The Factory Floor - 2017-10-03 (page 1 of 2)

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12:02 AM

since the original counterproposal was floated by a lass though...as to which of the noble lads would respond the angriest/nastiest to it? (although Cersei vs. my character would make for some intriguing sparks flying)

Mithrandir24601

@Shalvenay Exactly. Would be pretty funny really...

@Shalvenay I don't think there are any left who would...

@Mithrandir24601 we can go through the back-catalog of the not-left then ;)

Mithrandir24601

@Shalvenay Oooh, does the mad king count?

@Mithrandir24601 I suppose he could

Mithrandir24601

I don't know what he would do, but it would be interesting if he refused (his character's such an unknown that you could certainly get away with it :P )

12:10 AM

@Mithrandir24601 how would he go about refusing? XD

Mithrandir24601

@Shalvenay Don't really know, except something to do with him being mad and known for trying to burn everyone alive. Certainly sounds like the sort of person who's very capable of disagreeing :P Anyway, it's after 1am, so I'm off to bed - night!

@Mithrandir24601 cya

12 hours later…

12:39 PM

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Questions

How would you determine the upper and lower temperature limits be for a race of human-sized reptiles? It's a fairly well-known fact at this point that reptiles are ecotherms, meaning that they require outside sources of heat to stay warm and metabolize. However, being too hot or too cold can h...

3 hours later…

3:18 PM

Bluh. Barry is blagging my head.

1 hour later…

4:45 PM

Howdy, y'all.

Howdy.

My question is doing terribly! Edited to change its meaning by an experienced member, downvoted 3 times, put on hold, no useful answers. I want to delete it, but it says that would "deprive future readers of this knowledge."

You can still delete it.

Yeah, but it says if I do that too many times I won't be allowed to ask any more questions.

I think I was hoping for too much when I asked the question. They say that it's opinion based when they put it on hold, but I don't think it is. I just think it's looking for an answer with an extensive knowledge of biology and anatomy, and that's a really hard topic to study. I see lots of great answers based in physics, but physics is just easier.

what question?

4:55 PM

-2

Q: How could magic manifest itself as a consequence of real biology?

Magic is is often portrayed as something totally beyond or outside mundane life. For example, it is often expressed as an energy outside the body, something the wizard/witch can tap into but it isn't actually a part of him/herself. If it needs fuel, it's often a fictional fuel (such as invented ...

science-based biology magic chemistry biochemistry

I'm trying to decide if I should try to edit it somehow, or abandon it. And if I should edit it, should I edit it gently, or radically.

I guess deleting it is still an option, too.

If you feel that an edit is not helping your question you can always roll it back

I don't really feel that. It did help. It's a better wording, overall. I'd keep most of it. I just find some parts of it troublesome, but I keep them because they were done by a very high rep member, because I trusted that person's judgement. Now that it's on hold I guess I have to stop trusting that judgement.

@Geo You can also edit the question further as long as you don't invalidate existing answers.

@sphennings Is that really something I should be concerned about for an On Hold question? Doesn't that mean the question as it stands is a bad fit for the site and should never have been asked? Why try to preserve it for existing answers when it's been blocked from getting any more answers?

Your original question has a good core but there's a lot distracting from it. Especially the many many many question marks (and associated mini questions) make it tiresome to read / detract from what you might want. JBH tried to synthesize that core but failed horribly by overdoing it with the editing in my opinion.

From my POV the best point of action would be to take a look at JBH's edit and then roll-back and try to achieve the same 'clarity' with your own words.

5:02 PM

I really wanted a guide to biology and how it can be integrated with systems of magic. I was aiming for something too big to expect. Now I'm thinking I should boil it down to the very specific needs of the story I'm trying to write.

@Geo On hold means that the question as it currently is is a bad fit for this site.

@sphennings Surely if it is a bad fit as it currently is, you wouldn't deny me the ability to change it just because it might mess up existing answers.

If the question is edited it will automatically added to a review queue for users with over 3k rep to determine if the question can be re-opened or not.

@dot_Sp0T What did you mean by "a good core"?

@Geo As a rule it is a bad idea to invalidate existing answers. It's unfair to the answeres to be penalized for not answering the question when they were answering the question as it was when they posted.

5:06 PM

@sphennings So what's more important? Protecting existing answers, or making the question a good fit for the site?

@Geo Stack Exchange has always been more focused to creating good answers than good questions. Here is an article from 2011 that discusses it.

There are other bits of evidence to this fact such as that an upvote on an answer is worth twice that of an upvote on a question.

@Geo I don't know who the "high rep" user is, but they might not have been editing it to make it "fully acceptable". Looking at the edit reason, they just put "Clarity and legibility of question" which means that they were just fixing some wording, but otherwise didn't want to change the spirit of the question. Now if their edit made the question too broad or whatever then fix those parts. But that's not what looks like happened

@AndyD273 That was a very extensive edit to clarify the question and improve legibility.

@Geo as in your question isn't total bs

@AndyD273 What bugs me most is how they changed the title to make it into a question about how real biology could produce magic. That's obviously impossible. I was just looking to integrate some real facts about biology into my magic system, like a good writer who had some research.

5:13 PM

@Geo then . change . it. back . to . what . you . want . it . to . say

It's still your question

@dot_Sp0T I think it'll need more than that to get it out of On Hold, though. I guess it's a start, at least.

Yeah, looking at it closer it does look like they changed more than I initially thought

@Geo One of the reasons to reject edits from low reputation users is that it clearly conflicts with the OP's intent. If the edit conflicts with your intent then do what dot_Sp0T is saying.

What @sphennings is trying to say is that you should always do as I say

5K isn't especially high rep, but for the record if @James of many names were to make an edit to one of my posts that I felt changed what I was asking I'd still roll it back

5:15 PM

It's like Simon says, but with murder

@AndyD273 I'd roll it just because

I'm not going to roll it back. I'm going to try to build upon the improvements that he made.

I don't know about protecting existing answers though. I don't like the existing answers much. I was looking for answers based in biology, but so far none of them provide any scientific knowledge of biology.

There's multiple camps on that one. My camp says: if someone answers a question before it's well-defined then it's your own damn fault if your answer is invalidated

@Geo Now to answer the question as originally asked... Have you put any thought into what actually makes magic work? Is it a will power thing? Or giving instructions that the universe has to follow? Or something else I haven't thought of?

@dot_Sp0T I'd agree with that

@dot_Sp0T I guess the fact that it got put on hold proves that it wasn't well-defined.

@James sorry for invoking your name in vain. :)

5:20 PM

@AndyD273 Well I am off to mass edit posts. Have a fun afternoon! :D

@James you're a terrible person

@dot_Sp0T You all knew that though.

@James Oh! That post I put up yesterday about the audible deal, you could delete that if you wanted

That sale is over, and now it's just a tease

But why would he want to do that? His agenda is chaos.

@dot_Sp0T I don't really care either way. It's still a good book. it's just not $4 any more, and it's cluttering up the star board

5:23 PM

@AndyD273 I was just about to make us some random BS about how magic works in my story, and then it struck me that a good writer would do some research and find and real existing biological system that could be worked into the explanation for magic. The problem is that I never took any biology courses in school.

user image

@Geo Don't explain your magic.

@Geo Any sufficiently explained magic is indistinguishable from technology.

@Geo You don't have to explain it, but having a slight idea for yourself is good so you know if something is a good answer or not

@Geo By that I mean you do the worst thing you can do to a magic system. You will make it mundane. It will cease to be magical.

@sphennings Oh, I know not to over-explain it. I don't want to put the readers to sleep. But I do think I should have a solid idea of how it works for myself and I want to be able to hint at that in the story.

5:25 PM

@Geo Having a consistent system is one thing. Explaining it at all is the problem.

@Geo There are those who have studied the biological sciences around here. Wizards who have unraveled the mysteries of life and death. Do not undertake the journey lightly as you cannot unlearn what you will see...

Like, Maybe the appendix is actually a magic organ that allows for manipulation of reality, but I wouldn't know if that is a good answer to your question. If magic is a mental force of will, it might be that spinal fluid is a better answer...

Or something

Yeah, but anyone can pick a random body part and say: here's where the magic is. The real trick is then having the knowledge of biology necessary to figure out how that affects the magic system. Like what sort of chemicals affect that part of the body and how, what weaknesses would that create for wizards, and so on.

@Geo Why even explain where the magic comes from. That's still explaining the magic system.

At first I thought to use the vascular system, but then I tried to research vasodilators. It's really, really complicated! That's when I realized I might need some help.

5:31 PM

@Geo The only exception for this is if you really want a magician to be stabbed in the spleen and be unable to cast spells.

@sphennings I'm not going to tell the readers where the magic comes from. I just need to know it for myself so I can make the story consistent and drop hints.

@sphennings It's super important for wizards to have weaknesses. They are naturally OP.

@Geo That depends on the magic system.

@Geo If they are OP they are only OP vs non wizards.

@Geo Wizards already have weaknesses. Like spleen stabbing.

That's why I want to tie magic to some real biological system, so the magic can be affected by things which affect that biological system, like drugs and toxins.

@Geo Like the will of the magician.

I guess the real core of my question is: "I want wizards to have a weakness based in real biology. What biological system can I tie my magic system to so that magic can be realistically affected by some real chemicals in low doses, like something that could affect the wizard if slipped into food or on contact with skin."

5:37 PM

Lots of things are affected by things that affect biological systems without being biological in origin. Think about driving while intoxicated or stabbed in the spleen.

@Geo Wizards are still human. They have all the weaknesses of a human.

Yeah, but wizards need to have more weaknesses than that, or else they are OP. It's like how vampires are affected by sunlight and garlic.

That reminds me, I should add to the question that the chemicals that affect wizards should also have no serious affects on normal people.

@Geo Sounds like there are magic anti wizard herbs. How do they work? magic

@sphennings Wouldn't that be doing it the easy way? I want to be a good writer who does research.

yeah, @sphennings I feel like you're dismissing what could turn out to be a pretty interesting concept

(and, now that I've disagreed with someone, I will yet again fade back into the shadows)

@DaaaahWhoosh I don't see an interesting concept I see someone trying to make the fantastic mundane.

5:42 PM

yeah, but I mean, to each their own. Some people like that sort of thing

damn, I was supposed to have faded.

@sphennings No, no, it's still going to be all sorts of fantastic. The whole reason I want to give wizards weaknesses is because they have crazy fantastic powers. They'd be invincible without special weaknesses. I just want to tie their weaknesses to some fact of biology.

@Geo I'd suggest focusing on your story keep track of what magic does and make sure it's consistent.

@Geo What is the weakness of wizards in Harry Potter?

@sphennings Their weakness is other wizards, I guess, since that's the only thing that ever fights them.

@Geo There are also magical beasts. Dementors, werwolves, dragons, trolls, giant spiders, animated chess pieces, mermaids, bogarts, etc.

@sphennings I guess a better answer would be that their weakness is dependence on wands. Take away their wand and they are disabled.

5:46 PM

@Geo There is the concept of wandless magic.

Why do wizards need a weakness exactly?

I'm going to change the title of my question to "Weaknesses of Wizards based in Real Biology?" And edit the content of the question around that new title.

@sphennings Because having the power to do almost anything is boring unless it comes with a weakness.

@Geo Don't. Ask it as a different question.

@Bellerophon Really? But my current question is On Hold. It's begging to be edited. Is this too great a change? I feel like it's the spirit of my original question.

It is a different question and thus should be asked as such.

@Geo It's only boring if you write it to be boring.

5:56 PM

@Bellerophon Does that mean there's no way to edit my original question to be suitable for this site? Should I delete it?

No, you should edit you old question without changing the question.

@Bellerophon Some questions are just bad. Sometimes it's not a matter how you word a question; it'll never be a good question no matter how we ask it.

Sure, in that case the question should be closed and then abandoned. In that questions case I think it could be salvaged.

@Bellerophon How?

Firstly remove the second question. Second define what magic is.

6:05 PM

Define magic? Like, "The ability to make amazing things happen, such as conjure objects from nothing, transform things, and throw destructive blasts"? That sort of definition?

Third remove the second to last paragraph as their are too many questions.

@Geo Yes, because otherwise it is unanswerable.

You're talking about the question of how to get magic from real biology? That's so frustrating. My original question wasn't asking about that at all! Then someone edited it.

@Geo then roll it back already so people are on the same page as you

stop whining, start working

Obviously there can be no physiological basis for making an object appear out of nothing in real life.

@dot_Sp0T I was about to post a serious edit to the question, but Bellerophon stopped me.

Yes there can - it's called processing electromagnetic wavelengths or the lack of processing

6:08 PM

Oh, sorry.

Bad @Bellerophon

I'll just go and punish myself.

guess who just missed their train

@dot_Sp0T "Processing"? Is that something I could look up on wikipedia?

Light and sound are electromagnetic waves of different length and frequency. Your eyes and ears are receptors that can process different wavelengths and your brain then translates this data into something you can work with (aka pictures / sound)

6:11 PM

@dot_Sp0T So you're talking about an illusion, not a real object.

define real

I mean something that can be touched as well as seen.

Thanks to being diagnosed with aspergers (a milder form of autism) I've had a chance to start thinking about what is and what is not. E.g. the definition of normal. Or perception. Etc. We adhere to common standards - these standards can be changed

@dot_Sp0T Sounds like epistemology, the study of what it means to know something.

Again, a standard made up by a mass followed by a greater mass

Mithrandir24601

6:15 PM

@Geo The phrase 'I know nothing except for this fact' comes to mind

If a tree falls over and nobody sees/hears it - does it fall over?

If you bump into something, but you can't see it - is it there?

@dot_Sp0T Yes, yes.

Mithrandir24601

@dot_Sp0T As @Bellerophon said, yes and yes :P

@dot_Sp0T Probably.

The tree was still observed falling.

6:17 PM

The tree fell because you just said it fell. It's baked into the question.

Mithrandir24601

@dot_Sp0T This one is quite simple. Tree falls over implies tree falls over :P

@dot_Sp0T I have 28 years of constant evidence to the self consistency of the world. Statistically speaking it's highly likely that events happen when they aren't observed.

The tree falling is but an assumption. It could've always been there the way it is now. It could've just appeared before you looked around the bushes that hid it.

Mithrandir24601

@sphennings Beginning to sound like the quantum Zeno effect

@dot_Sp0T No, it will have either been observed to have fallen or not.

6:19 PM

So if it lies there, but nobody claims to have seen it fall - did it still fall down?

Mithrandir24601

@dot_Sp0T So what you meant to ask was "If you observe a tree trunk on the ground, did it fall over?"

@Mithrandir24601 nono, I did ask what I wanted to ask. The issue here is language and what properties we assign to words.

If we can't describe a situation/something with language - can it still happen/be ?

Mithrandir24601

@dot_Sp0T Let me rephrase what I said earlier: qwertyuiop implies qwertyuiop :P

Although the latter starts veering towards psychology

@dot_Sp0T Yes.

6:21 PM

@Bellerophon But how can something be we cannot describe?

Mithrandir24601

Doesn't matter what 'A' is, but A implies A is tautologically correct

@dot_Sp0T Something I don't know about yet so have no word for can still happen.

Yet people that do not know a word for anger do not get angry

@dot_Sp0T I'd disagree with that statement.

@dot_Sp0T Sounds unlikely.

6:32 PM

@Geo you sound unlikely

6:48 PM

How can someone sound unlikely?

@dot_Sp0T I think that is mostly determined by if anyone was in the render distance determined by the simulations GPU.

Well, I just gave my question a major overhaul. I replaced practically every word of it, but I feel that I preserved the original intent of the question, and the answers that it already has don't seem especially worse for the the change.

Unfortunately, even if it ever gets taken off On Hold, it'll still be a -2 question, so it will probably never get any useful answers.

That looks like a too broad question to me.

@Geo sweet, though I'd change the title to better reflect that you're looking for a biologic process/system that can be influenced externally without severely affecting normal bodily processes

It's also unclear what you mean by asking for an organ that can be affected by something that doesn't affect it in normal people.

6:57 PM

@dot_Sp0T Sounds like a lot to put into a title. Do you have a suggestion?

@dot_Sp0T If it can be influenced without affecting normal bodily processes it wasn't influenced significantly.

@Geo It looks like you're looking for a way to depower wizards.

What's wrong with green rocks?

Being not a significant influence for normal people doesn't mean that it's not significant for wizards.

@sphennings not significantly in order to influence your normal bodily functions - but enough to jam your magic

@sphennings Green rocks are too easy. I could go with green rocks, but I think readers would appreciate something with more thought and research.

e.g. a vitamin deficit/excess might not have any stronger influence on you than a small migraine if at all. but might make a wizard powerless

@Geo you should link your green rocks quote to tvtropes

@Geo If I had something briefer I'd edit

7:02 PM

I actually like the Chi suggestion that a couple people put. It's something that could exist in anyone, but people who do magic are able to consciously direct it. If something happens to block the chi, like a pinched nerve, or maybe consuming some kind of a mineral, then the ability to do magic is diminished.

@AndyD273 I guess it's not bad. It's better than nothing. But it seems like Chi isn't based in anything that really exists in the body, like organs and biological systems. It's a lot like green rocks, isn't it?

Or maybe it's your enteric flora. A good gut makes you git gud!

@dot_Sp0T That's at the discretion of the worldbuilder

@dot_Sp0T But could enteric flora ever be exploited as some sort of weakness for a wizard? What kills enteric flora?

@dot_Sp0T That's beginning to sound like medichlorians.

7:04 PM

@Geo Maybe. There are a lot of people that think that Chi is a real thing. Maybe it is, and it's just not something that science is able to detect yet?

@Geo You are trying to create medichlorians. I'd strongly suggest you don't.

Mithrandir24601

@AndyD273 Chi is a bad word in this case. It's really just the air/breath/energy that keeps you alive. Nothing magical about that :P

@sphennings No, no, I'm looking for something that actually exists in the body. If it's going to be a mechanism inside the cell, then I want a real one, not a fictional one.

@Geo There is no mechanism for magic within the body. It will by definition be fictional.

Some of the junk RNA/DNA.

That would make them vulnerable to radiation and gene editing.

7:07 PM

@sphennings Magic is fictional, but the mechanism that controls magic could still be real. It's just a fiction that the mechanism actually controls magic. Like if you controlled magic with your nose like in that TV show about witches. Noses are real.

@Geo The mechanism to control magic can't be real. If it is real then it's just technology.

Oh! Gut bacteria. What if there is a symbiotic organism that can live in the gut, and that has the side effect of creating mana. You get it from eating certain ceremonial foods. So if you eat the wrong thing the organism dies off and the wizard loses their power, and has to do the ceremony (and eat the food) again to grow it all again.

@@Geo Then any body part will work equally well. Which makes the question too broad.

Gut bacteria can have a huge impact on your life. Get the wrong stuff and you get ulcers. Don't have enough of the right stuff any you end up with other major problems.

@AndyD273 That's a good point.

7:10 PM

That'll be my answer when it gets reopened. Though I'll expand on it a bit

@sphennings It needs to be a body part that can be effected by some sort of drug or toxin to serve as a weakness for the wizard, something which wouldn't kill an ordinary person. I don't need help choosing a random body part. I need help understanding the biology of body parts and how that can fit into a story.

Mithrandir24601

@AndyD273 Perhaps a better/more scientific way (in a specific example) to put it is exhale sharply at/just before the point of impact, so that there's a momentarily tension at the right place to e.g. hit harder. It's just occasionally complicated biomechanics :)

@Mithrandir24601 Could be. I'm not well versed in eastern medicine. A lot of it could just be better health through lower stress because of meditation and stuff.

Mithrandir24601

@AndyD273 Yeah, meditation is known to have benefits

People are capable of very interesting things in the right circumstances, like adrenaline allowing someone to lift a car or something crazy like that

Mithrandir24601

7:14 PM

Research on meditation

For the purpose of this article, research on meditation concerns research into the psychological and physiological effects of meditation using the scientific method of the western tradition. In recent years, these studies have increasingly involved the use of modern scientific techniques and instruments, such as fMRI and EEG which are able to directly observe brain physiology and neural activity in living subjects, either during the act of meditation itself, or before and after a meditation effort, thus allowing linkages to be established between meditative practice and changes in brain structure...

@Geo All body parts can be affected by some drug or toxin. Of course the definition of drug and toxin is dosage dependent and metrics like LD50 are designed using normal baseline humans.

And the brain is a hugely powerful organ. You can literally worry yourself sick, as in destroy your health just by the power of your brain and it's power over your body.

@sphennings I want it to be like something that could be put into the wizard's food or applied to the wizards skin, so it's a serious weakness that would serve as a real limit to the vast magical powers of a wizard. It needs to be something that doesn't require hugely large doses.

I heard a story of a lady who convinced herself that she was sick and was going to die. The doctors ran all kinds of tests, sent her to specialists, etc over several years and were never able to find a single thing wrong with her, or that would make her thing that she was dying. And then one day she just died. Coroner couldn't figure out what to write for the cause of death. So far as they could figure she just thought herself to death.

@Geo alcohol

7:20 PM

@AndyD273 Probably something in her brain. The brain is still so poorly understood. Doctors never seem to be able to cure any brain diseases.

@dot_Sp0T Wow. That's a really interesting idea! I never thought of that. It could actually work. I'll need to research exactly what alcohol does to a person.

@Geo Could be. Point is that there are a lot of things in the human body that are mysterious to science.

@Geo can't tell if you're sarcastic or not. Would you mind clarifying?

@dot_Sp0T Clarifying? I'm just saying that a weakness to alcohol could be a great idea. It's an interesting lead, and if I do some research on the exact physiological effects of alcohol it could get even better.

@dot_Sp0T Oh, I see, so you were saying that alcohol kills enteric flora! Perhaps then a wizard that gets his power from enteric flora would be vulnerable to alcohol. Even better.

@Geo If they get their power from medichlorian gut flora they will be depowered by more than just alcohol. For instance antibiotics.

You must have been abstinent your whole life :/

7:29 PM

@dot_Sp0T I'm looking for internal biology, not just drunkeness.

@Geo then you should really read up on your chemistry/biology - what you call 'drunkenness' is so much more than what you think it to be

4

@Geo Another interesting implication of this is that you could get magical powers from a fecal transplant.

@sphennings Or even natural things. For instance, cinnamon is a natural antifungal, and can be used to help with upper GI yeast infections.

Oh the beauty of deliberate intoxication

@AndyD273 Can you cite a reputable source for that?

7:31 PM

I have to admit, the whole gut flora thing is perhaps a bit icky for my taste. I'm kind of hoping for something better, but I shouldn't be picky.

@sphennings if there are magic bacteria in your gut. But what if a gud gut is all you need for magic? No strange bacteria. Just a fact of life in this conworld.

@sphennings ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5028442

2 seconds of googling...

My personal preference (after having the gut rejected) would be going for something with vitamins. Many people take vitamins without understanding why.

Cinnamon oil and olive oil showed marked sensitivity against the fluconazole resistant C. krusei.

@dot_Sp0T But you can't exactly give someone a vitamin deficiency.

7:33 PM

@AndyD273 That's about treating it in vitro.

@AndyD273 It's certainly indicative that more study should be done but there's a world of difference between a test tube and a human's upper GI track.

@Geo yes you can?

There are lots of other links. and I don't care at all if you think it's true or not.

E.g. have a heavily pigmented person move to Sweden.

@dot_Sp0T What would be a rough outline of a story where a wizard is defeated by vitamin deficiency?

@Geo story-based questions are off-topic here

7:36 PM

Natural sources are used in medicine all the time. Like Aspirin. It started out as willow bark tea, and some scientist decided to see if there was something to it.

On the other hand, Would a human male in their mid-twenties benefit from a snack about 2 hours before going to bed? Answers will be judged on their reasoning and hard data.

@dot_Sp0T I'm getting the feeling that this is not a serious suggestion.

@Geo Here you go, didn't read it: sverigesradio.se/sida/…

@dot_Sp0T I don't mean to downplay the seriousness of vitamin D issues in Sweden, but I'm really looking for something more like wizard kryptonite.

@Geo you asked for an example on how vitamin deficiency can influence people. I brought up a simple example that has lots of prove behind it. You could have a deficiency or too much of a Vitamin seriously affect a person's wizardy-organ.

7:43 PM

@dot_Sp0T It's something to keep in mind, certainly, but it's hard to imagine anything preventing a wizard from eating an appropriate diet to maintain his powers.

You're looking for others to find possible physical limitations without changing the human body other than attaching an imaginary function to an organ. There are limitations, you know?

@dot_Sp0T Yeah, I know it's not an easy question. I just hope that people who know more about biology than I do will find it easier than I do.

No, I mean there are physical limitations.

@dot_Sp0T Physical limitation? I'm not sure I follow your meaning.

7:59 PM

Can it be the other way around? As in they have to eat a particular diet to have power.

@Bellerophon It would need to be something especially rare, but the point is for it to be not imaginary.

Most wizards are allergic to vitamin Pb.

@sphennings Lead?

@Bellerophon If you give a wizard a belly full of lead they're going to be having a bad day.

@Geo I was just thinking you could require them to have a particular osmotic balance requiring them to consume lower levels of water and higher of salt than a normal human. Deprive them of salt or give them a lot of water and their osmotic balance will normalise.

8:02 PM

@sphennings Oh, so vitamin Pb means shooting a person with a gun.

@Bellerophon But it's a wizard. They have vast magical powers. The whole point is to try to balance that power, but how are you going to deny them salt unless you've already overcome the vast magical powers somehow?

@Geo I don't know. Spike their food. Sugar would also work.

@Geo so just for understanding: Everybody is a wizard, right?

@dot_Sp0T Why would everybody be a wizard? That seems like too many wizards.

@Geo so your magic is coupled to some magical additional organ ?

@dot_Sp0T No, I'm looking to use a real organ so I can integrate a little biology research into my story. To give readers who understand biology a bonus as well as educating myself and others.

8:10 PM

@Geo so what is the difference between a wizard and a non-wizard?!

@dot_Sp0T Perhaps it's education in the magical arts, or some sort of initiation that fills the wizard with magical power, or something like that.

@Geo so, in other words, you have not thought about that. Yet you're looking for a way to limit a wizards power - though you have not defined what gives them their power over another non-wizard.

That sounds to me like doing maths without defining what a number is.

Oh no, I know what magical power is. It's throwing destructive blasts and conjuring things and transformations. The issue is just what biological system they're using to control such power. If I knew about all the systems of biology I'd probably be able to pick a good one. Maybe once I have one it will suggest how people are initiated into magic.

So you're going to define what a number is after you invent calculus?

@Geo Any organ or biological system will work as well as any other organ or biological system.

8:17 PM

Is the mechanism of initiation really so important?

@sphennings Perhaps, once you understand how that organ or system works well enough. Since I know so little about biology, that's not much help to me.

The mechanism of initiation doesn't matter. It's what makes wizards differ from non-wizards that matters.

@Geo All you need to do is say "That's where the magic comes from" since normal people have the same organs, what you're doing is effectively saying that there is a magic version of a normal organ.

Or just say that there is the magic second kidney that is where magic comes from.

If the only difference between wizards and non-wizards is that wizards know how to use the magic in their organ then there is no physical difference between wizards and non-wizards

@dot_Sp0T Wizards differ in that wizards use magic. The throwing destructive blasts and so on is a pretty striking distinction.

@Geo But why can't a non-wizard use magic?

8:19 PM

@Geo If their organs are the same as normal non wizard organs then that isn't where the magic comes from.

BUT WHY CAN THEY DO THIS AND OTHERS CAN'T?! WHY CAN WIZARDS THROW DESTRUCTIVE BLASTS AND SO ON?! AND WHY CAN'T ALBERT SMITH FROM 4TH PENNY LANE, ALBUVILLE DO SO?!

@dot_Sp0T It could be as simple as knowing how to use magic, or perhaps their organ is filled with some sort of fictional magic-stuff. I guess that depends on what organ it is.

@dot_Sp0T Why so many caps?

@Geo So the organ isn't identical?

@Bellerophon because I am getting irritated after a long day

@Geo For every organ real or fictional it could be as simple as knowing how to use magic or perhaps the real or fictitious organ is filled with some fictional magic-stuff.

There is no way to select any organ real or fictional over another.

8:21 PM

@sphennings Of course no organ can actually cause magic to happen. The organ is just the part of the body that's relevant to how the wizard controls magic. I mean, supposing that magic were real, some part of the body would need to be used to control it.

So if wizards use their normal kidney to control magic. Why are there non wizards?

If a normal kidney can control magic everyone is going to be doing it.

@sphennings Because wizards are using their kidney in a different way from normal people. If I knew anything about kidneys I could probably elaborate.

@Geo it's your bloody world - if you cannot explain it then nobody can

@Geo So it's a learned thing?

If it's a normal organ then it can be taught to anyone.

Maybe you need to draw certain signs into the air in front of you and then something happens. Cut off someones hands and they can't make the signs anymore

8:24 PM

@dot_Sp0T Unfortunately biology is not my world. Biology is the real world and so that takes research. If I just wanted to take the easy way then I could invent my own fictional organ and say it does whatever I like.

@Geo Kidneys are two long tubes. One of which is filled with blood and experiences high pressure forcing most stuff into the other tube. The amount of stuff in each tube then equalises except for urea and other toxins which are all kept in the second tube. The stuff in the second tube is pushed down to the bladder. That is basically everything in the kidneys.

@Geo but that is exactly what you're doing. You're inventing and ascribing functionality to an organ that organ does not have in our world.

3

@sphennings Yeah, it should be possible for anyone to do magic in principle. I'm supposing that wizards are human.

@Bellerophon They can also be fried up with onions.

Thus chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/40340139#40340139

Maybe people can see and thus manipulate the fabric of reality by injecting volatile substances into their eyes. But even then you're inventing something.

8:28 PM

@Bellerophon As it turns out, it's not at all easy to figure out how a system of magic might be based on kidneys.

@dot_Sp0T It's certainly true that magic isn't real. It would just be nice to connect it to real biology to give it a certain air of plausibility.

@Geo There is a magic system in this world that works off the organs en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruspex

It was done before the printing press.

howdy

It's could even be older than agriculture. We don't know for sure.

@sphennings Isn't that just reading entrails to predict the future? That's not really using the organs so much as studying them.

@Geo That is a use of the organ. Then you can offer the organs to the gods to gain their favor.

It's a two for one deal.

8:34 PM

Do you get less favour for used organs?

I wonder how sacrifices would change if quantity were to be valued over quality by the gods

E.g. throwing a bucket of tadpoles into a fire makes the gods more benevolent towards you than your neighbour who sacrificed a goat

I expect they'd measure quantity by volume, not by number.

@Bellerophon Since you are sacrificing the animal for the purpose of offering it to the gods inspection doesn't devalue the offering

@Geo and yet the definition I produced says quantity, not volume

@dot_Sp0T I'd spill a vat of brewing beer.

8:41 PM

@sphennings an honourable sacrifice; the gods will value your terrible sacrifice

I'll burn a goat.

@dot_Sp0T Dionysus would be mortified.

@sphennings Dionysus is but a fly compared to your new gods

dilbert.com/strip/1989-07-31

8:56 PM

and suddenly quite

@JDługosz salut! Sorry, didn't see your greeting before

@dot_Sp0T no prob. What's up?

@JDługosz not a lot. Messing with rendering code. Preparing classes. Being a week late with finalizing contest rules and material for a convention this weekend

@dot_Sp0T What kind of "rendering"? I messed with ray-tracing back in the day.

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