Ra by Sam Hughes is the most austere version of the idea I’ve personally read. It intentionally starts with the premise, “What if magic worked like computer science?” The story then moves more to answering the question, ”....Wait, why is that the case?” but you get lots of fun exploration of the premise along the way.
Discovered in the 1970s, magic is now a bona fide field of engineering. There’s magic in heavy industry and magic in your home. It’s what’s next after electricity.
Student mage Laura Ferno has designs on the future: her mother died trying to reach space using magic, and Laura wants to succeed where she failed. But first, she has to work out what went wrong. And who her mother really was.
Sorry, just noticed this question (LessWrong notification system… suboptimal).
There isn’t a single place I can point and it is a MAJOR spoiler about the world of the book that is uncovered slowly over entire length of it, but picks up the speed at around the “Abstract War” chapter and later.
TLDR: it works like programming because it IS programming. On some level with some flexible definitions. Telling you more will be detrimental to the reading experience :)
Ra by Sam Hughes is the most austere version of the idea I’ve personally read. It intentionally starts with the premise, “What if magic worked like computer science?” The story then moves more to answering the question, ”....Wait, why is that the case?” but you get lots of fun exploration of the premise along the way.
https://qntm.org/ra
The revelation in later chapters of why magic works like programming was especially nice
Which chapter? I’m particularly curious for that.
Sorry, just noticed this question (LessWrong notification system… suboptimal). There isn’t a single place I can point and it is a MAJOR spoiler about the world of the book that is uncovered slowly over entire length of it, but picks up the speed at around the “Abstract War” chapter and later.
TLDR: it works like programming because it IS programming. On some level with some flexible definitions. Telling you more will be detrimental to the reading experience :)
Came here to suggest exactly this, based on just the title of the question. https://qntm.org/structure has some similar themes as well.
I’ve just finished reading it, and wanted to thank you very much for recommending this great experience :)