Dmitri wrote:Well it could be argued that just some lousy couple hundred years ago people didn't know anything about 2.5 of these 4 forces... so there's a damn good chance there's stuff out there that we don't know anything about yet. Or the "explanation" might be that he learned how to interfere with/manipulate/control gravity. Or whatever. But "how" is not important IMO. "Keeping an open mind" is very different from "sticking to reproducible and observable events". I.e. if he can't reproduce that trick in a different setting (where
someone else brings and puts the brick down, makes sure there are, literally, no strings attached to anything
, etc.), then it's pretty clear that he's not controlling gravity, but only the observer's senses. I.e. what any mediocre illusionist can do
at least as well.
If a human being (or other animal) is capable of emitting any kind of force beyond what we've already discovered -- through testing with reproducible results time after time -- I think that we'd pretty much be aware of it by now. And, more people (or other animals) would be demonstrating it, not just an esoteric handful of guys.
For example, there has been absolutely no indication that the human nervous system is able to emit detectible electrical/electromagnetic charges or fields. We simply have not evolved in that direction. OTOH, electric eels are very much able to produce and emit powerful electrical charges, and we can -- and have -- measured them, time and again, and found the organs within the eel's body that are the source.
Ditto for animals and plants with bioluminscence (the ability to emit light) -- naturalists-scientists have been able to track the sources and causes of their ability.
Humans have developed Glo-Stix and thermal heat-cold packs that produce light, warmth or cold, seemingly miraculously... if you don't know the nature behind them.
They are all technologies people could make after thoroughly understanding the nature of physics and chemistry, and then exploiting them.
A human who can make an object move, or seemingly defy gravity, is also exploiting technology. In this case, probably a carefully hidden bellows operated by a foot pump, that can blow an object away and thus "make it move," or a carefully hidden, thin, transparent filament tied to the object, that can be jerked away by an accomplice. Gravity can be "defyed" by similar illusion.
Why do you think magic shows are still popular? When an object appears to levitate, we're amazed and confounded, but if the magician were to explain the secret, we'd feel duped and deflated --- how simple the reason! We should have known it all along!
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"Sherlock Holmes' quick eye took in my occupation, and he shook his head with a smile as he noticed my questioning glances. "Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else."
Mr. Jabez Wilson started up in his chair, with his forefinger upon the paper, but his eyes upon my companion.
"How, in the name of good-fortune, did you know all that, Mr. Holmes?" he asked. "How did you know, for example, that I did manual labour. It's as true as gospel, for I began as a ship's carpenter."
"Your hands, my dear sir. Your right hand is quite a size larger than your left. You have worked with it, and the muscles are more developed."
"Well, the snuff, then, and the Freemasonry?"
"I won't insult your intelligence by telling you how I read that, especially as, rather against the strict rules of your order, you use an arc-and-compass breastpin."
"Ah, of course, I forgot that. But the writing?"
"What else can be indicated by that right cuff so very shiny for five inches, and the left one with the smooth patch near the elbow where you rest it upon the desk?"
"Well, but China?"
"The fish that you have tattooed immediately above your right wrist could only have been done in China. I have made a small study of tattoo marks and have even contributed to the literature of the subject. That trick of staining the fishes' scales of a delicate pink is quite peculiar to China. When, in addition, I see a Chinese coin hanging from your watch-chain, the matter becomes even more simple."
Mr. Jabez Wilson laughed heavily. "Well, I never!" said he. "I thought at first that you had done something clever, but I see that there was nothing in it, after all."
"I begin to think, Watson," said Holmes, "that I make a mistake in explaining. 'Omne ignotum pro magnifico,' you know, and my poor little reputation, such as it is, will suffer shipwreck if I am so candid. Can you not find the advertisement, Mr. Wilson?" -- "The Adventure of the Red-Headed League" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle