This may sound argumentative...but I think that you sort of
answered your own question right there. While I understand your desire to
put a scientific theory to magic

No I don't. I'm just saying that if you're gonna make such a definition,
then you should explore and deal with some of its consequences. To
carefully define magic is something done to make it seem more 'real',
concrete. But every assumption you make has far-reaching consequences. For
instance, assuming that the universe has rotational symmetry (ie, it
doesn't seem to work differently when you change your orientation) leads
you to the conclusion that a quantity called angular momentum is conserved.

The present scientific community believes that nature is, on its most basic
level, simple. However, just because the rules are simple doesn't mean that
you will not see interesting behavior. A system may be simple with respects
to its workings, but complex in its dynamics.

Einsteinian Gravitation can be summed up in the statements: "Space acts on
matter, telling it how to move; matter then reacts on space, telling it how
to curve." It's basic principles are far simpler than the UT Department of
Relativity would like you to believe. ;) But there's a feedback loop which
turns a simple linear relationship into a complex nonlinear system.

(which has been the goal of the
oft-maligned "hermetic" sect in fiction since god only knows when) I think
even the most strict of "hermetics" would agree that a fundamental part of
magic itself is its inherent instability, and the fact that you can rarely
if ever really trust your senses at all. In short, expect to be talked in
circles a lot concerning magic. Like I just demonstrated, see? ;)

But in order to be useful, magic must have _some_ regularity. When I cast a
tried-and-true spell, I expect to have a pretty good chance of it turning
out right. More experienced mages tend to get their spells right more often
than novices.

People don't often realize that constraints are as, and sometimes more,
important than the capabilities. There is such a thing as too much
potential, since things with too much potential have an annoying tendancy
to show that potential when it isn't desired. The universe has a way of
allowing everything that is not forbidden to happen.

As a physics guy, I can usually see such contradictions in many magic
hypothesis, such that it's clear that the inventor did not spend much
effort exploring the consequences of his definition. The problem with the

	Not always true. Magic is in and of itself a dirty science,
especially those schools of magic which deal with nature and
spiritualism...spells and ephemera of this type (to my exposure) tend to
be very "quick and dirty": it's not important to know why or how it
happened, just to know enough that it did. Although this isn't wonderful
pure science, a fireball by any other name still chars your behind quite
nicely. ;)

I have no argument about any of that. :) I'm saying that EXPLANATIONS of
the nuts-and-bolts of magic tend to be self-contradictory. There might be a
coherent model that explains all what you said, but none of those
hypotheses are it.

"virtual energy field" hypothesis of summoning is that it would lead to the
conclusion that summoning spells should be absolutely safe; any attempt of
the summoned creature to leave the energy field is thwarted by the fact
that the rules of manaphysics does not allow such a thing to happen. This
means that all stories of chaos caused by demons breaking out of their
summoning circles are bullshit. All such summonings are essentially
temporary bridges between worlds surrounded by a ward that prevents escape.

	Possible but unlikely. I can't imagine the number of stories where
a summoning has gone horribly, horribly awry;

X-actly!

the magic circle got stepped
over, the being is inherently more powerful than the pathetic magi who
summons it and either breaks the ward or possesses the magi or
whatever....there are plenty.

Yes, which shouldn't happen under the "virtual-energy field" hypothesis of
summoning! That hypothesis says that the creatures are confined because
they may only exist within a virtual field called up by the caster. If the
field is collapsed, then the creature would no longer have a VE field to
exist in, and he goes careening back to wherever he came from.

This section was an argument _against_ this kind of summoning model for
certain worlds. And my discription of the standard summonings as
"essentially temporary bridges between worlds surrounded by a ward that
prevents escape." They are undoubtedly bridges between worlds (duh!)
surrounded by a ward, as you say.

	There is the somewhat problematic argument that while the
terminology states "a part of one's soul" the word one's does not directly
have to deal with the caster in question. the demon race Mazoku in
Slayers, for example, are considered beings of ultimate darkness...they
could be considered to be "soulless" in the tradtionalist or even
Judeo-Christian sense. They instead feed off the soul energy, aka
emotions, of humans and use that as food and power. In layman's terms,
even in pure science there is no theory that is 100% correct, and villains
of story and song are generally exeptions rather than rules.

Well, I thought everyone had Seventh Messenger's message. His discription
was that change magic, in the case of the creation of an apple, was that
one sacrificed a part of his soul to create a dent in spacetime. Anyway, I
agree with you; and with the fact that soulless creatures can make magic,
it must follow that it isn't _soul_, per se, that creates magic phenomena,
but rather some quality of the soul that soulless creatures _can_ replicate.

The presence of an exception indicates that a deeper rule is at work. It
can be said that physics is like watching a game of chess, and you don't
know the rules. We observe that if there is only one bishop on the board,
then that bishop never changes its color. As we gather more evidence, we
figure out that bishops move along diagonals, and we have a deeper
understanding of why bishops never change their color. But one day we
observe that a bishop has changed its color. At first, we're confused, and
then we discover pawn promotion; the bishop had been captured, and a pawn
advanced to the eigth rank and promoted into a bishop. You can eliminate
exceptions from laws if you formulate your laws right. Put another way, a
rule with an exception can be expressed as a rule whose domain is more
restricted.

It is true that in pure science that no theory has a 100% certainty of
being complete in its definition, but this is a subtle difference from "in
pure science there is no theory that is 100% correct". The reason why is
that a scientific theory is a well-formed cognative framework under which
certain systems may be understood. (This differs from a scientific law,
which is a strongly-confirmed regularity in nature.) A part of this
framework is the prerequisites that must be satisfied before it can give
you meaningful answers (ie, establishes the theory's domain). Ideal
theories are always right within its established domain. Real theories are
incomplete in the sense that their domain is not firmly established. As we
find out more about the world, we can refine the domains of real theories.

It is now known that Newton's Laws are wrong when speeds are comparable to
that of light (relativistic), when sizes are comparable to that of atoms
(atomic scale) and/or where geometry deviates significantly from Euclidean
(curved spaces). However, Newton's Laws are still essentially correct for
systems operating at non-relitivistic speeds on the macroscopic scale and
in spacetime that is essentially flat.

Anyway, rigorously defined magic systems lead to contradictions unless they
are very carefully thought out. Also, such systems would inevidably lead to
conclusions that disallow some things from existing or happening. The way I
see it, if you're going to rigorously define magic, you'd better be
prepared to accept the consequences of your definition. If not, then you
might as well not have wasted the effort.

	Fundamentally, I can't disagree with that statement. It is a
logical statement. But as I find myself constantly reminding MYSELF (as
well as others), there are some things to which logic simply cannot be
truly applied.

Not necessarily. It just depends on what kind of logic you're using, and
how well you're applying it. ;)

Magic is by definition that which nature cannot allow, but
by the will of one being must be allowed. It is the exception, not the
rule...a mystery and a power to be either respected or feared.

To paraphrase a physicist, "Why should your will have anything to do with
the world?" It's kinda funny, since I've never seen magic defined that way;
I've always seen magic defined in terms of science: magic is what science
cannot explain.

Note that "science" does not equal "nature". Obviously nature allowed it!
It happened! There's no reason to think that you forced nature to work that
way; after all, nature is bigger than you! (Or put another way, _you_ are
part of nature!) The presence of magic would tell us that our scientific
models of nature are somehow incomplete.

I don't see any reason why magic _couldn't_ be natural if it actually
exists. When I've taken a close look at magic as it is actually written, I
find much in common with mundane forces. It's just that its "laws" are a
little screwy.

This is
part of the reason that long ago, in the days of D&D, it didn't pay to
tick off a mage unless you knew how powerful he was...because although he
studied science and method to learn his craft, you never really knew what
would happen next. Magic, especially "hermetic" magic (as you seem to be
implying most magical systems are),

I've noticed a tendancy to that end when the systems are defined,
especially in RPGs of late. It keeps the players from abusing the rules. :)
But I do know that there are other systems. My personal favorite magic
system is World of Darkness Mage: the Ascention sphere magick. It is NOT
hermetic (although there is a hermetic tradition, the Order of Hermes).
With a couple of reservations, I think it's a VERY coherent and flexible
magic system.

is like trying to tame chaos. No one
man could ever truly do it.

The limits of knowledge. I've never believed for a second that science will
ever completely describe nature. You'd be surprised how often nature
surprises us! ;)

well-defined and concrete magical system for the world in which you plan
to explore, but also the fact that magic by it's very nature simply CANNOT
be rigid.

At least rigid only to the degree one desires.

cast the Dragu Slave? No. But she DOES. Because the plot demanded it,
really. Fate does things like that; throws kinks into even the best laid
plans. Makes exceptions to rules we believed were concrete. Sows
dissension in the scientific ranks.

Like I said, magical "laws" are screwy, and this just means that the
"scientific theories" of magic are incomplete and need work. Science is
discriptive in nature; it cannot force the world to work in ANY particular
way.

	In short, I think that I'd take a milder stance than Tom-kun seems
to. If you're going to define a magic system, great: it adds flavor to a

<snip>

Maybe I came across harsher than I intended, but this is basically the same
stance I take, just in a different form. The "waste in effort" comes when
you wrack your brains coming up with a neat system, but you have to discard
it because it doesn't specify the system you really wanted.

That being said, I'm ready to present some guidelines...

Guidelines:
1) Magicians are human, too.
   The only person who REALLY knows how his world works is the author.
   Everyone else is stumbling through the world just as we do ours.
   Hypotheses of magicians may be wrong.

2) Be as rigid as necessary/desired, but no more.
   You're making these rules to make YOUR life easier, to give you a
   good framework onto which to hang your mystic phenomena. Don't let
   it chain you if you don't want it to.

Those are the two general guidelines to magic-bulding. Now for some
specifics for you mystical mastocists who _like_ some definition to magic:
3) Don't make exceptions; change the rule.
   Exceptions are indicators that a deeper rule is at work. If you
   need to, invent a new term. It will make your system more elegant.

4) Don't make a rule you don't follow.
   If the rule isn't followed, then why is it a rule?

5) Think out the consequences of your rules.
   Sit down and think about the ramifications of your rules. Doing this
   often will dig up contradictions that you don't want. Decide which (if
   either) rule you want more, and change the other. Also, your rule might
   forbid something that you want in your story. If that happens, change
   your rule accordingly.

6) Keep It Simple Stupid!
   Unnecessary assumptions just make your life harder. Don't decide on
   something if you don't need to. If the premise that you make doesn't
   have any effects on your world, then don't make it.

I think 6 is the most important of these. Decide on a rule for your magic
system only if that rule will have real effects on your story. The less
rules you make, the less grief you'll endure when you run up against
unnecessary complications they create.

                           ---------------------
##   ## ##   ## #######  ##   ##  AKA Tom Jefferys, Time Lord for Hire
##   ##  #   #   ##   ## ### ###      "Have TARDIS; Will Travel."
## # ##   ###    #####   ## # ##  Wielder of ANVIL and SPAM!
### ###    #     ##  ##  ##   ##     [ Will code for food! ]
##   ##   ###   ###   ## ##   ##_of_UT haunts <wyrm@mail.utexas.edu>
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"What kind of stupid alien escapes in a car?!"
                                     -- Kizuki Mitsuha, Silbuster ch.1