Again, this is not magic responding human language so much as human language responding to magic. It's been shown that strength of magic is a function of understanding, which over the course of a human evolution that would have (likely) been shaped by magic, manifested in humans as linguistic constructs.

Portus would have been derived as kind of intuitive expression for the magical concept of using an object to pull you through spacetime from one location to another, or whatever it is.

I don't think it can depend so heavily on the wand, or no other races would have magic. Magic has to be responsive to the unique and individuated understandings of the beings who wield it. For humans it would be largely linguistic, whereas a goblin's magic might another matter entirely. Magic being able to be integrated with the unique perceptions and understandings of magical races seems better than it being some kind of weird all-language that can only be accessed with semi-sentient wands programmed to respond to a certain language.

That wouldn't even work because even British wizards use spells from a variety of older languages, not just Latinate ones. The Killing Curse is in Aramaic, and the Point Me Spell is in English. Alohamora has components of Hawaiian and Latin.

 

Almost all spells of a healing nature have Greek roots, not Latin. E.g. Anapneo, Episky.

 

And he drives a Porsche.

 

What you want to say by declaring that magic is completely unscientific? Maybe it would be ridiculously hard to approach by our current science but quantum psychics are comparable "LOL, reality does not care about your opinion".

Fun fact: for a some time black holes were ignored possibility as some scientists like Arthur Eddington declared that it would be too ridiculous and managed to block research ("I think there should be a law of Nature to prevent a star from behaving in this absurd way!").

 

Everything in the universe requires energy. Magic does not. Tell me, how would quantum particles interact with an such an abstract concept as a specific teaching position at a boarding school in Scotland?

 

Guys, let's get our definitions straight here:

Science: "a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe" (wiki).

This seems like a good definition to me. Unless you are claiming that magic is either non-deterministic or from outside the universe, magic is entirely under the purview of science.

 

"Science" is also used to refer to our current body of knowledge regarding the functioning of the universe. In fact, this is probably the more common use.

Saying that magic is capable of being investigated is obvious. There are whole massive libraries of magical knowledge, academic journals, and a government department for performing magical research.

Saying that magic can be investigated doesn't really have any bearing on whether or not it is compatible with current scientific knowledge, however.

 

Maybe Voldemort didn't put a curse on the position- perhaps he found a way to put a Compulsion on Peeves to spend his idle hours searching for the Defense professor's weakness, and exploiting it. Most of the time Peeves is a juvenile comedian, but no one is sure of his true powers.

 

A fun way of making it unscientific is to make so results cannot be truly replicated. Make it so your expectations have an effect on the results someone else gets. You can scientifically study some well behaved subset but you can't be sure what non local conditions this behavior depends on.

 

Why would you want to make it unscientific?

I think that this statement could be disputed.

 

To fuck with people.

If we interpret strange correspondence between someone's name and the subject they write a book on, as magic rather than Rowling making a pun, then magic already is influenced by nonlocal things. Also possibly relevant is how Narcissa is the only blond Black, and somehow Mr. Weasley married a redhead.

The reason this is troublesome is because 50 years from now someone might want to tell an anecdote about how science doesn't know everything, and if you have the wrong name you'll be just as doomed as Wizard Baruffio.

 

You can account for metacognition and other seemingly unrelated factors.

 

I'm with mknote here. Everything in the universe is stardust, right? That's a fact. We also know, like Aekiel said, that everything in the universe requires energy. Magic could be part of that stardust (I'm absolutely sure here), and maybe could require energy, the problem is human science doesn't have tools (today) to measure it.

 

I always assumed magic was something beyond the physical world, and hence didn't require energy as we know it. Hell, the existence of the soul is canon, and I somehow doubt it is made of star dust.

You seem to be making assumptions based on what we know and understand of the universe, citing currently used scientific laws and theories, and trying to fit magic into it. Then you go on to say that we cannot yet measure magic, implying that it is something that we do not understand, which means that it could very easily not fit into your model of the universe. You use currently known 'facts' that could easily be disproved by the discovery of something as radical as magic. And really, I'm disappointed. There is always room for revision, and a scientific mind should be open to new data and shifting paradigms. Especially when fucking magic is involved.

 

Nobody said any of that.

 

Perhaps I misinterpreted, but I believe he was saying that current understandings of the universe are facts. Which is what I was attempting to address.

 

I'm pretty sure the preceding statement requires you to not take that literally.

 

Well fuck. I didn't read it as sarcasm or overstatement, but if it was, then my bad.

 

Lol, that fallacy I wrote was like an elephant in a room. That’s why I used words like: could, maybe and could. I thought it was pretty obvious.

Untwist your panties.

Love.

Niñita.

 

Yeah, my bad. I'm kind of new at this. Probably shouldn't have posted that in hindsight, but I'll be try not to be an oblivious prick in the future.