Magic/k, what it means to you.

[Byronazriel]

When you think of magic, what images does it bring to mind?

What do you think of magic, and its practitioners?

For me magic is less about fairies and incantations, and more about belief and will.

Here's a quote from me. (My favourite person to quote, of course!) "I think of magic as being as much about belief, as it is about energy.

For example luck is magic... I have a lucky coin, which is basically a sacrifice. I refrain from spending this coin with the expectation that doing so would bring me luck. In a sense I've sacrificed this coin as part of a luck spell.

A horseshoe is a channelling point for positive energy, and tossing salt over your shoulder is a ritual, and lucky clothing is ritual garb...

All of us do magic, even if we don't realize it. Wishing is magic, prayer is magic, and imagination is magic.

Belief is the most powerful tool I use in my workings."

I define magic as willing something to happen, and believing that it will. It doesn't so much matter how you are doign ti, but rather whether you believe it will work or not.

A similar concept is "Headology" from Discworld, which is a delightful series of books by the genius that is Terry Prachett.

Here is the article on headology from the Discworld & Pratchett Wiki, there really is one of those for everything!  

Headology:

Like psychology, but many witches think "psychology" is a bad word, or that it means "having a psychological problem". The practice of headology relies on the principle that what people believe is what is real. This is used by witches to earn respect or at least fear, and also to cure patients. For an exemplary combinatorial use of headology, herbal medicine, and physical therapy, see old Jarge Weaver's visit to Granny Weatherwax in Maskerade.

The power of Headology is not to be underestimated. Clearly, the way a person sees himself and the surrounding world forms the person's reality. If this view is changed effectively through the use of Headology then this person's reality changes. This allows witches to make people think they are frogs, for example. Witches generally think that Headology is a more powerful style of magic than any of the fancy stuff wizards use. Headology is what witching is all about. A witch needs a very powerful, focused, and trained mind to use Headology. Granny Weatherwax is the foremost practitioner of Headology on Discworld.

Headology can take advantage of a voodoo witch's belief that anything done to a doll is also done to the person that doll represents, and turn it back on the person holding the doll (so as to stick pins in it) in some surprising but logical ways. It can leave a family of vampires, who have just ill-advisedly dined on Granny's blood, incapacitated and craving nothing more than a very strong cup of tea with six sugars in it: Granny may have been vampired, but the vampires discover that they have also been well and truly Weatherwaxed!

Power of Accessories:

Many kinds of accessories confer a certain degree of identity. For example, a warrior's helmet confers the identity of a warrior (see Lords and Ladies), a bone-white mask confers the identity of a mysterious artist (see Maskerade), and a witch's hat confers the authority of a witch. Generally, a witch is most powerful when the people around know (or at least think) that she is a powerful witch. The witch's hat is a symbol of office. Younger witches often feel much better for having their hats on, some even wearing it indoors.

Similarly, the Postmaster's golden wingèd hat is a powerful thing and confers respect on all who see it, as well as a sense of power and responsibility on all who wear it.

[pinkocommie]

Sounds like a bunch of hooey.

When I think of magic, I think of Gob from arrested development.  

[Will]

Fun tricks.

[The Magic Pudding]

Sounds like a bunch of hooey.

I hope you aren't hooeying the genius that is Terry Prachett?
Magic is OK if it's kept where it belongs, as a form of entertainment.
When someone asks an astronomer for a horoscope, it isn't funny, it's troubling.
I drilled a whole in a penny minted in my birth year so I could put in on a key ring.
While drilling, the drill broke and I ended up bleeding on the penny.
It amuses me to think I made a pagan sacrifice to instil my penny with luck.
The penny is 30mm or 1.2 inches in diameter, with a big kangaroo on it.

A penny, not mine and not my year.

[Byronazriel]

I may not put much faith in horoscopes, but anyone can see that they do have power.

That power is influence, and it is there because it is believed in. Really they are just words, but people instil meaning and power into them by believing in it!

It's like the nostradamus effect mixed with the placebo effect. That's what I'm talking about, magic is really mostly mundane.

I have a lucky quarter, this quarter gives me confidence. The confidence allows me to achieve greater things than if I did not have it... How is that not magic?

To me magic isn't a way to wave away logic, or responsibility. It is another way of looking at things, a supplement for what I am already doing.

I may cast protection spells on my house, but I still lock my doors.

[skwurll]

Magic brings to mind a vegas magician with a tophat and black suit...

With rabbits coming out of his hat.

[The Magic Pudding]

I have a lucky quarter, this quarter gives me confidence. The confidence allows me to achieve greater things than if I did not have it... How is that not magic?

If your decisions are influenced by possession of a lucky quarter, I think your decisions may be suspect.
Perhaps confidence inspired by a such a small coin is misplaced?

[Byronazriel]

Confidence is confidence, does it matter where it comes from?

What better thing is there to aid in decision making than a quarter? They're so descrete, and flippable.

[Tank]

Confidence is confidence, does it matter where it comes from?

What better thing is there to aid in decision making than a quarter? They're so descrete, and flippable.

Are there different sources of confidence or just different degrees of confidence, can one 'put on' confidence without really being confident or will ones fundamental lack of confidence always let one down in the end.

[noisician]

Confidence is confidence, does it matter where it comes from?

Yes, because ideally your confidence should be based on reality: such your own abilities and other factors which relate to the situation at hand. When your strength (or lack) of confidence is completely at odds with the reality of the circumstances, you are down the path to bad outcomes. Overconfidence is not a particularly good thing.

An accurate assessment of your own abilities and of the facts of the current circumstances may not always be easy to achieve, but that should be what you strive for, if you are interested in generally increasing your odds of success.

A magic luck charm is just you trying to trick yourself into increased confidence. And by trusting an outside "magical" force instead of yourself, you are potentially undercutting an opportunity to build your confidence by succeeding "on your own".

[The Magic Pudding]

I may not put much faith in horoscopes, but anyone can see that they do have power.

The cliché says truth has power, well lies do to, and I don't like being lied to.

[epepke]

Confidence is confidence, does it matter where it comes from?

What better thing is there to aid in decision making than a quarter? They're so descrete, and flippable.

Are there different sources of confidence or just different degrees of confidence, can one 'put on' confidence without really being confident or will ones fundamental lack of confidence always let one down in the end.

As one with an experience of having an inappropriate lack of confidence that harmed me significantly, I can pretty much say that it doesn't really matter.

I don't like the statements that confidence should be based on perceived reality, partially because perceptions of reality are often faulty, but mostly, about the only thing that you can do with an accurate perception of reality alone are things that have already been done.

Once, back in the early 1990s, I was building a system to do desktop scientific animation.  I was interviewed by a leading scientific visualization magazine (now defunct).  The interviewer asked me if the idea of desktop animation was realistic.  I replied "We've gotten pretty far by not being realistic."

Of course, in retrospect, desktop animation is all over the place, but back then, it was typically done on supercomputers such as the Cray.  We were using Silicon Graphics machines, which were only barely desktop, but I was confident that the SGI technology would eventually make it into inexpensive desktop machines.  Which, of course, it did.  I could rationalize and say that it was a reasonable expectation, but the fact is that almost nobody thought it would ever happen, and having confidence that it would happen was smirked at.  I can't remember who said it, but perhaps the estimable Mr. Pratchett or Neil Gaiman: "Of course you have to believe in impossible things.  How else can they become?"

[Thumpalumpacus]

When I was younger, magic just meant there was an interesting PC class for D&D.

But I don't play anymore.

[omfgzmariah]

Confidence that is not based on reality can be dangerous.

[Tank]

Confidence that is not based on reality can be dangerous.

Now that is very true. And goes with the 1st of the 4 stages of learning.
1) Unconsciously incompetent, you think can, but you can't. It's a bike how difficult can it be to ride anybody can do it!
2) Consciously incompetent,  you know you can't. Ouch that bloody hurt!
3) Consciously competent, you can do it and are thinking about it and thus improving. Okay now lets get the gears working.
4) Unconsciously competent. See I knew it was easy.

Edit: Corrected 1)