Evolution of Magic - Can You Make Magic Plausible?

[Laurence]

Say you have one 'magical' race on your human planet and you want to plausibly explain how this 'magic' came about through evolution. How would you do this?

A slightly nonsensical question, I know, but I'd like to see what you can come up with.

Here are a few examples to try out:
-A race which may draw 'life force' from water.
-A race which may draw a burst of energy from the sun's rays.
-A race with some kind of forcefield coating their body.
-A race which communicates telepathically.
-A race which may start a fire at the click of their fingers!

Feel free to invent your own 'magical' examples to explain semi-scientifically.

 

[WooHooMan]

"A race which may draw 'life force' from water."

Considering that people need water to sustain their life, humans already do this.

"A race which may draw a burst of energy from the sun's rays."

People already draw energy from the sun. It's called vitamin D.

So, I think it's safe to say humans are pretty magical.

But seriously: when I try to do a "magically race" or anything magic related, I have it more of a mental process. As in, you can't just naturally do magic or be magical, you have to make a conscious effort. When I did a magic race, I tried to make it apparent that their magic was more of a cultural thing than a biological thing.

I feel like saying "oh, these people can just do magic because whatever" kind of cheapens what magic is. I think it's more interesting when anyone is capable of doing magic and I think it's always more rewarding when a character has to put in effort to do magic.

 

[Saigonnus]

I feel like saying "oh, these people can just do magic because whatever" kind of cheapens what magic is. I think it's more interesting when anyone is capable of doing magic and I think it's always more rewarding when a character has to put in effort to do magic.

I agree with this point, but only to a point... One shouldn't have a magical creature in his world just for the sake of having one, it should have an ecology to it just like any other creature. If your magic is a natural occurring thing (like the force), it stands to reason that some creatures would develop an innate ability or two from subconsciously interacting with that natural force. It is my thought that such abilities should be natural and useful in its habitat. For example, perhaps you have a breed of cat that can enlarge its own size to that of a large dog. It developed as a defense mechanism against the large wolves that prowl the plains, so they might better defend themselves. Another example is the natural resistence to magic some dwarves have (using D&D as an example) ingrained in their race, or darksight in elves; they can't "do" anything with it, it is just there.

I think ultimately it will come down to what you want to accomplish with your "magical" creature.

If I was going to create a creature from the above examples it might be something as follows:

Spark Imps: These diminutive winged creatures stand between 5 and 6 inches tall and reside in colonies of between 500 and 2000 beneath the frozen nothern wastes. Their societal structure is much like insects in that there is one queen and hundreds of drones but that is only the basics, really they have between 5 and 20 queens in the colony each with about 100 "drones" that serve them.

The drones serve as mates, soldiers, workers and hunters all at once and only the largest and strongest are chosen to mate with their queen. Each time she gives birth it is up to 50 offspring at a given time, in small cocoons that are carefully nurtured for 3 weeks before they hatch.

Ecology: The foragers collect the roots of the tough grass that grows above and refine into a sticky substance they use to coat their bodies to keep warm in the sub-zero temperatures. When they travel into the wilds beyond their ant-colony warrens, they wear it or they die; simple as that.

All Imps have the ability; at will, to generate a spark of flame, which can potentially be used to light fires or keep them warm by lighting the jelly coating of their bodies on fire; which raises their body temperature rapidly but depletes their coating. Such a display is also used to ward off predator cats and foxes that roam the landscape.

 

[skip.knox]

Magic in my world is not biological, it's physical, so evolution doesn't play a role. FWIW, the "scientific" explanation involves both phlogiston and aether. For about a thousand years, nobody knew about either of these, and the explanations for how and why magic worked were a hundred different kinds of silly. Then, for a long time, these were theoretical concepts but no more. Phlogiston was finally isolated, ushering in a new Age of Science and the whole apparatus of magic changed. Aether continues to be a theoretical construct, but one which appears to be necessary. There is, of course, a movement that aims at a Unified Field Theory for Magic, but that remains on the fringes of science.

As for magical beings, such as giants or dragons, it has been proved they contain unusually large concentrations of phlogiston, which gives them their unusual properties. In olden times, of course, the explanations for such creatures ranged from divine ordination to conjurations by wizards, to the operations of drow (the drow often got blamed for anything inexplicable).

 

[ThinkerX]

With me its straight up psi, courtesy of the 'ancient aliens.' These aliens had a technology based in part on psi ability. They brought humans and others to a world they 'terraformed' and made them into servants. Needing assistants, they imbued selected humans with substantial psi ability. Things went bad for the aliens, and the descendant's of the imbued humans became the first wizards.

As to what they can do...well, by most fantasy magic standards it's fairly common and wimpy: ESP, 'remote viewing,' telekinesis, levitation, 'faith healing,' pyrokinesis, and teleporting. In story terms this translates to charms, curses, illusions, magical cures, and so on. There are also slews of rituals, runes, and whatnot of differing degrees of effectiveness. But again, they're wimps; it's a rare wizard who can work more than a few spells each day.

Being a Lovecraft fan, I also have abominations from beyond taking an interest in the planet, sometimes sharing a tiny fraction of their far vaster abilities with this or that wizard.

 

[Terry Greer]

My magic is always 'Clarkean magic' i.e. any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

At the back of my fantasy books are artificial viruses or bacteria, nanomachines, bionics and host of other technologies. I know how they work and what their limitations and limits are - but there's no need for the reader to know this or have it spelt out. So I leave it up to them to decide what it is and just don't use the word 'magic' .

Of course I'm consistent, so that the reader also can build up their own understanding of what can and has happened, but I find the word magic itself a bit overused and meaningless - to me magic has really become a word that simply means 'I don't know how that works'. So I'd rather invent terms for the individual actions that happen (body changing - creation from nothing, speaking at a distance etc) and not use the term magic at all.

 

[Noldona]

I guess it really depends on your definition of magic. Is magic something requiring rituals and spells to accomplish? Does it require some powerful being to intercede on your behalf? Or is it something more mundane and natural? If you define magic as manipulating energy for a desired affect, you can go with a more scientific explanation for how it works. Living things generate a electromagnetic field around themselves. As we already manipulate energy inside our bodies on a subconscious level, it's theoretically possible that a creature could evolve to manipulate this generated field as well. You can say that magic is the result of learning to manipulate this field to do extraordinary things. Different creates would learn how to do different things with this based upon their environment and needs.

 

[chrispenycate]

All this is well and good, and any magic system I deliver is likely to obey conservation laws, and essentially a technology like any other. But doesn't this render your magic banal, mundane? Shouldn't magic be mysterious, close to incomprehensible? Shouldn't it be magical?

That said, if there is any energy source around and life, something will evolve to utilise that energy. In a universe with evolution, at least. A fully magic universe might run differently, faster if nothing else (though you can get speciation in a couple of centuries, with species with a sufficiently fast generation rate, a small enough base population or a high enough death rate.

But lifeforms evolved to use magic wouldn't necessarily have the stimulus to develop sapience. Meaning that the species that did start with intelligence would have to domesticate or somehow control the magic using beasts/plants/fungi/micro-organisms. After all, ii you are magic why evolve intelligence, unless every organism in the plenum were equally magic (Oh, oh, there's the SF logic sneaking in again).

 

[Mindfire]

Say you have one 'magical' race on your human planet and you want to plausibly explain how this 'magic' came about through evolution. How would you do this?

A slightly nonsensical question, I know, but I'd like to see what you can come up with.

Here are a few examples to try out:
-A race which may draw 'life force' from water.
-A race which may draw a burst of energy from the sun's rays.
-A race with some kind of forcefield coating their body.
-A race which communicates telepathically.
-A race which may start a fire at the click of their fingers!

Feel free to invent your own 'magical' examples to explain semi-scientifically.

I don't mean to undermine the discussion here, I'd just like to know: why would you want to? Isn't magic's lack of a naturalistic explanation part of its attraction? Isn't that part of what makes it, and fantasy by extension, so interesting? What's your motive for wanting to explain magic away by (pseudo) scientific means? I could understand doing this in a sci-fi setting where you want "magical" abilities but don't want to break established scientific rules and plausibility (e.g. biotics in Mass Effect). But in a fantasy universe where there are no such limits, why go for the naturalistic approach?

 

[Graylorne]

Why? is a strange question to ask a fantasy writer . One has an idea of a fantasy world and if one needs a scientific explanation for magic, then that's what one must develop.

In my Rhidauna books, mana is a rare gas in the air of my alternate world. It is the ‘stuff of creation’, an element that makes you able to change the natural World. To create a fireball, it lets you kneed oxygen with methane (or something like that); to teleport from A to D it lets you fold the walls of the multiverse, etc. About 25% of the children born are sensitive to the stuff and become mages, priests, or any other mana user. That’s pseudo scientific and still magic.

I wouldn’t know why magic should be mysterious perse. Now I write fantasy adventures, not high, that could make a difference. But in the end it is all in the manner of world you want to create and the story you want to tell.

 

[Mindfire]

Why? is a strange question to ask a fantasy writer . One has an idea of a fantasy world and if one needs a scientific explanation for magic, then that's what one must develop.

In my Rhidauna books, mana is a rare gas in the air of my alternate world. It is the ‘stuff of creation’, an element that makes you able to change the natural World. To create a fireball, it lets you kneed oxygen with methane (or something like that); to teleport from A to D it lets you fold the walls of the multiverse, etc. About 25% of the children born are sensitive to the stuff and become mages, priests, or any other mana user. That’s pseudo scientific and still magic.

I wouldn’t know why magic should be mysterious perse. Now I write fantasy adventures, not high, that could make a difference. But in the end it is all in the manner of world you want to create and the story you want to tell.

I suppose I mean that, if your magic has a scientific explanation, why are you writing fantasy and not sci-fi? Are you still writing fantasy at that point?

 

[Graylorne]

I think, even with a scientific explanation, magic can be pretty esoteric. It's how you tell the story.

But I am decidedly writing fantasy. The whole make-up is fantasy, with mages and sorcerers, and such. Only the build-up of the world, where the gods are real and communicate freely with their subjects, makes that magic-users are much more aware of their craft.

And for the author it is handy to know the working of magic better, to know what would be possible and what not.
I remember from David Eddings' books, that young Belgarion stopped a war by unleashing a terrible storm. A very impressive scene. Only months later his grandfather Belgarath came, still spitting mad because he'd spend months repairing the damage to the world's weather that storm had caused. That's a nice mix of magic and science.

 

[Laurence]

My magic is always 'Clarkean magic' i.e. any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

At the back of my fantasy books are artificial viruses or bacteria, nanomachines, bionics and host of other technologies. I know how they work and what their limitations and limits are - but there's no need for the reader to know this or have it spelt out. So I leave it up to them to decide what it is and just don't use the word 'magic' .

Of course I'm consistent, so that the reader also can build up their own understanding of what can and has happened, but I find the word magic itself a bit overused and meaningless - to me magic has really become a word that simply means 'I don't know how that works'. So I'd rather invent terms for the individual actions that happen (body changing - creation from nothing, speaking at a distance etc) and not use the term magic at all.

This is my attitude towards fantastical elements also. I wont explain every little quirk in my world during my story. I do, however, like to know the logic and history behind all of my creations. I guess it gives me piece of mind knowing that nothing is contradicting each other. This will also allow my readers to come to a satisfying conclusion, should they try to get their head around how my world works themselves, beyond what is explained in the story.

I don't mean to undermine the discussion here, I'd just like to know: why would you want to? Isn't magic's lack of a naturalistic explanation part of its attraction? Isn't that part of what makes it, and fantasy by extension, so interesting? What's your motive for wanting to explain magic away by (pseudo) scientific means? I could understand doing this in a sci-fi setting where you want "magical" abilities but don't want to break established scientific rules and plausibility (e.g. biotics in Mass Effect). But in a fantasy universe where there are no such limits, why go for the naturalistic approach?

I suppose I mean that, if your magic has a scientific explanation, why are you writing fantasy and not sci-fi? Are you still writing fantasy at that point?

I don't write for a living, so I don't write according to the rules of certain genres. My way of thinking may lean toward that of a sci-fi writer, however, what I was really asking for here was not a scientific answer to 'magic', as much as a logical/plausible answer. When I discover a fantastic creature, I can't help but wondering why the creature is the way it is. What advantage does said feature give this creature and why don't many of the animals in this world have the same traits?

I also find that following things to their natural conclusion, e.g. a vague idea of the evolution of a magical creature, is an easy way to create the history of your world, generally giving more depth.

 

[Mindfire]

I don't write for a living, so I don't write according to the rules of certain genres. My way of thinking may lean toward that of a sci-fi writer, however, what I was really asking for here was not a scientific answer to 'magic', as much as a logical/plausible answer. When I discover a fantastic creature, I can't help but wondering why the creature is the way it is. What advantage does said feature give this creature and why don't many of the animals in this world have the same traits?

I also find that following things to their natural conclusion, e.g. a vague idea of the evolution of a magical creature, is an easy way to create the history of your world, generally giving more depth.

Ah, but there are lots of hidden assumptions that underlie this logic. The biggest among them being that this world operates on scientific principles similar to our own and that evolution plays a part in shaping this world's wildlife. But what if these assumptions do not hold? What if the universe operates, not on deterministic natural laws, but rather by the agency of deities, spirits, and even humans? What if magic isn't an evolved trait, but a gift that operates on its own idiosyncratic rules that can vary even from person to person? Suppose animals and monsters didn't merely evolve but were created by good forces or engineered by evil ones, either on a whim or for a specific purpose? These are the kinds of things you can do in fantasy that you can't do in other genres. It's fun, unique, and even profound in its own way. Naturally it's all a matter of preference, but even leaving one's own personal philosophical stance out of the equation, I don't understand why one would forego this kind of authorial power- tie one's hands, so to speak- for the sake of plausibility.

Do not misunderstand me; every fantasy world needs to feel somewhat consistent. But plausibility is optional. Following things to their natural conclusion is great for lorebuilding, but those conclusions need not be naturalistic. Fantasy is, in many ways, the new mythology. And in many ways the genre operates on mythological, rather than scientific rules. And the old mythology is full of things like monsters who were once people before bringing curses upon themselves, the earth and sky being lovers who are forever kept apart, the sun being a boat that the gods sail through the underworld every night to battle an ancient chaos-serpent. Fantasy is heir to these things and more.