> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://www.isaacbowen.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://www.isaacbowen.com/2026/09/18.md).
# 20260918
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notes from a discord
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k so: I define "magic" as "unreasonably good luck on demand". also kicking around out there: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". it seems inevitable that technology produces a luckier experience of being alive. *sustaining* that experience is a whole other question. luck famously runs out
ritual practices like the eleusinian mysteries, devices like the roman dodecahedra, there's this idea of personal and unshareable access to mystery
there are as many magic systems as you can shake a stick at, and stick-shaking is up there on the list
a magic/luck/tech system that *supports all magic/luck/tech systems* is what you'd need to pull off something that survives, uninterrupted, as long as the earth itself does. (I'm qualifying "uninterrupted" because vanished civilizations are a thing; imo they're time-skipping ahead to a point at which their magic system can interface with what earth settles on globally.)
okay. that's all background.
my mom loves the definition of homo sapiens as an obligate symbolist. like, we're compelled to generate and interpret symbols. we're also good at *losing* languages, which is good for evolving language but less good for retaining access to old language.
the printing press started *mechanizing* symbolic *production* - no more scribes and hand cramps limiting how fast a symbol could see its exposure multiplied
and then industrialization gave us mass production
symbolic systems can be competitive; the good ones, imo, are good neighbors with each other, and the "bad" ones tend to be glossed as propaganda. in any case, it's a kind of an ecosystem. spoken languages are one layer of many, just depends on who you see as "speakers" (and note how that word does equal duty as a tech device reference these days)
okay. moving symbols is one thing, moving interpretations is another. printing press made symbolic transport scalable; electricity made transport *speed* scalable, and speed is what you need for *interpretations* to cross long distances. the internet is the culmination of both, allowing you to be very mutually angry with people on the other side of the world *in realtime*, interpreting each other as you go. (for comparison: "I'm watching a lot of videos about ancient Rome and one thing that kills me every time is one historical figure getting mad at another and having to sustain that anger for several months as they travel across Italy to confront them" -[x](https://x.com/jpbrammer/status/1223659987286839301))
and then capitalism gave us mass interpretation
so: we've got global symbolic production and global symbolic interpretation. that's not something that has been true before, at human-scale - nothing's gotten the whole human world, all 720° of it, on the same page.
global symbolic production + global symbolic interpretation = technology = magic = luck
imo this is inevitable - getting it done locally means it's possible to get it done non-locally, just a matter of how/when it'll get done non-locally
what I said earlier:
> from here it looks like other human civilizations managed a return to magic but only locally. taking the whole globe into perspective-freeze is the kind of course-correction it would take to force a non-local return to magic
perspective-freeze is what a computer looks like before you turn it on to *use* it, anddddddd I think that's what's happening :slight\_smile: earth's process of *waking* is entering a new level
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materialism crossed with hermeticism, is I think what's going on. like, realms of materialism, using each other for substrate.
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notes from foam
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