… about mythological stories being true, the answer is that they are not factual, but rather correspond to important aspects of the culture.
… about the ability to affect things without apparently interacting with them, the answer is to point at the TV remote. [My kid still doesn’t believe me that talking and writing are psychic powers, but that’s the answer I’m giving on that front.]
… if things happen in the world that are not trivial to understand or control, the answer is simply “Yes”. [If my kid asked “Is lightning magic,” I would have to answer “Yes” because I cannot make lightning do what I want: as far as I’m concerned it “just happens” when conditions are exactly right. As far as I’ve been able to find out, nobody fully understands it.]
… if actions can have strongly unexpected results, of course they can!
… if waving my hand was the proximate cause for X happening, I’d have to admit most of the time that it was just good timing on my part. But I can wave my hand at my cell phone to have it snap a selfie, and if I have an NFC chip I can sometimes wave my hand to tell a computer what to do.
In general, I think “magic” is best used to point at a state of non-understanding. I don’t think the “is it real” query is really thinking about it in the right category. It’s a lot like asking, “Is a binary search tree real?” or “Is the color red real?” All three are data processing questions of one sort or another; but the color red, binary search trees, and magic all don’t directly talk about anything in the territory. Rather: “red” is a perception, “binary search tree” is a data structure, and “magic” indicates non-understanding.
In terms of decision theory, either the “magic” process gives known or unknown outputs for specific inputs. If the outputs are known, as in “When I twist the fluff in this particular way I get thread”, the gears might not matter for your purposes. If unknown, as in “Will this animal bite me if I try to pet it”, the gears might be helpful but you don’t have them and you have to treat it as a wild card. The “realness” question doesn’t really enter in to it.
Depends on the context. If the child is asking...
… about mythological stories being true, the answer is that they are not factual, but rather correspond to important aspects of the culture.
… about the ability to affect things without apparently interacting with them, the answer is to point at the TV remote. [My kid still doesn’t believe me that talking and writing are psychic powers, but that’s the answer I’m giving on that front.]
… if things happen in the world that are not trivial to understand or control, the answer is simply “Yes”. [If my kid asked “Is lightning magic,” I would have to answer “Yes” because I cannot make lightning do what I want: as far as I’m concerned it “just happens” when conditions are exactly right. As far as I’ve been able to find out, nobody fully understands it.]
… if actions can have strongly unexpected results, of course they can!
… if waving my hand was the proximate cause for X happening, I’d have to admit most of the time that it was just good timing on my part. But I can wave my hand at my cell phone to have it snap a selfie, and if I have an NFC chip I can sometimes wave my hand to tell a computer what to do.
In general, I think “magic” is best used to point at a state of non-understanding. I don’t think the “is it real” query is really thinking about it in the right category. It’s a lot like asking, “Is a binary search tree real?” or “Is the color red real?” All three are data processing questions of one sort or another; but the color red, binary search trees, and magic all don’t directly talk about anything in the territory. Rather: “red” is a perception, “binary search tree” is a data structure, and “magic” indicates non-understanding.
In terms of decision theory, either the “magic” process gives known or unknown outputs for specific inputs. If the outputs are known, as in “When I twist the fluff in this particular way I get thread”, the gears might not matter for your purposes. If unknown, as in “Will this animal bite me if I try to pet it”, the gears might be helpful but you don’t have them and you have to treat it as a wild card. The “realness” question doesn’t really enter in to it.