Re: Change (was: (TFT) Jobs table: ...)

[Joey Beutel <mejobo@comcast.net>]

I never said a negative result is a failure. My point is actually  
kinda about that. A scientist isn't sitting around just making weapons  
that no one else can make with relative ease, which is basically what  
a researching wizard is doing.

Its apples and oranges, magic and science have little in common.

Another way to view it, using a commonly known story: Edison once said  
something along the lines of learning a thousand ways how not to make  
a light bulb (or something similar). Thats useful knowledge,  
especially towards the end goal of making a light bulb (you find out  
other important stuff through research on accident, too, though).

A wizard trying to make a magical light producer (much like a light  
bulb) doesn't really go through the same process. He uses some energy  
(ST) to produce an effect that he has been taught how to make or  
'learned' how to make (which may or may not be through  
experimentation, but I doubt the wizard just sits around thinking up  
words and trying them... the implication is more that he uses  
willpower and intelligence to make what he wants happen, and, once he  
is capable of doing that, its easier for him to do it again).

Arguably a wizard's way of thinking has less in common with science  
and more in common with greek philosophy (Well, the way of thinking  
practiced by some more famous greek philosophers...), where one would  
just think things through and try to come up with solutions based upon  
what he thought made sense... but without actually testing that theory  
(sometimes because it can't really be tested).

In other words, those thousand studied possibilities never produced a  
light bulb (good info), but for the magician he goes through a rather  
different process- he doesn't learn so much about the world, he just  
is now capable of making light bulbs. He's a skilled artisan, not a  
scientist.


Now, it might work differently in different settings, but in baseline  
TFT it says that magicians say different words, do different things,  
etc, all for the same effects... it has more to do with doing your own  
ritual, whatever it is for you, to build up your own energy,  
willpower, whatever, so that you can do your thing.... its not a  
science, at all, basically, its just magic.


So, basically, which is more useful in practical terms if you want a  
bomb? A scientist who has to invent a bomb from scratch, having never  
heard of any of the materials necessary, or a wizard who, just by  
energy and willpower, needs to just think 'boom' and make it so...

Don't misinterpret that as insulting science in anyway, I love  
science, some of my best friends are sciences (looking at you,  
physics), but in a magical setting, a scientist and a magician are  
very different beings, and the magician is quicker at getting similar  
results (though at the high end most wizards can't even think up the  
many technologies we've developed through science, so there is a short  
term vs. long term thing going on there).

On Sep 29, 2011, at 9:03 PM, Jay Carlisle wrote:

> On Thursday, September 29, 2011, Joey Beutel <mejobo@comcast.net>  
> wrote:
> > Scientists are also pretty different from wizards...
> >
> > Whatever a scientist is studying is unlikely to end up being very  
> > useful.
>
>
> uhhhhhh a negative result in research is just as significant as a  
> positive.
> Negative results suggest your barking up the wrong tree research  
> wise and
> might well focus on more positive results thus saving industry in the
> future.
> Too suggest a negative result in research would be a failure is a  
> gross
> misunderstanding of what research is I think.
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