From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Fri Feb 08 2002 - 01:29:16 MST
At 01:36 AM 2/8/02 -0500, Andrew Clough wrote:
>To play devil's advocate: it might not be that the magic is affecting the
>street light mechanism, but instead the time at which you arrive at the
>street light. If your magic is affecting all sorts of subtle things about
>the way you and the people around you react
Doug's commentary seems the most plausible: that numerous clues about
traffic patterns and the activation/regulation devices are being observed
unconsciously (or in his case hyperconsciously, as befits a Rocket
Plumber), so the driver learns to optimize speed through the traffic.
That's maybe why a bad mood means you `lose the magic'; it interferes with
your coordination and flow.
But a simpler version of Andrew's version, with either real magic or a
highly motivated delusionary version, is that you selectively modify your
own memory to erase all the times you sat fuming at the red light... Easier
than re-arranging the local world and other people you encounter to fit in
with your own grandiose whims.
Damien Broderick
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