[HPforGrownups] Re: A random question regarding owl post

[Amanda Lewanski]

No: HPFGUIDX 3060

I will add to the eloquent Steve's reply, the fact that these are not
garden-variety owls. They seem to have a bit more upstairs than your
average bird. Perhaps owl post is a gentle form of "unwanded" magic, so
low-level as to be unnoticeable by those doing the sending? Because the
owls seem to know how to do things and find people and take action when
needed.

--Amanda

Steve Vander Ark wrote:

> Yes, you can. The owl is INTENDED to go to Sirius, so it does. And
> that makes perfect sense with the way magic works in the Wizarding
> World.
>
> I'll try to make this make sense (it only SORT of does for me yet).
> I'm writing up something about the way magic works in the Harry
> Potter universe for the Lexicon and here's sort of where my thinking
> is. I'd love input on this whole thing:
>
> It seems that in the Wizarding world, there is a certain amount of
> intelligence and reasoning that happens without logical processing.
> Stuff works because it's INTENDED to work. This stands in contrast to
> our scientific reality when everything works only by specific logic
> and pinpoint technology. Think of how literal and frustrating a
> computer can be sometimes. You just want to shout at the screen that
> it SHOULD have been able to figure out what you MEANT it to do, like
> if you type a filename and end it with .htmlk because you
> accidentally bumped the k. Why can't your computer figure out that
> you obviously MEANT .html. Well, in the Wizarding World, magical
> items DO correctly assume the intention of the action. Skele-Gro
> grows the correct bones, mostly because obviously those are the ones
> that NEED to be regrown. You drink the potion, you don't have to aim
> it at the arm or anything. You'd drink it the same way and it would
> be the same potion if you needed to regrow the bones in your leg. A
> potion does what it's intended to do. This is integral to magic as
> opposed to science.
>
> If you look at the split between magic and science that happened in
> our world hundreds of years ago, you see this change in thinking that
> happened. It made modern technology and our modern world possible. In
> the Wizarding World, things went the other way. And now the two
> worlds, though they exist side by side, find each other utterly
> inexplicable.
>
> Steve Vander Ark
> The Harry Potter Lexicon
> http://www.i2k.com/~svderark/lexicon
>
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