This should probably be in Discussion...

But I really, really love making you guys post things that could count as posts in a section where posts don't count. TROLOLOLOLOLOLOL

One o' clock and thirty minutes After Midnight and I've just finished watching the latest episode of Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood on TV. Most of the time it's an alright show. To be honest, I fancy Durarara a bit more for the mental stimulation department. But this particular episode delved very much into the deepest concepts behind that world's science called Alchemy. Not just that Law of Equivilant Exchange crap either, a good, honest explanation that leaves very few questions unanswered.

For reference:
The Law of Equivilant Exchange is a scientific principle in the same vein as Newton's Laws of Physics. It states that in order to gain anything, something of equal value must be lost. A pretty simple concept, right? It is impossible to overturn or get around it, no matter how hard one tries. The only way is by means of something called a Philosopher's Stone, which is basically a single object created by the transmutation of many living human bodies. So even then, you're not getting around it, it just feels like you are.

Anyway, that's the gist of it. Most of what you hear about how alchemy works goes something along those lines.

Now you may be wondering: Just how much could a living human body be worth to justify transmuting so many of them just to feel like you're getting around one little rule, especially considering that human transmutation is pretty much against the law? Let me put it into perspective.

Edward and Alphonse lost their mother at a young age. Sad. Before that, their father left them. Even sadder. Because they had so many great memories of it with their mother, transmuting paper into origami cranes and the like, they decide to learn Alchemy properly. After years of training, Ed becomes a certified State Alchemist, a title both of nobility and military power. After a few more years, Ed and Al both get this great idea: "Despite the taboo against it, let's bring our mother back from the dead so she can see all we've accomplished!"

It goes wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong. When trying to transmute their mother, Ed loses his right arm and Alphonse loses his entire body and soul. This only brings back a few living parts of their mother, and they were mostly internal organs. Because Al was all Edward had in the world after their mother died, Ed goes ahead and transmutes his entire right leg to bring back Al's soul and binds it to a suit of armor, presumably transmuted from something else that was fairly accessible. From that point forward, Ed (who now has prosthetic "automail" limbs) and Al make it their mission in life to find a way to bring back Al's body.

As you can see, a human life, different from a living human body, is worth quite a bit, easily more than two living human bodies. That's why a Philosopher's Stone works. The State sentences a bunch of criminals to death and instead of executing them normally, they take all of them and have their Alchemists transmute their lives and living bodies into a Philosopher's stone. This single stone is able to transmute almost anything, even a human life.

Now here's where it gets into to some really heavy stuff.
All is one, and one is all.
This is the issue that is dealt with in the episode that I just watched.

Begin Long Winded String of Examples

Take this example. A cow eats some grass. That cow's body takes that grass, deconstructs it, and reconstructs it as part of its own body. Later, that cow lactates, a process wherein parts of the grass it may have recently eaten are deconstructed and reconstructed into a substance that later comes out of its mammary glands, milk. A human milks the cow and drinks the milk, deconstructing and reconstructing that milk which was once a part of the cow which was once a part of the grass into part of itself. Then the human slaughters the cow, cooks it, and eats it, deconstructing and reconstructing the cow into meat, and then deconstructing and reconstructing the meat into part of itself. After many years, the human dies and is buried in the ground. Over the course of many years, the human, which contains parts of the cow which contains parts of the grass is deconstructed and reconstructed into a fertilizer of sorts for the grass and other plants in the cemetary.

And we can go deeper.
The grass consumes nutrients from the ground, which are decontructed and reconstructed by various organs of the plant. The sunlight and carbon dioxide that the grass consumes are deconstructed and reconstructed into oxygen, which, in combination with other chemicals, is then deconstructed and reconstructed into ATP, which is deconstructed and reconstructed into energy for the grass which is deconstructed and reconstructed into part of a cow deconstructed and reconstructed into part of a human deconstructed and reconstructed into nutrients for grass and other plants in a cemetary which will be deconstructed and reconstructed into parts of bacteria, small insects, and other organisms.

It still goes deeper.
Energy in the body is deconstructed and reconstructed into the movements necessary to transfer sperm from the male testes to the female fallopian tubes where an egg, released from the ovaries by deconstruction and reconstruction of certain hormones, is fertilized. Over nine months, part of the nutrients that the mother consumes are deconstructed and reconstructed into energy that allows the cells of the fetus to deconstruct and reconstruct themselves into more of themselves that eventually become a baby boy or girl. At the end of the pregnancy, the mother deconstructs and reconstructs a massive amount of energy into the neccessary movements to get the baby out of her body and into the world where it will deconstruct and reconstruct many other things.

Am I blowing your mind yet? Well it can go deeper than that.
At the beginning of time, some amount of energy was deconstructed and reconstructed into a massive explosion of matter which was deconstructed and reconstructed over trillions of years into the universe we know and observe today.

This is like Inception, isn't it? There's just no end to this.

End Longwinded String of Examples

This is the basis of Alchemy. Absolutely everything around you, given enough time, can potentially be deconstructed and reconstructed into absolutely anything else. All Alchemists do, as long as they follow a few simple rules, is speed up that process. The universe runs on Alchemy.

Pretty simple, isn't it?

 

Too long; Didn't read

That's what you get for posting this in the Spamzone B|

 

Same.

Please do not waste my time...

 

Not as planned.

 

Make that 3 people..*troll face*

 

tl;dr

Honestly, you expect waaay too much from us.

 

*sees thread title
*opens thread, then scrolls down



Looool nope.

 

Same here. Although, there is a line I read.

Answer:

Spoiler

NOPE

 

Explain the difference between science and magick? If you define science as only the systems that you know and use, then you are no better than the religious.

 

It is in the universe that I am using as the basis for this writing. And besides, there IS a real world branch of Chemistry called Alchemy

I wasn't referring to the concepts, I was referring to the classification. In-universe, the Law of Equivalent Exchange is classified the same way as Newton's Laws.

Again, this writing has no basis in our reality. It is based upon what is reality in the work of fiction to which I am referring.

I call Clarke's Third Law. Your argument is invalid.

 

Not fixed, I changed it intentionally; I do not like seeing it used without a k. The k defines it as different from storybook or supernatural 'it's magic' stereotypes.

If a system became observable, then by your definition, it would become a part of science. Magic, like a miracle, is meaningless by definition; it will never happen. What happens will be natural by nature of coming to pass.

In his scenario, it is a science because it exists. You claim that it is magic with no basis for this claim. It is not supernatural because it happened.

In this sense, it is not something that can be measured and is more like a conversion or transferal of energy, making it similar to magic, but because it is observable, it becomes magick, or a science; a practical application of what you seem to think are supernatural things.

If you wish to claim that definitions apply, it will get you nowhere.

 

But does it follow the laws of physics as we understand them? Everything follows the laws of physics. You're implying that physics work exactly as we have determined them to work, which may or may not be the case. Suppose you find a box that does something that your understanding of physics says that it cannot do. There are two explanations:
1. The box is magic.
2. Your understanding of physics is wrong.

What's more likely?

 

You're doing it wrong!

/facepalm

Also for the people who don't know what Makaze is talking about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magick

There you go. Paranormal magic is the manipulation of aspects of reality by supernatural means. Magick is the abilty to cause in any object any change of which that object is capable by nature.

 

I use the word observation very liberally; here, it means anything that we can make consistent use of, to observably consistent ends. Mathematics is such a field.

And what exactly are scientific terms? As you use them.