Magik Vs The Force
Magik Vs The ForceLordOfTheRings has magik. StarWars has the force. Any thoughts on how they compare?
The Force is basically just psionic power. You can move objects with your mind (telekinesis), overwhelm those with weaker minds (telepathy), see things without using your eyes (clairvoyance), and see future events (prescience or precognition). Generally the energy required to do these comes from within, and they require great focus and concentration.
Magic, on the other hand, is considered a disruption of the natural order. Transmutation, creation, and destruction are the primary types of magic. These typically use external power (but still require focus and concentration). For example, growing a person to the size of a house will not work under conventional laws (such as the SquareCubeRatio?), and neither will creation or long-distance teleportation of objects. To overcome these limitations, you require magical energy.
-- GavinLambert
Magic has its origins in hallucinations, such as are found in schizophrenics. The distinction between transmutation and creation/destruction stems from the fact that the former is simpler, psychologically speaking, than the latter. The ancient gods, hallucinated on a daily basis by the Greeks and their precursors, did not appear out of nowhere but always out of some mist or animating some statue. It seems that scrambling perceptions is easier neurologically than entirely blocking them.
Psionics may have its origins more in paranoid delusions, or perhaps in auditory hallucinations. But the modern conception of psionics requires consciousness, which the ancients did not have. Concepts such as inner strength, concentration, reading/overwhelming other minds, and even seeing the future are impossible without consciousness. Ironically, psionics is the more advanced pseudoscience.
What do you mean, the ancients don't have consciousness? They were asleep all the time?!?
Somnambulists are reactive but not conscious. Being asleep, and non-reactive, says nothing about consciousness.
The ancients were functional schizophrenics. They hallucinated statues ordering them around, telling them when to sow, when to reap, how to shit, et cereta. They worshipped time keeping devices like Stonehenge and solstices because they didn't have any concept of the past or future; they reacted to the seasons as opposed to planning for the change of seasons. What little memory they had came in the form of hallucinated Muses (daughters of Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory) who told them of past events. The first words of the Iliad are a plea to the goddess to tell the aoidoi about what happened. The civilizations of the ancient past were built by automatons obeying hallucinated voices.
The main differences between an ancient and a schizophrenic is that the former lived in a society that systematically reinforced his hallucinations in order to make him functional, while the latter lives in a society too complex for him to ever be functional and so just locks him up. Also, the schizophrenic grows up to be conscious so he goes insane with fear when he loses consciousness, while the ancient never had consciousness to begin with so he was as happy as a clam.
For more, see The OriginOfConsciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
I've heard this theory proposed, but it seems dodgy in the face of the effort it required to build Stonehenge and its relatives, the Pyramids, etc. How could a people with no concept of past or future organize well enough to build the complex, precise structures that mark the seasons, solstices, eclipses, etc?
Same way they did everything, their hallucinations organized them. If half of their brains were devoted to producing hallucinations, they must have served some purpose. That purpose was specifically organizing them.
And in fact, the theory that people were not conscious helps explain how the ancients built such manpower intensive structures as Stonehenge and the Pyramids. Non-conscious people (like extreme schizophrenics) are tireless. We couldn't build the pyramids with manpower alone because our consciousness takes too much energy to maintain. So that's the secret of the Pyramids' construction, they were made with zombie power.
If the hallucinations in their minds were organizing, then the people were capable of organizing, thus contradicting the premise that the people were incapable of conceptualizing past/future.
For some strange definition of 'person', yes. Of course, that's not at all how it felt to them. To them, it felt like they were slaves of their gods (hallucinations). And indeed, a single body inhabited by multiple personalities is not usually considered a single person (and if it is then certainly not a normal person). Note that the ability to organize or reason says nothing about the ability to conceptualize past/future. The ancients (whether the human slaves or their godly masters) were not able to do the latter.
Sometimes when dreaming I am able to "gesture" to objects and control them like a Jedi - pick up a pen remotely, move a glass. Some of the StarWars games have this feature also. In real life it might be possible to do it with technology, ie:
If nothing else a great way to get the tv remote without getting up :-) While a nifty project, it sems like a lot of work over, say, a voice controlled TV
[Yes but it could also bring beer, newspapers, tools, close blinds. Other features of the house already controlled by automation could act directly without the robot, so blinds with an X10 interface could excecute the command that way without the robot trying to handle cords. Voice technology could augment it but point-and-gesture is less effort to the user where objects are in view. Most users prefer using a mouse with their computers than using voice controlled software] Oh! You want Children - the ultimate remote control....."Son, get me the remote"
["Dad - which remote?" - that one - "this one?" no the other one - "dvd player?" no the tv - "plasma display?" no the one for my room..."
You do not need voice
I do not need voice...Gesturing will be great
Gesturing will be great...]My nose itches
robot, led go ob by node
Seriously though all the components are already available:
The Force is exploitation of the StrongNuclearForce?. Star Wars is located long enough ago and far enough away that the strong force remains present at everyday energy levels. In our galaxy, only Geckos retain this ability. The Matrix is not the force, the matrix is a video game.
The difference between the force and magic is absolutely nothing. At least in the fictional realms of LordOfTheRings and StarWars. Sure the specific powers and such vary, but the powers avalible are at the authors discretion. These supernatural elements are what serves to make the world differ from the everyday and establish these works as fantasy.
Of course, there are some stylistic differences, but an in depth inspection of these is rendered quite difficult due to JrrTolkin? not providing deep details of the workings of magic. As mentioned above, the force, for the most part, is similar to psionics. (Except, of course, the Emporer's lighting.) But the practicle difference between psionics and magic is slim. OTHO, psionics does have more science in it's psudosciene than magic.
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