3,798 as the day comes to a close. Today I brought a journal with me everywhere and actually did a lot of "oh, I have a few minutes? I should write!" But I didn't really learn anything new about the world.
Magic is not exactly the opposite of entropy. Magic is a power, like energy, that reacts to and can make changes in matter. In my world but more advanced, magic would run through circuit boards in the same way electricity does. (Unless my world is more advanced and I just don't know it yet.) However, when matter reacts to energy, it tends to go from a more organized state to a less organized state, and that's entropy. When matter does that, it's called physics or chemistry. When matter reacts to magic, it likes to go from less organized states to more organized states. And that's why magic makes matter do things that aren't possible under the laws of physics!
Or something like that. I haven't quite thought it through yet. I have decided that elves are long-lived because their biology involves both body chemistry and "body alchemy," the magical equivalent. The more anyone uses magic, the longer they'll tend to live, because their body alchemy reverses most of the aging processes, but elves are particularly well-built for this.
I hope you don't mind me rambling at you! Trying to think through all the implications of this setup is difficult, and it helps to try and organize it for someone else. I do wish I knew a bit more biology and chemistry than I do... and some extra physics would help, too. I just have the feeling that magic isn't something mystical, it's something scientific.
And thanks to writing this out, I've decided I need to advance my civilization a couple of centuries. See how helpful you are!
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Date: 2011-08-03 07:48 am (UTC)Magic is not exactly the opposite of entropy. Magic is a power, like energy, that reacts to and can make changes in matter. In my world but more advanced, magic would run through circuit boards in the same way electricity does. (Unless my world is more advanced and I just don't know it yet.) However, when matter reacts to energy, it tends to go from a more organized state to a less organized state, and that's entropy. When matter does that, it's called physics or chemistry. When matter reacts to magic, it likes to go from less organized states to more organized states. And that's why magic makes matter do things that aren't possible under the laws of physics!
Or something like that. I haven't quite thought it through yet. I have decided that elves are long-lived because their biology involves both body chemistry and "body alchemy," the magical equivalent. The more anyone uses magic, the longer they'll tend to live, because their body alchemy reverses most of the aging processes, but elves are particularly well-built for this.
I hope you don't mind me rambling at you! Trying to think through all the implications of this setup is difficult, and it helps to try and organize it for someone else. I do wish I knew a bit more biology and chemistry than I do... and some extra physics would help, too. I just have the feeling that magic isn't something mystical, it's something scientific.
And thanks to writing this out, I've decided I need to advance my civilization a couple of centuries. See how helpful you are!