how would you be able to explain every thing scientificly using real science.
i believe that the deadra are on a different planet and use portals to telepord throught space to nirn, i thought of this when i was in the shivering isle and looked up at the stars i could see galaxies.
how can magic, deadra and the devines be explained using science?

tamriel is not the real world. magic is as real as physics to them, and daedra are as natural as deer are to us. you can't apply real world science to tamriel, it just doesnt work.

It can't be explained by science. Not only can it not be, but it would be extremely lame and counterproductive if it could.

Well, in a sense, there are rules, even when they get broken. So... so, you could explain things with the scientific method, but one's knowledge would have to be much larger than what even we know from all the games in order to coherently explain the rules and mechanics underlying the TES universe. It's like quantuum physics; it all looks random. Personally, I think there must be some sort of logic, even if it too complex for a mere mortal mind to comprehend and spans multiple dimensions. Yay, superstring theory!

As for things be replicable, that's a stick issue to be sure. Many events in TES seem to be non-reproducible.

So, what I'm trying (and likely failing) to say, is that TES isn't completely random and there's no underlying logic. There's some amount of structure, even if it is wobbly and sometimes contradicts itself. But, for the most part, the hole Magnus ripped into the Oblivion will still rise, and gravity will probably keep you on the ground unless you decide to mess with physics and levitate.

I think that answers the premise of the thread. Tamriel does not operate on the same laws as the real world, that's sort of the point. And trying to apply real world science to it just doesn't work.

hat doesn't mean that the world of the Elder Scrolls doesn't have its own rules or logic, just that they're not based on the rules of real life science.

While it seems that there may be some overlap between science in TES and in the real world, because there is so little data on TES's system outside of game mechanics and the occasional book, we don't know much about it and how it works. Not a lot of physicists, biologists, and non-alchemical chemists in Tamriel.

There's a series of adventure games called "The Longest Journey" where, in a nut-shell, there was once one world where science and order and logic lived alongside magic and chaos and unpredictability, but the two together were causing too much ruin, so they were separated into a world of Logic (RL) and a world of Magic (A Fantasy World). The two operated on completely different, but equally workable fundemental rules: Ours based on predictable, repeatable patterns and rules, theirs based on... basically magical chaos living in equilibrium with itself.

My point with this is that when you establish that fundemental parts of your fictional universe runs on magic (one half of the Aurbis IS magic), science and logic and predictability already have one foot out the door.

Or, to put it another way: The scientific explanation for a good 75% of the ES universe is: Magic.

Doesn't Magic basically mean supercool stuff, that it is most convincing when not explained at all. The moment you try to explain it the less it makes sense. I have always been fascinated by efforts to create (pseudo)scientific explanations to magic.

When we talk about science we tend to forget that it is simply a method of constructing symbolic presentation of our world that is both logical and consistent. Magic is the element of the ultimate unknown in fantasy, which allows to fill the gaps in the presentation. Then again don't we have something similar in our real world. Although results of the appliance of the scientific method, terms like quantum energy and dark matter are ways to patch these holes in our understanding of universe. But instead of calling it magic, we (or more precisely the scientists) try our best to uncover the mysteries behind these elements.

I would like to see some of that same attitude regarding fantasy. Gotta say the ES universe has some elements that give it a more scientific feel than let's say the Middle Earth. Just saying "it's magic" is much like saying "I'm just too damn lazy to explain". But the greatest tragedy is that what if our god was lazy, and the fact is that there is no explanation to dark matter or to quantum physics, what if he was sure we would just remain as stupid apes and never build telescopes or particle accelerators?

Basically, these two things. It doesn't operate by real world science at all, but it does have it's own rules and setup, which can be bent and sometimes broken by magic to do other things. For example, in both the real world and in Tamriel, the probability of fire erupting in a ball from a person's hand towards something without harming them is so close to zero it may as well be. However, while in real life we would just need to accept the bajillion-to-one odds and live on where in TES magic can be used to alter the probability in the world of pure possibility from nearly zero to something much higher (or on Oblivion, always 100%).

So to sum up TES' rules are always internally consistent even if they make no sense when external rules are applied because there is no external rules because tamriel and the real world have no bearing on one another.

It's exactly the scientific method that shouldn't be used on a living myth that is TES. Its appeal is in its aesthetic, not in its logic. Instead of adapting a magical world to the terms of your reason, let your imagination fly among its wonders.

I don't think that science should be completely foregone, lest it becomes something completely unrecognizeable in every way. It's a fantasy world, not an acid trip. Physics and chemistry similar to the real world still apply in TES, even if they can be bent by magic. In fact, that is what much of the appeal in Alteration lies in, in that it can bend such laws.

Edit: I mean until we actually get some tangible evidence of things working completely differently in terms of physics and, to a lesser degree, chemistry, I don't see any reason to forsake what we have.

Even an acid trip makes sense when you're the one having one. The problem is other people.

I don't know about the magic thinking. In a world were magic exists it will either indistinguishable from the regular physics or something like Cartesian dualism must be in effect to allow it's at will enforcement, but at that point regular physics have already left the building.

I've also been quite fascinated by the idea of magic within a reasonably logical world, and perhaps even ours. For example, you could go down a line of thought similar to atomic theory, or buddhist philosophy (which are, believe it or not, quite similar), and thus come to the conclusion that there is no true 'barrier' between one thing and the next, i.e. - everything is all the same thing. Perhaps, then, that 'over-coming' those 'illusory barriers' so to speak, could lead to something akin to magic, yet in a somewhat more logical structure than your average fantasy universe.
This is actually the basis for a personal project i'm currently working on, and its proving to be quite interesting to say the least.

As far as TES goes, what makes it so interesting, imo, is its reliance on crazy philisophical ideas that serve to literally govern the fundementals of its universe, as opposed to our world where philosophy is something that is used to try and explain a universe that no one truly knows anything about.

It'd still be some sort of physics - just not the same laws and behaviors of our Universe's physics.

The big issue with an Aurbic physics is the degree of empirical stability which obtains in the world. If you observe some phenomenon and take measurements, will those measurements be such that the phenomena can be described by a mathematical formula, which also describes other tokens of that phenomena? I have no idea if magical-mythical phenomena are capable of being described mathematically, but if they are not then an Aurbic physics must necessarily be incomplete.

Having said that, to a large extent the "mechanism" behind the happenings on Aurbis is a mixture of need and power.

Well, any sufficiently advanced mathematics is indistinguishable from magic. Math is essentially a very abstract but concise notation of an idea or a relation. Describing magic in mathematical formulas would only be natural as all magic appears to be based on ideas and relations.

Wikipedia's write up of the solution to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solution_of_the_Poincar%C3%A9_conjecture displays some of that.



Modern day mathematicians are messing with the senses and battling hydras. Except they're not hydras but metaphors.

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The real problem is that we're not describing magic but a fantasy, and eventually that's where any logical description will end up. For us that won't work. Doing this in the world isn't so much a problem though. Might end up with something like the Dwemer, if not stranger.

lols - fine appreciation of it's appeal However you might say that Tamriel/Nirn/plane(t)s and Aurbis have their own way of science. Science = knowing/knowledge.

it does seem that there is a reason there is magica and not magic also. magic can be said to be that which works but that we do not understand.

magica can be said to be that which works and of which we have a partial understanding/knowing ... hey, wait up - that just like rl eh?

But there is math involved in TES, I remember some impenetrable texts that had stuff with numbers. The Tsaesci, or whatever, right? I only vaguely recall...

You're suggesting a mathematical interpretation of http://www.imperial-library.info/obscure_text/tsaesci.shtml? Interesting.