Dance magic dance

I feel very happy, and I think if I can keep it up, I can use it to think past the physical aches and pains.

In bed last night, while watching a documentary on the universe, Adam and I began talking, and eventually got on the subject of the definition of magic. Is magic a single force? An application of a combination of forces? Supernatural? Divine? The ability to do Really Awesome Things Nobody Else Can Do? If you had an entire world full of people who could do magic and other similar talents, would you still call it magic? Would you still be special, extraordinary, magical, gifted? If everyone is extraordinary, wouldn't it just be ordinary? Or is magic the ability to harness the various forces around and within to alter the world through means outside the five physical senses?
I picked the last one.
Wikipedia says this: "Magic, sometimes known as sorcery, is a conceptual system that asserts human ability to control the natural world (including events, objects, people, and physical phenomena) through mystical, paranormal or supernatural means. The term can also refer to the practices employed by a person asserting this influence, and to beliefs that explain various events and phenomena in such terms."
I like this explanation.
Adam suggested that perhaps magic is also used to explain things to people who don't see it. If magic is a force of the unknown, the unexplainable, wouldn't being able to use it make it known and explainable? Would it still be called magic, then? Or would it just be called "That thing everybody knows how to do"?
Humans, by general biological rule, walk upright and pick things up with their hands and have five physical senses. We don't think twice about it, we just do it. As long as we're healthy and fine, it's what we do, every day. But what if you also had extra senses, and could pick things up with your mind, and fly? You'd be special and extraordinary and unusual only compared to everyone else, wouldn't you, because nobody else did that? And what if, say, there was a whole bunch of people who had extra senses and were telekinetic and could fly? They'd only be special and unusual to anyone who came upon them and said, "Hey, now, we can't do that! They're extraordinary!" And the psychic people would scratch their heads and say, "Um, no, we're just ordinary. What do you mean you can't do this? Everyone can! You're the ones who must not be ordinary!"
And this is what fantasy and science fiction writers have fun playing with.

In the novel I'm writing, a phenomena occurs, several centuries in our future, that enables a very large part of the world's population to develop psychic abilities to varying degrees -- from sensing hidden emotions to levitating skyscrapers a few inches. It's become somewhat normal. Government sections and schools and things have been set up to accommodate all these people, and laws and rules have been set in place to make sure nobody abuses their abilities. I mean, you'd have to have that, what with people potentially running around reading each other's thoughts and breaking into buildings without keys. The abilities would be passed down to the offspring, and so forth. So by the time the book starts, several generations of psychics are practically running the world and it's become rather ordinary. The people who can really do some amazing things are few and far between, just because Nature and the gods don't want anyone getting cocky. And that's where the book starts and the characters come in; five of the most powerful psychics in the world, unregistered because of personal circumstances, so just masquerading as less than stellar.
However, I run into a frequent problem: Say you have doctors who are plain doctors, and doctors who are psychic healers. Would the non-psychic doctors get jealous? Those psychic doctors, they can do some great stuff, right? What would you need with regular doctors for who can't even do telekinetic healing with their hands? Ah. What if you had a sort of biological or neurological fail safe in the psychics, that meant that they could only do so much before their brains threatened to burn out, thus requiring the skills of non-psychic doctors? And that's why it's a very rare psychic who can do truly incredible things, beyond simply turning off light switches from across the room, or reading surface thoughts.

An entire world of mild and minor psychics, which would be normal, so the truly extraordinary would still exist: "Hey, we can't do that, they must be extraordinary and special!"
I think Nature finds a way to balance things out, so there will always be magic, the unknown, the unexplained, no matter how ordinary the extraordinary becomes.

Oh, now I'm rambling.
Feel free to jump in and add theories and answer questions.

Dance magic dance

I feel very happy, and I think if I can keep it up, I can use it to think past the physical aches and pains.

In bed last night, while watching a documentary on the universe, Adam and I began talking, and eventually got on the subject of the definition of magic. Is magic a single force? An application of a combination of forces? Supernatural? Divine? The ability to do Really Awesome Things Nobody Else Can Do? If you had an entire world full of people who could do magic and other similar talents, would you still call it magic? Would you still be special, extraordinary, magical, gifted? If everyone is extraordinary, wouldn't it just be ordinary? Or is magic the ability to harness the various forces around and within to alter the world through means outside the five physical senses?
I picked the last one.
Wikipedia says this: "Magic, sometimes known as sorcery, is a conceptual system that asserts human ability to control the natural world (including events, objects, people, and physical phenomena) through mystical, paranormal or supernatural means. The term can also refer to the practices employed by a person asserting this influence, and to beliefs that explain various events and phenomena in such terms."
I like this explanation.
Adam suggested that perhaps magic is also used to explain things to people who don't see it. If magic is a force of the unknown, the unexplainable, wouldn't being able to use it make it known and explainable? Would it still be called magic, then? Or would it just be called "That thing everybody knows how to do"?
Humans, by general biological rule, walk upright and pick things up with their hands and have five physical senses. We don't think twice about it, we just do it. As long as we're healthy and fine, it's what we do, every day. But what if you also had extra senses, and could pick things up with your mind, and fly? You'd be special and extraordinary and unusual only compared to everyone else, wouldn't you, because nobody else did that? And what if, say, there was a whole bunch of people who had extra senses and were telekinetic and could fly? They'd only be special and unusual to anyone who came upon them and said, "Hey, now, we can't do that! They're extraordinary!" And the psychic people would scratch their heads and say, "Um, no, we're just ordinary. What do you mean you can't do this? Everyone can! You're the ones who must not be ordinary!"
And this is what fantasy and science fiction writers have fun playing with.

In the novel I'm writing, a phenomena occurs, several centuries in our future, that enables a very large part of the world's population to develop psychic abilities to varying degrees -- from sensing hidden emotions to levitating skyscrapers a few inches. It's become somewhat normal. Government sections and schools and things have been set up to accommodate all these people, and laws and rules have been set in place to make sure nobody abuses their abilities. I mean, you'd have to have that, what with people potentially running around reading each other's thoughts and breaking into buildings without keys. The abilities would be passed down to the offspring, and so forth. So by the time the book starts, several generations of psychics are practically running the world and it's become rather ordinary. The people who can really do some amazing things are few and far between, just because Nature and the gods don't want anyone getting cocky. And that's where the book starts and the characters come in; five of the most powerful psychics in the world, unregistered because of personal circumstances, so just masquerading as less than stellar.
However, I run into a frequent problem: Say you have doctors who are plain doctors, and doctors who are psychic healers. Would the non-psychic doctors get jealous? Those psychic doctors, they can do some great stuff, right? What would you need with regular doctors for who can't even do telekinetic healing with their hands? Ah. What if you had a sort of biological or neurological fail safe in the psychics, that meant that they could only do so much before their brains threatened to burn out, thus requiring the skills of non-psychic doctors? And that's why it's a very rare psychic who can do truly incredible things, beyond simply turning off light switches from across the room, or reading surface thoughts.

An entire world of mild and minor psychics, which would be normal, so the truly extraordinary would still exist: "Hey, we can't do that, they must be extraordinary and special!"
I think Nature finds a way to balance things out, so there will always be magic, the unknown, the unexplained, no matter how ordinary the extraordinary becomes.

Oh, now I'm rambling.
Feel free to jump in and add theories and answer questions.

Dance magic dance

I feel very happy, and I think if I can keep it up, I can use it to think past the physical aches and pains.

In bed last night, while watching a documentary on the universe, Adam and I began talking, and eventually got on the subject of the definition of magic. Is magic a single force? An application of a combination of forces? Supernatural? Divine? The ability to do Really Awesome Things Nobody Else Can Do? If you had an entire world full of people who could do magic and other similar talents, would you still call it magic? Would you still be special, extraordinary, magical, gifted? If everyone is extraordinary, wouldn't it just be ordinary? Or is magic the ability to harness the various forces around and within to alter the world through means outside the five physical senses?
I picked the last one.
Wikipedia says this: "Magic, sometimes known as sorcery, is a conceptual system that asserts human ability to control the natural world (including events, objects, people, and physical phenomena) through mystical, paranormal or supernatural means. The term can also refer to the practices employed by a person asserting this influence, and to beliefs that explain various events and phenomena in such terms."
I like this explanation.
Adam suggested that perhaps magic is also used to explain things to people who don't see it. If magic is a force of the unknown, the unexplainable, wouldn't being able to use it make it known and explainable? Would it still be called magic, then? Or would it just be called "That thing everybody knows how to do"?
Humans, by general biological rule, walk upright and pick things up with their hands and have five physical senses. We don't think twice about it, we just do it. As long as we're healthy and fine, it's what we do, every day. But what if you also had extra senses, and could pick things up with your mind, and fly? You'd be special and extraordinary and unusual only compared to everyone else, wouldn't you, because nobody else did that? And what if, say, there was a whole bunch of people who had extra senses and were telekinetic and could fly? They'd only be special and unusual to anyone who came upon them and said, "Hey, now, we can't do that! They're extraordinary!" And the psychic people would scratch their heads and say, "Um, no, we're just ordinary. What do you mean you can't do this? Everyone can! You're the ones who must not be ordinary!"
And this is what fantasy and science fiction writers have fun playing with.

In the novel I'm writing, a phenomena occurs, several centuries in our future, that enables a very large part of the world's population to develop psychic abilities to varying degrees -- from sensing hidden emotions to levitating skyscrapers a few inches. It's become somewhat normal. Government sections and schools and things have been set up to accommodate all these people, and laws and rules have been set in place to make sure nobody abuses their abilities. I mean, you'd have to have that, what with people potentially running around reading each other's thoughts and breaking into buildings without keys. The abilities would be passed down to the offspring, and so forth. So by the time the book starts, several generations of psychics are practically running the world and it's become rather ordinary. The people who can really do some amazing things are few and far between, just because Nature and the gods don't want anyone getting cocky. And that's where the book starts and the characters come in; five of the most powerful psychics in the world, unregistered because of personal circumstances, so just masquerading as less than stellar.
However, I run into a frequent problem: Say you have doctors who are plain doctors, and doctors who are psychic healers. Would the non-psychic doctors get jealous? Those psychic doctors, they can do some great stuff, right? What would you need with regular doctors for who can't even do telekinetic healing with their hands? Ah. What if you had a sort of biological or neurological fail safe in the psychics, that meant that they could only do so much before their brains threatened to burn out, thus requiring the skills of non-psychic doctors? And that's why it's a very rare psychic who can do truly incredible things, beyond simply turning off light switches from across the room, or reading surface thoughts.

An entire world of mild and minor psychics, which would be normal, so the truly extraordinary would still exist: "Hey, we can't do that, they must be extraordinary and special!"
I think Nature finds a way to balance things out, so there will always be magic, the unknown, the unexplained, no matter how ordinary the extraordinary becomes.

Oh, now I'm rambling.
Feel free to jump in and add theories and answer questions.