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Date Posted: 12:29:34 04/10/02 Wed
Author: Jess
Subject: Re: IC notes about magic 04/10/2002
In reply to: Chris 's message, "IC notes about magic 04/10/2002" on 07:54:37 04/10/02 Wed

Okay, I've been pondering non-conventional paradigms that might help us explain some of this stuff.

The obvious two candidates are chaos math and quantum physics. Both of those systems of thought can be used to imply that as long as something is possible - no matter how improbable - then there's some chance that it could happen. If you think about it chaotically, that would imply that what we call "magic" is really the ability to sense, predict and control impossibly complex systems. Quantum physics would posit that we have some innate ability to control the apparently random actions of atoms at the very smallest levels.

But that doesn't account for things that are simply impossible. But there's the Banach-Tarski hypothesis - a mathematical principle that states that a sphere can be decomposed into parts and reassembled to make TWO spheres of the same radius - it seems impossible but it's mathematically provable. Maybe this is all just a manifestation of transfinite mathematics? I know that sounds crazy ... oh well.

There should be a way to analyze and understand the logical principles involved without just trying to taxonomize the things we've seen - especially as we're of limited experience. I'm a theoretician, not an experimentalist! :)

Though you know, Chris, I think I've just come up with a way to determine whether this is magic or some weird other kind of ability - I've got your falsifiability test right here. Consider problems that are provably unsolvable in a mathematical rather than an experimental sense. For example, the most obvious one would be the Halting Problem. (For those not familiar with theoretical computer science, that's the question of whether a series of operations done on a particular input will ever terminate - it's kind of like asking whether a program will finish or loop endlessly, but in a mathematical rather than a computer-based sense.) We KNOW that this problem MUST be unsolvable according to any existing way of thinking about the world. If we could develop a solution to the Halting Problem using this stuff - maybe building a machine to determine it? - then I at least would be convinced that there is no possible conventional explanation for all the things we've been able to do, even if they might still be based on natural effects of various sorts.

What do you think?

Jess

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