and GTVA all-evil (or vice-versa !).
BP is grey. Full of grey. Grey everywhere ! ALL the grey. Gray ALL the things.
Yeah, having everyone be morally grey makes the story much more complex and interesting.
I still have difficulty imagining how the Shivans could ever be lighter than a very dark shade of grey, though. They've done so many bad things that it would be really hard to make them sympathetic, unless the Vishnans are somehow worse or there are some non-xenocidal Shivans.
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i know about general relativity and minkowskian spacetime, can you explain that in greater depth it sounds interesting
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True. I wouldn't of felt so guilty when enemy pilots died screaming for help if I knew I was already designated to be on the side of angels.
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One-dimensional entities are not necessarily bad, depending on what you want to achieve, but they do limit a great deal the narrative depth and scope of a story. BP would be bland and quickly boring if Vishnans were all-good and Shivans all-evil, much like if UEF was all-good and GTVA all-evil (or vice-versa !).
BP is grey. Full of grey. Grey everywhere ! ALL the grey. Gray ALL the things.
Yeah, having everyone be morally grey makes the story much more complex and interesting.
I still have difficulty imagining how the Shivans could ever be lighter than a very dark shade of grey, though. They've done so many bad things that it would be really hard to make them sympathetic, unless the Vishnans are somehow worse or there are some non-xenocidal Shivans.
I don't think the Shivans were intended to be portrayed as sympathetic. At BEST they are a horrific version of a well intentioned extremist based on what we can infer about their motives from their conversation with the Vishnans.
I think the grey in this case comes more from the question of just how much better the Vishnans are, since they were still willing 'partners' with the Shivans until recent events.
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One-dimensional entities are not necessarily bad, depending on what you want to achieve, but they do limit a great deal the narrative depth and scope of a story. BP would be bland and quickly boring if Vishnans were all-good and Shivans all-evil, much like if UEF was all-good and GTVA all-evil (or vice-versa !).
BP is grey. Full of grey. Grey everywhere ! ALL the grey. Gray ALL the things.
I still have difficulty imagining how the Shivans could ever be lighter than a very dark shade of grey, though. They've done so many bad things that it would be really hard to make them sympathetic, unless the Vishnans are somehow worse or there are some non-xenocidal Shivans.
Have they done really bad things? In canon, they've been described as "Preservers" and "nomads". In Silent Threat, the GTA/GTI were experimenting on living Shivans. In FreeSpace 2, the Terrans who have been invading "Shivan-space" first, not the other way around.
EDIT: Also, we don't know what the Vishnans really are. For all we know, they could have influenced Samuel Bei's perception of the "dialogue" that the two sides were having in BP1.
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Personally I see nothing wrong with a certain amount of "supernatural" elements in campaigns. Consider Transcend and Ghost Revenants.
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Also, why is 'topologically dense physics in subspace' any better than 'magic'? That's really just a better class of technobabble, unless the closure of physics in subspace is equal to subspace.
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Also, why is 'topologically dense physics in subspace' any better than 'magic'? That's really just a better class of technobabble, unless the closure of physics in subspace is equal to subspace.
How is 'subspace' better than 'magic'?
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It's not either. I just felt like a good nitpick.
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I still have difficulty imagining how the Shivans could ever be lighter than a very dark shade of grey, though. They've done so many bad things that it would be really hard to make them sympathetic, unless the Vishnans are somehow worse or there are some non-xenocidal Shivans.
Have they done really bad things? In canon, they've been described as "Preservers" and "nomads". In Silent Threat, the GTA/GTI were experimenting on living Shivans. In FreeSpace 2, the Terrans who have been invading "Shivan-space" first, not the other way around.
EDIT: Also, we don't know what the Vishnans really are. For all we know, they could have influenced Samuel Bei's perception of the "dialogue" that the two sides were having in BP1.
The Shivans destroyed Vasuda, and they tried to do the same to Earth, not to mention attempted annihilation of the Terrans and Vasudans. They killed the Ancients when simply crippling them militarily would have been adequate. The GTI may have experimented on them, but that in no way justifies what they did. The GTVA did try to invade their systems, but only after the Shivans destroyed the GTC Vigilant.
They might be preservers, but only in the most horrific way possible: they preserve by commiting xenocide against any two sentient races that ever clash with each other. They've certainly done really bad things.
Yes, we don't know what the Vishnans really are. They might not be much better than the Shivans, but that doesn't change the fact that the Shivans are not nice people.
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They killed the Ancients when simply crippling them militarily would have been adequate.
Citation needed. Without knowing what the Shivan's plan is (or whether they have one), it's impossible to tell whether a given action by them was overkill, underkill, or just the right amount of kill.
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I find it hard to believe that completely exterminating the Ancients was the right course of action, unless the entire species was somehow completely sociopathic and irredeemably evil (and all we really know from FS canon is that they were imperialistic). That said, if they actually were that bad the Shivans' xenocide of the Ancients looks somewhat less evil.
However, their treatment of the Terrans and Vasudans was not justified, even if it brought the two species closer together.
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Honestly, the Shivans have been sounding more and more like the Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah of Star Control 2:
-Xenocide to prevent the slavery/destruction of other advanced species? Check.
-Born of the subjugation of others from millions of years ago? Check.
-Exterminated a race of slave masters? Check.
Blue Planet adds the Vishnans which seem to work more like the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za, subjugating for the apparent benefit of all in the long term.
And they even develop a "doctrinal conflict" in AoA!
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It's hard for us to judge the moral value of another species' actions, at least as long as we accept that our own moral system is a product of our evolutionary history and the game theory required for a stable, fitness-maximizing society. The very metric we use to determine 'justification' is particular to us.
can o worms here
Honestly, the Shivans have been sounding more and more like the Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah of Star Control 2:
-Xenocide to prevent the slavery/destruction of other advanced species? Check.
Do we know this? It might be BP's idea, might not, but it certainly wasn't :v:'s.
-Born of the subjugation of others from millions of years ago? Check.
Where do you get this from?
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They killed the Ancients when simply crippling them militarily would have been adequate.
Citation needed. Without knowing what the Shivan's plan is (or whether they have one), it's impossible to tell whether a given action by them was overkill, underkill, or just the right amount of kill.
We can however evaluate whether the action corresponds to a proposed motivation, like "they're just misunderstood and everything we've seen has been a reasonable defensive action".
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The Shivans destroyed Vasuda, and they tried to do the same to Earth, not to mention attempted annihilation of the Terrans and Vasudans. They killed the Ancients when simply crippling them militarily would have been adequate.
Given that the Ancients destroyed and subdued many other species themselves, I would consider it poetic justice. The Terrans and the Vasudans were also fighting a total war with the purpose of seemingly annihilating the other species. Since the Shivans don't communicate on the same level as most Terrans and Vasudans and since they have shown the resolve to abuse and exploit subspace, extinction of two sentient species would be a justifiable answer to preserving life throughout the galaxy. And considering that the Shivans have left the two species alone after the destruction of the Lucifer for the most part until the two species interfered, I would say that they have shown restraint as well.
The GTI may have experimented on them, but that in no way justifies what they did. The GTVA did try to invade their systems, but only after the Shivans destroyed the GTC Vigilant.
Why not? If they can view the universe objectively* and they 'know best', then they can indeed justify what they do.
And the Trinity messed with the Shivans first, not the Vigilant. The Shivans may not have been able to distinguish between the NTF and the GTVA.
They might be preservers, but only in the most horrific way possible: they preserve by commiting xenocide against any two sentient races that ever clash with each other. They've certainly done really bad things.
In the case of the Ancients, it was evident that they did not know their crimes until the very end. As for the Terrans and Vasudans, there is no evidence that there has been any xenocidal intentions after the destruction of the Lucifer, which may have signaled to the Shivans that the Terrans and Vasudans are now allied and no longer fighting a xenocidal war themselves.
But given that the Shivans have been around far longer than any species known within FreeSpace, we can assume that they have attempted to show mercy, only to see the hegemonic empire rise again. If that is the case, then xenocide may be the best alternative.
Yes, we don't know what the Vishnans really are. They might not be much better than the Shivans, but that doesn't change the fact that the Shivans are not nice people.
Shivans are not nice to the Ancients. Shivans are certainly the reason why the Terrans and Vasudans still exist.
*Super Happies! Remember them?
EDIT: What Battuta said tactfully.
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I find it hard to believe that completely exterminating the Ancients was the right course of action, unless the entire species was somehow completely sociopathic and irredeemably evil (and all we really know from FS canon is that they were imperialistic).
Considering the Shivans actually met the Ancients and would have gained some marginal understanding of them through having fought them, they're in a far better position to judge the Ancients than we are.
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I find it hard to believe that completely exterminating the Ancients was the right course of action, unless the entire species was somehow completely sociopathic and irredeemably evil (and all we really know from FS canon is that they were imperialistic).
Considering the Shivans actually met the Ancients and would have gained some marginal understanding of them through having fought them, they're in a far better position to judge the Ancients than we are.
Assuming that the cutscenes from FS1 are correct, the remenants of the Ancients were able to recognize their sin, and appeared repentful. The Shivans proceeded to wipe them out anyways.
Not to excuse their actions, but is the genocide of a race who realises their mistakes and expresses regret a measure the GTVA or UEF would support?
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Considering the Shivans actually met the Ancients and would have gained some marginal understanding of them through having fought them, they're in a far better position to judge the Ancients than we are.
On one hand yes, but on the other hand, the Shivan's view of the ancients might well have been biased, because of untold numbers of previous "destroyers" they had to deal with.
It is possible they saw only a little bit of the ancients and just concluded "they are just like the others... we have to wipe them out" without giving them a chance.
Without more information we just can't tell.... and even with more information we might still not be able to tell what's going on in the Shivans mind(s).
I find it hard to believe that completely exterminating the Ancients was the right course of action, unless the entire species was somehow completely sociopathic and irredeemably evil (and all we really know from FS canon is that they were imperialistic).
Considering the Shivans actually met the Ancients and would have gained some marginal understanding of them through having fought them, they're in a far better position to judge the Ancients than we are.
Assuming that the cutscenes from FS1 are correct, the remenants of the Ancients were able to recognize their sin, and appeared repentful. The Shivans proceeded to wipe them out anyways.
Not to excuse their actions, but is the genocide of a race who realises their mistakes and expresses regret a measure the GTVA or UEF would support?
With no equal species to ally with, the Ancients had no way of showing their remorse in actions. Words alone didn't reach the Shivans (either they didn't understand, or didn't believe them).
The Terrans and Vasudans on the other hand were able to show their willingness to cooperate and co-exist by their actions (the failed defense of Vasuda and the help with the evacuation come to mind).
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Given that the Ancients destroyed and subdued many other species themselves, I would consider it poetic justice. The Terrans and the Vasudans were also fighting a total war with the purpose of seemingly annihilating the other species. Since the Shivans don't communicate on the same level as most Terrans and Vasudans and since they have shown the resolve to abuse and exploit subspace, extinction of two sentient species would be a justifiable answer to preserving life throughout the galaxy. And considering that the Shivans have left the two species alone after the destruction of the Lucifer for the most part until the two species interfered, I would say that they have shown restraint as well.
The Shivans continued to attack the Terrans and Vasudans even after they allied with each other; only the destruction of the Lucifer halted their offensive, and that was only because the Shivans became highly disorganized.
And the Trinity messed with the Shivans first, not the Vigilant. The Shivans may not have been able to distinguish between the NTF and the GTVA.
According to Roemig, the Trinity was attacked by Shivans. His crew might of just blindly opened fire on them, but we don't really know what happened.
In the case of the Ancients, it was evident that they did not know their crimes until the very end. As for the Terrans and Vasudans, there is no evidence that there has been any xenocidal intentions after the destruction of the Lucifer, which may have signaled to the Shivans that the Terrans and Vasudans are now allied and no longer fighting a xenocidal war themselves.
But given that the Shivans have been around far longer than any species known within FreeSpace, we can assume that they have attempted to show mercy, only to see the hegemonic empire rise again. If that is the case, then xenocide may be the best alternative.
Yeah, the Terrans and Vasudans were trying to kill each other. Still, does killing them both really solve that problem?
Xenocide is always wrong unless the species you are commiting xenocide against is completely evil beyond even the tiniest shred of decency. This is because the sheer numbers of a sentient race ensures that if the race is not completely and irredeemably evil, there will be good members of it.
Isn't a hegemony an empire that rules indirectly? That doesn't seem like something bad enough to warrant xenocide, and as far as we know the Ancients were not a hegemony; they were a regular empire.
Shivans are not nice to the Ancients. Shivans are certainly the reason why the Terrans and Vasudans still exist.
Debatable. The Shivans' destruction of other races might of allowed the Terrans and Vasudans to come to power, but the Shivans also tried to destroy the Terrans and Vasudans; their alliance with each other is ultimately what saved them.
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Yeah, the Terrans and Vasudans were trying to kill each other. Still, does killing them both really solve that problem?
Depends on what the problem was. (Hint: Shivan objectives are unknown)
Xenocide is always wrong unless the species you are commiting xenocide against is completely evil beyond even the tiniest shred of decency. This is because the sheer numbers of a sentient race ensures that if the race is not completely and irredeemably evil, there will be good members of it.
Define what good and evil mean for the Shivans first. Consider: A Gardener destroys an anthill, killing all ants in the process. Do considerations such as decency enter the Gardener's mind?
Isn't a hegemony an empire that rules indirectly? That doesn't seem like something bad enough to warrant xenocide, and as far as we know the Ancients were not a hegemony; they were a regular empire.
Again, define what "bad enough" means for a Shivan. You're dealing with an intelligence that is, at best, incomprehensible (and that is assuming that there is intelligent thought governing Shivan behaviour!). Trying to assign human intentions and morality to them is at best futile, at worst misleading.
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So, they're not so much evil as incomprehensible in a seemingly evil way?
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So, they're not so much evil as incomprehensible in a seemingly evil way?
Their motives seem evil to us because they involve our destruction but without context we cannot know what motivates them.
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Well, it would take some pretty extraordinary context to justify what they've done. But I see your point.
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That's pretty much what an ant would say, if you destroyed an anthill in your garden, metaphorically speaking.
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Given how "good and evil" is a human concept after all, the Shivans *are* a terrifyingly bad species. It's almost in the definition of what is good and what is evil. Not that the Shivans themselves should care about what words we choose to define them. Perhaps they should only care about it if we became a real threat to their existence, if "talking" was a much more efficient way to improve the chances of a disaster not coming to be, and if "deeming Shivans as not evil" was a necessary condition for such talks to have a positive effect.
Until then, "evil" they are, at least according to GalTevs. Ubuntus may have different opinions, however, for they are just so understanding of genociders anyway. And the Elders may have even more different opinions than the earth population.
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You're dealing with an intelligence that is, at best, incomprehensible (and that is assuming that there is intelligent thought governing Shivan behaviour!)
This is why they were talking to the Vishnans in comprehensible language at the end of AoA?
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You're dealing with an intelligence that is, at best, incomprehensible (and that is assuming that there is intelligent thought governing Shivan behaviour!)
This is why they were talking to the Vishnans in comprehensible language at the end of AoA?
my personal view on this is that Bei retained knowledge of the "language" used, remember he is Nagari sensitive
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That conversation at the end of AoA was "translated" by the Vishnans in a way that we could "cope" with the core sense of it. The whole conversation is meant to be extremely more complex than what we hear.
Fortunately, since the conversation paints the shivans as half-brained almost mindless brutes.
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You're dealing with an intelligence that is, at best, incomprehensible (and that is assuming that there is intelligent thought governing Shivan behaviour!)
This is why they were talking to the Vishnans in comprehensible language at the end of AoA?
I think it has been fairly well established by this point that whatever was "spoken" there bears little, if any, relationship to what was actually happening. Remember, everything we discover about the Vishnans and the Shivans has been filtered by the Vishnans to be comprehensible to Sam Bei (and, in the case of that dialogue you refer to, the entire 14th BG).
To get back to the Ants/Gardeners analogy, an (extraordinary intelligent) anthive may be able to determine a portion of the intentions of the Gardener by observing his actions, the hive may even be able to model the Gardener's behaviour to some extent; but that does not mean they truly understand what the Gardener is doing.
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You're dealing with an intelligence that is, at best, incomprehensible (and that is assuming that there is intelligent thought governing Shivan behaviour!)
This is why they were talking to the Vishnans in comprehensible language at the end of AoA?
I think it has been fairly well established by this point that whatever was "spoken" there bears little, if any, relationship to what was actually happening. Remember, everything we discover about the Vishnans and the Shivans has been filtered by the Vishnans to be comprehensible to Sam Bei (and, in the case of that dialogue you refer to, the entire 14th BG).
I'm not convinced anyone but Sam and his dad saw that.
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I think Orestes Comms says something like "We saw it too"?
Not sure about that without checking the mission itself.
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A lot of can of worms in these sentences here:
To get back to the Ants/Gardeners analogy, an (extraordinary intelligent) anthive may be able to determine a portion of the intentions of the Gardener by observing his actions, the hive may even be able to model the Gardener's behaviour to some extent; but that does not mean they truly understand what the Gardener is doing.
The whole Freespace mythos rests in the unintelligibility of the Lovecraftian monsters, and IRL we have some very good reasons to doubt our capability to understand a form of intelligence that is too alien (and too big) from ourselves. Lots of good novels about this problem.
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I was just saying that kind of disproves the "no intelligence" idea.
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Yeah, there's a hell of a lot of anthropomorphism simply in trying to fit the Shivans and their actions to a coherent moral code. Consider that the Ancient in FS1 had just watched her species being scoured by them with no warning or reason, and Alpha 1 had only narrowly avoided the same fate; proposing that it happened as part of someone's greater plan is a lot more comforting than that all those people died for no reason at all.
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I was just saying that kind of disproves the "no intelligence" idea.
No, it actually doesn't. Read Peter Watts' Blindsight to get an idea of what I mean.
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'Intelligence' and 'consciousness' are two nebulously-defined but very definitely different things.
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Yeah, wasn't there a webpage with that story that was linked in this forum some time ago? Included some vampires and so on.
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I was just saying that kind of disproves the "no intelligence" idea.
Definitely doesn't.
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This, presumably. (http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm) I refuse to read it because I'm dangerously prone to ontological dread.
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This, presumably. (http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm) I refuse to read it because I'm dangerously prone to ontological dread.
Good call, this book would ****ing slay you.
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When you get into that kind of philosophical stuff you can't even prove that you have intelligence.
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and now I'm intrigued.
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When you get into that kind of philosophical stuff you can't even prove that you have intelligence.
In the same way that a mathematician cannot prove that 1 + 1 = 2, this is correct.
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Anyway, the analogy is somewhat off. It is true that in AoA we do see the Shivans communicating with the Vishnans, negociating what to do next. I really do not care in the slightest if the Shivans have no consciousness, or "intelligence" as you seem inclined to define, what matters is they have some kind of neural net that is understanding intent from their Vishnans counterparts and communicating their own intent. "Blindsight" depicts a too different scenario, one where an alien uses a chinese room to deflect the protagonists from the alien's true purpose.
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Everything that happened during Universal Truth was delivered to Sam by the Vishnans. It could have been a wholesale fabrication. Now, from a meta-storytelling dramatic standpoint I'd find that pretty unsatisfying...but I'd be hesitant to read too much into the fairly simple personifications offered there.
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How much of it was delivered and how much of it was Sam himself trying to fit things to a familiar model?
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How much of it was delivered and how much of it was Sam himself trying to fit things to a familiar model?
Both? There's no territory, there's only the map. There is no objective reality, everything is a model.
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*sigh* What I meant to ask was, how much of it was Vishnan fabrication/deception/simplification and how much was Sam himself?
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Given the way Nagari communications work, it is hard to tell where this line is.
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*sigh* What I meant to ask was, how much of it was Vishnan fabrication/deception/simplification and how much was Sam himself?
Sorry my answer sounded facetious. It wasn't, I assure you. I... just can't explain what I mean better.
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No, I was mostly frustrated with myself for phrasing it to sound like I'd missed the point.
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I hate solipsism
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I hate solipsism
When has this thread ever discussed solipsism?
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*sigh* What I meant to ask was, how much of it was Vishnan fabrication/deception/simplification and how much was Sam himself?
Considering what we know of the Vishnan's, the answer may be "all/none" at the same time. They're certainly skilled at manipulating perception, but that just means they're also going to be skilled at telling you what you want to hear.
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This, presumably. (http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm) I refuse to read it because I'm dangerously prone to ontological dread.
Why? Why would you do that? Click that link and you won't be doing anything else for about 6 hours.
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Also, why is 'topologically dense physics in subspace' any better than 'magic'? That's really just a better class of technobabble, unless the closure of physics in subspace is equal to subspace.
How is 'subspace' better than 'magic'?
Then how is magic worse than subspace?
I feel where you're coming from, but what I'm trying to say is that if you push it far enough, everything could count as SF. I mean, it's not that there's anything mystical about Harry Potter style magic wands, it's just that a Phoenix's naturally high midichlorian count facilitates various quantum phenomena which interact with the subspace in a particularly serendipitous manner. (Sounds far-fetched, I know, but with enough effort one ought to be able to technobabble it into something at least as consistent as Star Trek's teleporter!)
So yeah sufficiently advanced technology cannot be distinguished from magic and vice versa, but that doesn't mean science fiction cannot be distinguished (however fuzzily) from fantasy, or that some parts of an SF universe cannot be considered fantastical in nature. To a first approximation I'd say it is a difference in style rather than substance; I don't have the vocabulary to express it better, but I'll hope you'll recognize what I'm trying to describe, and I think that could be what some of the people commenting are saying: not "this can't be science", but rather "this doesn't sound and feel like science".
I guess that as the story progresses that part will sound more and more like science, and challenging the naive presumptions about how science works for vastly more advanced beings is part of the Blue Planet's value, but I don't think parts of AoA will ever completely lose their "mystic feel".
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A lot of things don't sound and feel like science until you understand them. All kinds of natural phenomena were explained by mysticism four hundred years ago. To this day you get magical thinking in the lay understanding of the mind and consciousness: people believe that being disintegrated by a transporter beam would kill them, or that there's something acausal about free will.
When the mechanism is unclear, intuitive, wooly reasoning tends to take over. In WiHR2 you'll see an organizational approach to the Nagari process very different from AoA.
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I honestly believe that desintegration is usually followed by "death", for all the evidence I have about that process, and although I'm quite at ease accepting the completely naturalistic and causal explanation of the mind as a very distinct possibility, I do not necessarily follow from "possible" to "inevitable". Just as technology apparently becomes magic in a sufficiently wide gap, so can the process that we call "mind" or "free will" actually be quite unbelievable to most neuroscientists if such "truth" was revealed today*. Had we told Newton about Quantum Mechanics, he would have laughed at you not "unbelieving" but completely and utterly convinced that you were just trolling his ass off, no matter how amazing your reasoning would be.
* Let us remind ourselves that many scientists even today seem hellbent at not accepting the non-classical reality of the quantum, the abandonment of any "objective reality" that it entails and dwell nervously on "interpretations" and "corrections" that are always promising a return to the softer and not-dreaded world of classicism.
Let us remind ourselves as well about amazingly talented Lord Kelvin warning every scientist in the 19th century that physics (and chemistry) was pretty much solved, only small details had to be figured out.
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We had a pretty badass discussion about this on IRC yesterday, it was fun.
(But please, please, please let's not do it again here)
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Ah well. I seem to login to IRC only when people are discussing shenanigans.
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To this day you get magical thinking in the lay understanding of the mind and consciousness: people believe that being disintegrated by a transporter beam would kill them, or that there's something acausal about free will.
K, right, if you're saying we should expect characters in-game to sometimes react to advanced technology with mysticism, then that's a good point, and it accounts for a part of "fantasy-style discourse" I think people were commenting on.
As for Newton, I think that's a bit unfair. You can't just tell someone about quantum mechanics, you'd need say a 2-3 years course if you want "no matter how amazing your reasoning would be" part of your sentence to be true.
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If you could tell Newton about quantum physics, you could only show him that your model fits your experiences better. You can't prove him you're right. Science is not more than a set of rules to understand the universe around us. We choose the most representative and simpler set as the current paradigm. That's all. Even quantum mechanics are only an intellectual abstraction. The quantum is NOT a reality. Sometimes we forget that those abstractions are only artificial constructions and are limited as we are. You could show Newton that your set of rules works best, but you couldn't tell him that they are real. And you sure have to be very cautious to extrapolate your rules into other fields.
In any case, after the next science paradigm shift, what we now know may be seen as incomplete and ridiculous. So any extrapolation of current scientific knowledge is unreliable. And even if we get to the point of having a theory of everything, the problem still remains. No mathematical construction we may use to explain and predict the behaviour of the universe can justify itself, so, there must be some kind of meta-physic behind it. As Stephen Hawkings wrote: "What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?".
Back to the magic and science debate: those two are just interpretations that allow us to understand the world around us. They all came to be from the observation of the world and (unproved) logical induction. Science uses elegant equations, complex models and universal constants. Magic builds itself on the cultural background of a group of people. They are both axiomatic and biased. I know I'm being too critic to science but I wanted to stress that scientists tend to overplay their hand.
So, what justifies BP canon to be considered fictional future science and not fictional magic? Only the social convention that generally considers magic unsystematic and unbound by current scientific models. BP metarules are quite systematic and even plausible in today's scientific paradigm. But that is subjective.
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I generally agree, but I think you're missing one important thing about science - it's not just an elegant descriptive model, it makes predictions about things we don't know. That's how science separates itself from mathy mythology.
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Those two posts above missed the point about Newton. Currently we have not a comprehensive theory of the mind, nor anyone who could explain it to us. Of course that if we had those, then we would accept it for it was easily testable, so on and so on. The thing here is that we only have very simplistic "ideas" about what it can be, what kind of patterns we might find in such a theory, and so on. So imagine that a guy from the future gets here and says the equivalent of Battuta or any other folk going to Newton and just say "Hey look pal, particles are also waves, and we can't ever determine both their speed and position accurately, and spooky entanglement exists, and objective histories are a sham, and and and". You'd immediately laugh at the guy.
That was the point.
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Yeah, but I think by this point we've successfully put a few constraints on any theory of consciousness: it'll obey causal closure and it'll be purely physical. We have no reason to believe that consciousness alone has some kind of exemption from these (so far) universal rules.
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I won't belabor the point, just want to point out that science itself depends upon the objectification of whatever it is that it is studying, and that objectifying the very observer, the very Subject might lead to a lot of paradoxes, counter-intuitive truths, and dead ends. I have long wondered if this objectification of the subject isn't something entirely impossible, a notion that people like Dennett just handwave away, saying that we shouldn't really care if we are able to model a "real consciousness" or a "zimbo" (something that acts exactly like as if it has a consciousness). However, we do experience ourselves and this subjectivity is possibly unexplainable.
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In any case, after the next science paradigm shift, what we now know may be seen as incomplete and ridiculous.
What we now know is already seen as incomplete, because we see it is, but it will hardly ever be fair to call it ridiculous.
For example, Newtonian physics is two paradigm shifts behind and the only thing that's ridiculous about it is how incredibly strong it's predictive power is.
No mathematical construction we may use to explain and predict the behaviour of the universe can justify itself, so, there must be some kind of meta-physic behind it.
But that's unsurprising. After all, mathematics can hardly justify itself either - it's unclear what that may even mean, but it is a theorem of mathematics that for interpretations which would now be considered reasonable it isn't true.
If you want to take things to the extreme, in the end no form of human inquiry is impervious to a sufficiently obtuse form of epistemological skepticism. And you always need a meta-theory: in case of science that's at least the philosophy of science.
So imagine that a guy from the future gets here and says the equivalent of Battuta or any other folk going to Newton and just say "Hey look pal, particles are also waves, and we can't ever determine both their speed and position accurately, and spooky entanglement exists, and objective histories are a sham, and and and". You'd immediately laugh at the guy.
Ok, but why wouldn't I? I mean, people tell me all kinds of **** on a daily basis.
If that hypothetical person can explain to me the mathematical model behind his new theory and convince me its consistent and has general relativity and quantum mechanics as limiting cases, I'd have hopefully stopped laughing. But even if that's possible, it would take years.
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And so would anyone with a brain. Thing is, no one does that today because such knowledge does not exist. Thus we can reasonably posit that the "final" theory of the mind may well sound abso****ing ridiculous if "dumbed down" to our present level of understanding of it. That is, it will possibly be super counter-intuitive. And thus, we may all proclaim with fanfare and so on that it's all "materialistic", that it is well "established" this and that, and we may well be making just another Kelvin here.
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Of course; sorry if I was interpreting your first post too literally.
And I agree with what you're saying, but I'll add that it's important to keep in mind that an improvement of a scientific theory, whatever it may be, must include the former theory as some kind of a limiting case, and that makes things somewhat less arbitrary.
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A lot of things don't sound and feel like science until you understand them. All kinds of natural phenomena were explained by mysticism four hundred years ago. To this day you get magical thinking in the lay understanding of the mind and consciousness: people believe that being disintegrated by a transporter beam would kill them, or that there's something acausal about free will.
When the mechanism is unclear, intuitive, wooly reasoning tends to take over. In WiHR2 you'll see an organizational approach to the Nagari process very different from AoA.
You know, I wonder if anything could truly be magical. It seems like it would have to be completely unrestricted by the laws of physics; otherwise it would be perfectly normal (from a physics standpoint).
Even psychic powers would probably be scientific.
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Well.... yeah. There's no such thing as magic. Anything that happens is happening within the laws of nature.
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Wait, doesn't that mean that all fantasy is actually soft sci-fi?
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Wait, doesn't that mean that all fantasy is actually soft sci-fi?
No, because fantasy is not real life and thus can have magic in it.
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except that magic often has rules and can form a "science" in itself
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Well okay yeah, different works handle magic differently. I was kind of hoping to avoid several pages of long posts detailing everyone's personal definitions of fantasy, soft sci-fi, science fantasy, and the delineations between them, but whatever. Let's all whip out our e-peens and start the sword fight.
:welcome:
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No, because fantasy is not real life and thus can have magic in it.
Science fiction isn't real life either, and as we've discussed it doesn't usually have magic in it.
"Magic" in fantasy often has a semi-rigid set of rules that defines what it can do. This means it follows some (admittedly fictional) laws of physics, preventing it from being supernatural. Therefore, fantasy is arguably an extremely soft subgenre of sci-fi.
Unless you think the large thematic differences prevent this, which is something you could easily argue.
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Unless you think the large thematic differences prevent this, which is something you could easily argue.
I was going to say something like that, but then I foresaw a bunch of other posters smugly trotting out examples that blur the line between soft sci-fi and fantasy and then the whole thread would devolve into a moronic semantics argument.
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Yeah, it might be better to avoid having that discussion. Anyway, it's irrelevant. It could be argued that fantasy is technically a subgenre of sci-fi, but it's thematically different enough to make that a moot point.
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Sci-fi using formalised magic is in fact very possible. (http://qntm.org/ra)
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How is formalized magic different than science?
That story looks interesting. I'll read it later.
EDIT: Actually, according to Dictionary.com one of the definitions of magic is:
the art of producing a desired effect or result through the use of incantation or various other techniques that presumably assure human control of supernatural agencies or the forces of nature.
Apparently controlling the forces of nature would obey the laws of physics* and be magical at the same time, so I guess actual magic could exist (at least fictionally).
*Although they would be laws we are not currently aware of.
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"Controlling the forces of nature" is a nice phrase...
By that definition pretty much every kind of technology IS magic already.
For what else are electricity, motion and inertia, if not forces of nature (they exist even without Human interferense after all).
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That definition implies controlling nature through incantation or some other weird techniques.
But yeah, I guess if you interpret it broadly enough it could be used to call most technology magic.
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I think magic in fiction can and often should be something very different from science and technology.
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Biotics.
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Any sufficiently analyzed magic is science.
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Any sufficiently analyzed magic [IN FICTION] is science [FICTION].
Sorry, had to do it. Sorry again.
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Any sufficiently analyzed magic is science.
I think this is a myth that really hobbles a lot of modern fantasy writers. It's true for certain cases but it is absolutely not a universal.
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It's only true if the fantasy writer wishes so, IMHO.
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What GB refers to is more something happening in the writer's mind. By saying or assuming that sufficiently explained magic is science, it creates a kind of corset the writer has to fit his writing in.
Compare, for example, the treatment of magic in Lord of the Rings with the treatment of magic in Harry Potter. In LotR, magic is largely unexplained, and even largely invisible (Tom Bombadil notwithstanding). There seem to be a few rules, but we never really find out what they are; Magic is something that is present in the setting, but never really explained.
In HP, on the other hand, magic is a developed topic of study; sure there are some mysteries, but most of it has been formalized to such a degree that you can develop a curriculum to teach its proper use to teenagers.
Now, both approaches can be used quite well, both definitely have their place, but that does not mean they are universal rules. The "magic as science" approach makes a certain amount of sense when you tell a story from the POV of a traditional Wizard-type character who derives his power from studying the laws of magic; but if your story is told from the POV of, say, a bunch of hobbits who haven't got a clue about magic and who will never use it in the story, it's better to leave your mind open and not bother with creating an elaborate ruleset, as this allows you to be more imaginative in your applications of magic.
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Then you simply hobble yourself in a different fashion. There is no easy way around the study problem save for scarcity.
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Nuministic or narrative magic that doesn't obey a strict set of paraphysics can't be analyzed inside (or outside) of the setting, but can still behave intuitively and enable satisfying storytelling. It's not the only approach, but it's a good one that a lot of classic authors (LeGuin, for example) used very well.
The Brandon Sanderson school of magic-as-paraphysics is really popular lately and I think it must spring from generations of RPG sourcebooks or something. The same thing popped up with people trying to analyze the black goo in Prometheus without understanding that it's more about a confrontation with the Lacanian real than any kind of biological action.
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Now, both approaches can be used quite well, both definitely have their place, but that does not mean they are universal rules. The "magic as science" approach makes a certain amount of sense when you tell a story from the POV of a traditional Wizard-type character who derives his power from studying the laws of magic; but if your story is told from the POV of, say, a bunch of hobbits who haven't got a clue about magic and who will never use it in the story, it's better to leave your mind open and not bother with creating an elaborate ruleset, as this allows you to be more imaginative in your applications of magic.
This is especially evident seeing that Tolkien's approach to magic was otherwise also quite analytical.
As for the "magic as science" style approach, I think that one of the important differences even between "magic as science" and "science as science" is the internal logic they use. Fantasy writing explores intuitive modes of reasoning, which are more often than not absurd outside of the human perspective. This is obvious, but it implies that no kind of reasonable analysis completely removes the difference in perspective. For example, in Harry Potter treating magic as a well defined field of study and obnoxiously labeling "spells" with quasi-Latin incantations does little to remove the profound difference in reasoning.