I don’t think magic is objective; I think it is in the eye of the beholder.
If the audience don’t understand it, or can be distracted from seeing the truth of it, it’s magic or a miracle or whatever to them.
And the magician - if they know what they’re doing - can wield power over the rubes.
So before you understand - say, magnetism - better, lodestones can be seen as magical or heaven-sent.
There’ll be physical phenomena today like ‘spooky action at a distance’ or something where even quite learned observers might not 100% know the laws of physics. Some exploit of that can appear as magical until the laws are figured out and well communicated.
If it turns out that the underlying laws are stochastic rather than deterministic, then there’s always going to be some grey areas i think.
I don’t think magic is objective; I think it is in the eye of the beholder.
If the audience don’t understand it, or can be distracted from seeing the truth of it, it’s magic or a miracle or whatever to them. And the magician - if they know what they’re doing - can wield power over the rubes.
So before you understand - say, magnetism - better, lodestones can be seen as magical or heaven-sent.
There’ll be physical phenomena today like ‘spooky action at a distance’ or something where even quite learned observers might not 100% know the laws of physics. Some exploit of that can appear as magical until the laws are figured out and well communicated.
If it turns out that the underlying laws are stochastic rather than deterministic, then there’s always going to be some grey areas i think.