There is a problem with measuring magic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you ask how much fire you have, you can count the fuel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you ask how much water you have, you can measure the volume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you ask how much gold you have, you can put it on a scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But what do you do when the thing you are measuring is the possibility of things becoming more than they currently are?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n You need a unit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So let us call it Fancy Dust.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Not because it is literally dust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because if reality were a game and we had to explain the mysterious stuff that makes the rules bend, \u201cFancy Dust\u201d is about as good a name as any.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The word quintessence<\/em> comes from quinta essentia<\/em>: the \u201cfifth essence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The old philosophical idea was that Earth, Air, Fire, and Water described the ordinary world, while a fifth substance\u2014Aether\u2014belonged to the heavens. It was understood as something purer and more fundamental than the terrestrial elements. Eventually, quintessence<\/em> came to mean the purest or most concentrated essence of something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is already a remarkably useful idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because perhaps the important question isn’t:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat is reality made of?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps the better question is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow much reality-making capacity is available here?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n That’s a different measurement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And this is where Fancy Dust becomes interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Imagine a wizard standing in an empty room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is nothing particularly magical about the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then the wizard performs an act of creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suddenly there is a flower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The flower wasn’t hiding underneath the floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It wasn’t carried into the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Something changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The interesting quantity isn’t necessarily the flower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The interesting quantity is the capacity for the impossible to become possible.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n That’s what I mean by Quintessence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fancy Dust is the imaginary substance we use to keep track of that capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One handful of Fancy Dust might be enough to make a candle burn without a candle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ten handfuls might make a door appear where there wasn’t one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A hundred might let you build something that reality absolutely did not have scheduled for today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And at some point, you run into the important question:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Where did the Fancy Dust come from?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This is where I think Quintessence becomes more interesting than simply calling it \u201cmagic energy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Energy is something we can measure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Quintessence, in the magical sense, is closer to potentiality<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You aren’t measuring the thing that happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You’re measuring the capacity for something to happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That means a Quintessence meter would have to answer some strange questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How much possibility is contained in a place?<\/p>\n\n\n\n How much has been concentrated into an object?<\/p>\n\n\n\n How much can a person carry?<\/p>\n\n\n\n How much does an act of creation consume?<\/p>\n\n\n\n And perhaps most importantly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Does all Fancy Dust have the same flavor?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Because anyone who has ever made anything knows the answer is probably no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A kitchen has a different feeling from a battlefield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A cathedral has a different feeling from a parking lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A childhood home has a different kind of weight from an abandoned warehouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A handmade object can feel different from something mass-produced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If Quintessence is the stuff from which possibility is drawn, perhaps it doesn’t merely have quantity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps it has resonance.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Fancy Dust isn’t just how much.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s also:<\/p>\n\n\n\n What kind?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This leads somewhere I really like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe the amount of Quintessence in an object isn’t proportional to its monetary value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A diamond might be expensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A child’s drawing might be priceless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those are not necessarily the same measurement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A perfectly manufactured chair may cost more than an old kitchen chair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the old chair might contain decades of meals, arguments, birthdays, quiet mornings, and people who are no longer there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If we’re talking about Quintessence, the question becomes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n How much reality has this thing participated in?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n That is a different kind of wealth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And perhaps that is what \u201cFancy Dust\u201d is actually measuring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Participation.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n How deeply has this thing been woven into reality?<\/p>\n\n\n\n So if I were designing a fictional unit system for Fancy Dust, I wouldn’t measure it in kilograms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’d measure it in potential<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Something like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1 FD \u2014 Fancy Dust<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Enough to make a tiny difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 10 FD \u2014 Noticeable Weirdness<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Reality has begun to negotiate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 100 FD \u2014 Significant Impossibility<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n You are no longer merely persuading reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You are asking it for something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1,000 FD \u2014 Reality Event<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The sort of thing people will tell stories about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And beyond that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At some point you stop measuring Fancy Dust and start asking whether the person holding it has become part of the measurement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because perhaps the deepest trick of Quintessence is that the observer isn’t separate from the experiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The wizard is also made of Fancy Dust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The room is made of Fancy Dust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The spell is made of Fancy Dust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The story about the spell is made of Fancy Dust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And the person reading this is currently spending some.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe Quintessence is what we call the stuff that remains when you stop asking what something is<\/strong> and start asking what something could become.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And Fancy Dust is simply the measurement unit we invented because saying:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere is a tremendous amount of concentrated ontological potential in this object\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n is much less fun than saying:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat’s some really fancy dust.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps that is what every magician eventually learns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The universe is full of things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the interesting part is the possibility hiding between them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And somebody has to measure the dust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is a problem with measuring magic. If you ask how much fire you have, you can count the fuel. If you ask how much water you have, you can measure the volume. If you ask how much gold you have, you can put it on a scale. But what do you do when the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nQuintessence<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Dust Is Not the Thing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Measurement Problem<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
A Measurement of Meaning<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Quintessence Scale<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
So What Is Quintessence?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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