The standard Google definition of magic is “the power of apparently influencing events by using mysterious or supernatural forces”. To unpack this definition, we need to understand what the term ‘supernatural’ means (given especially that the term ‘mysterious’, also used in the definition, is even less helpful in defining magic, because it is especially subjective. For example, it is quite reasonable to describe even the most common things as ‘mysterious’ e.g. why is there something rather than nothing; why is the sky that colour; why do human beings exist; why was Bob mean to Alice; etc. Some of these things are mysterious to some people, while some are not. So the term ‘mysterious’ doesn’t really help us understand what is and is not magic).
So, according to Google, a thing or event is considered ‘supernatural’ when you attribute to it some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature. Again, this is an unhelpful definition, for two reasons:
1 The idea of being ‘beyond scientific understanding’ is not an appropriate criteria for demarking the supernatural from the natural, because:
(a) The scientific endeavor, as we shall see in point 2., does not explain what the laws of nature are, meaning they are treated by science as inherently mysterious and arbitrary; and
(b) The scientific enterprise is incomplete, meaning there have always been things ‘beyond’ it. For example, quantum physics was not discovered until around 1900. Before this date, was quantum physics supernatural or not? How can we ever produce a future-proof definition of what is within the scientific domain and what is beyond it?
2 What constitutes a ‘law of nature’? The standard Oxford English Dictionary and Google definitions of ‘law of nature’ and ‘nature’ are only somewhat helpful. These include:
the natural forces that control what happens in the world;
the physical world and everything in it (such as plants, animals, mountains, oceans, stars, etc.) that is not made by people;
the inherent character or basic constitution of a person or thing;
a regularly occurring or apparently inevitable phenomenon observable in human society.
To see why these definitions of ‘law of nature’ are ultimately unhelpful in understanding what is and is not ‘supernatural’, let’s consider by analogy the wizarding world of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter. This analogy is useful because I think everyone would agree that magic—the supernatural—exists in Harry Potter’s universe, and when Harry casts a spell under particular circumstances, a magical event occurs. So what makes a spell magical?
There are clearly particular causes and effects at play when Harry produces a magical event, which is what we expect from the scientific domain. One cause is Harry uttering a spell in a particular way; whether the spell produces the intended outcome—the magic—will depend on other causes, such as the time the spell was uttered, the space in which it was uttered, the competence of the wizard, the causal efficacy of the wand, and a range of other circumstances which we don’t know or understand. The effect produced is the generation of the spell—the magical event. Now, considering our definitions of ‘law of nature’ and ‘nature’ above, isn’t Harry Potter’s magical spell ‘natural’ in Harry’s universe? Why, then, aren’t spells just ‘laws of nature’ in that universe?
Because there are causes and effects at play that explain the magic in Harry Potter, this means that there being merely a cause and effect does not tell us whether something is magical or natural. The parallel I’m making is that attempting to explain what makes Harry Potter’s magic different from what we describe as the ‘laws of nature’ in our universe is more difficult than it looks—in fact, I wager that it’s impossible.
This brings us to the fundamental point. The best definition of nature, natural, or laws of nature I can generate is something akin to “unexplainable (and therefore mysterious) repetitions of powers that influence events”—which is, really, no different from Google’s definition of magic. So our laws of nature are in fact magical. That is to say, we cannot explain our laws of nature any differently than we can explain magical events.
But why describe the laws of nature as magic rather than just ‘natural’? Here’s one reason. On many accounts of the laws of logic, logicians claim that the laws of logic are natural, because their denial or converse would lead to self-contradictions. Why can’t King Leonidas be in Sparta and in Rome at the same time? Because it’s unintelligible. If Sebastian is taller than Rob, and Rob is taller than James, then it is necessary that Sebastian is taller than James. Denial of this is unintelligible. On this account, logic is natural.
Why then, just like the laws of logic, can’t the so-called laws of nature (electromagnetism; gravity; etc.) be ‘natural’? Because there is no provable self-contradiction in the ‘laws of nature’ being different. For example, why is the speed of an object falling freely on earth about 9.8m/s², and not 4.5m/s²? Why does quantum entanglement occur? Why do flowers grow? Why does e=mc²?
Ultimately, because Magic!
