Disclaimer: This is purely a story written for entertainment purposes, not intended as any kind of coded message or commentary on work. While Charles represents the author, the other characters don't represent any real people.
There once was a wizard named Charles who lived in a universe called Heafun. Heafun was a land where there were so many wizards that they had solved the puzzles of hunger, disease, and death. Wizards had nothing left to do but to compete with each other in increasingly convoluted feats of magic. Charles didn't care about that. He was obsessed with writing books about magic, striving to explain magic in words and math, but there was little interest in his books. Children did learn magic that way, but they were expected to outgrow a need for formalism by age 10, and even a simple everyday spell such as "flying" that even non-wizards knew far surpassed the limits of what scholars could understand intellectually. Trying to understand any piece of serious magic through the mind was like trying to see a high-resolution photo by zooming in to the individual pixels. The whole thing was just too complicated. Charles was probably the only person in all of heafun who would find such an endeavor to be enjoyable.
One day, one of the most famous wizards in the land, Magda, announced a brilliant new magical invention: a machine that could create new universes for a user and then teleport them there. Charles didn't care for most of the trendy new magic, but this one captured his curiosity. He stood in line to try out the machine and before long it was his turn.
Magda: "So you would like to try the machine? What universe would you like me to create for you?"
Charles: "Could you create a universe where only the most basic magic is possible? A universe built on the magic that pre-schoolers learn, like gravity and electricity."
Magda: "Wow.. that is a new request. Hmmm... I don't think I can ethically create such a universe. People there would be stuck with the problems of death, hunger and disease."
Charles: "I think it's possible to solve those problems using only basic magic. I've thought about it. For example, you could use chemistry magic to create a piece of clear stone that would allow you to see your cells using just your eye. Eventually, people would be able to use tools like this to understand the parts of your cell and to manipulate them to cure diseases and eventually death."
Magda: "Sounds painfully tedious... but I'll submit that is possible. But there's another problem. Without higher magic, I don't think you would be able to return to Heafun."
Charles: "I'm OK with that."
Magda: "You sure are a strange one! You may be OK, but I don't want to answer to the Council for permanently losing one of our citizens. Why do you want to get rid of the higher magics?"
Charles: "I have nothing against the higher magics. I actually love magic, all of it. I think we're spoiled by the infinite richness of magic and we don't appreciate even the basics. I am just bewitched (no pun intended) by the idea of seeing how much is really possible with just the basic magic, hard work and an inquiring mind."
Magda: "OK, let me think about it and I'll get back to you."
That night, Magda had a good laugh with her elite wizard pals about the wierd requests she got. When she brought up "the book guy Charles", everyone knew who he was, and not a few of them found it tantalizing to think of ways to enable his little vacation (and thus be granted a temporary reprieve of his complaining). The next day, Charles got an owl message from Magda. He came back to the machine, skipping the even longer line that had formed on the second day.
Madga: "Look, here's what I can do. I have to leave in the higher magic, and not just for ethical reasons. There's no magic that we know of that can nullify even an entire genus of magic, let alone an infinite hierarchy such as 'all higher magic'. But my colleages and I spent not a few drunken hours figuring out how to 'destabliize' the conditions for magic so that the probability of a spell working decays with the complexity. The lower magics will still be 99.9999% stable, but something like 'flying' will only work 0.1% of the time. And it's not hard to re-stabilize the magic either. Here, this book will allow you to learn magic that can re-stabilize at least your own magic with 99% reliability. Secondly, we figured out a way to create the social conditions that will render the idea of 'magic' as a disreputable topic, so that only misfits and outcasts will be interested in the topic. This second feat was much harder than the first, but I'll spare you the details."
Charles: "That's amazing! I'm flattered that you all spent so much time to help me."
Magda: "It was an interesting problem. And to be frank, I think a few colleagues might be really happy to be rid of you for a while,"
Charles: "Heh, the feeling is probably mutual."
Magda: "So, are you ready to enter your new universe?"
Charles: "I'm incredibly excited. Let's go."
Magda watched the strange magician enter the portal, into a world where solving the problems of hunger, death, and disease was thousands of times harder than in her own world. She wondered if he would ever miss the way things were back home.
I wrote a similar story to this.
Posting the story first, then my self-analysis.
Disclaimer: This is purely a story written for entertainment purposes, not intended as any kind of coded message or commentary on work. While Charles represents the author, the other characters don't represent any real people.
There once was a wizard named Charles who lived in a universe called Heafun. Heafun was a land where there were so many wizards that they had solved the puzzles of hunger, disease, and death. Wizards had nothing left to do but to compete with each other in increasingly convoluted feats of magic. Charles didn't care about that. He was obsessed with writing books about magic, striving to explain magic in words and math, but there was little interest in his books. Children did learn magic that way, but they were expected to outgrow a need for formalism by age 10, and even a simple everyday spell such as "flying" that even non-wizards knew far surpassed the limits of what scholars could understand intellectually. Trying to understand any piece of serious magic through the mind was like trying to see a high-resolution photo by zooming in to the individual pixels. The whole thing was just too complicated. Charles was probably the only person in all of heafun who would find such an endeavor to be enjoyable.
One day, one of the most famous wizards in the land, Magda, announced a brilliant new magical invention: a machine that could create new universes for a user and then teleport them there. Charles didn't care for most of the trendy new magic, but this one captured his curiosity. He stood in line to try out the machine and before long it was his turn.
Magda: "So you would like to try the machine? What universe would you like me to create for you?"
Charles: "Could you create a universe where only the most basic magic is possible? A universe built on the magic that pre-schoolers learn, like gravity and electricity."
Magda: "Wow.. that is a new request. Hmmm... I don't think I can ethically create such a universe. People there would be stuck with the problems of death, hunger and disease."
Charles: "I think it's possible to solve those problems using only basic magic. I've thought about it. For example, you could use chemistry magic to create a piece of clear stone that would allow you to see your cells using just your eye. Eventually, people would be able to use tools like this to understand the parts of your cell and to manipulate them to cure diseases and eventually death."
Magda: "Sounds painfully tedious... but I'll submit that is possible. But there's another problem. Without higher magic, I don't think you would be able to return to Heafun."
Charles: "I'm OK with that."
Magda: "You sure are a strange one! You may be OK, but I don't want to answer to the Council for permanently losing one of our citizens. Why do you want to get rid of the higher magics?"
Charles: "I have nothing against the higher magics. I actually love magic, all of it. I think we're spoiled by the infinite richness of magic and we don't appreciate even the basics. I am just bewitched (no pun intended) by the idea of seeing how much is really possible with just the basic magic, hard work and an inquiring mind."
Magda: "OK, let me think about it and I'll get back to you."
That night, Magda had a good laugh with her elite wizard pals about the wierd requests she got. When she brought up "the book guy Charles", everyone knew who he was, and not a few of them found it tantalizing to think of ways to enable his little vacation (and thus be granted a temporary reprieve of his complaining). The next day, Charles got an owl message from Magda. He came back to the machine, skipping the even longer line that had formed on the second day.
Madga: "Look, here's what I can do. I have to leave in the higher magic, and not just for ethical reasons. There's no magic that we know of that can nullify even an entire genus of magic, let alone an infinite hierarchy such as 'all higher magic'. But my colleages and I spent not a few drunken hours figuring out how to 'destabliize' the conditions for magic so that the probability of a spell working decays with the complexity. The lower magics will still be 99.9999% stable, but something like 'flying' will only work 0.1% of the time. And it's not hard to re-stabilize the magic either. Here, this book will allow you to learn magic that can re-stabilize at least your own magic with 99% reliability. Secondly, we figured out a way to create the social conditions that will render the idea of 'magic' as a disreputable topic, so that only misfits and outcasts will be interested in the topic. This second feat was much harder than the first, but I'll spare you the details."
Charles: "That's amazing! I'm flattered that you all spent so much time to help me."
Magda: "It was an interesting problem. And to be frank, I think a few colleagues might be really happy to be rid of you for a while,"
Charles: "Heh, the feeling is probably mutual."
Magda: "So, are you ready to enter your new universe?"
Charles: "I'm incredibly excited. Let's go."
Magda watched the strange magician enter the portal, into a world where solving the problems of hunger, death, and disease was thousands of times harder than in her own world. She wondered if he would ever miss the way things were back home.