"Interconnection," he says with a gesture to the ??? on there, "how a material or word or symbol connects with other things, which depending on the object in question, can be very set... or which can be wildly variable."
He reaches up and touches a lock of his own hair.
"This... is a biological piece of me. It was grown from my head, and contains my genetic material. Science connects what is in here with what I am in a way that is orderly and easily understood. But the magical connection between my hair and myself is far more variable and 'looser', for the lack of a better word. It is dependent on perception, on history, on feeling. Factors which are hard to define and in many cases hard to know."
He gestures to the books.
"One reason that many components are non-organic or animal based is because the variables are relatively fixed. It's what makes the magic stable enough to use reliably."
no subject
He reaches up and touches a lock of his own hair.
"This... is a biological piece of me. It was grown from my head, and contains my genetic material. Science connects what is in here with what I am in a way that is orderly and easily understood. But the magical connection between my hair and myself is far more variable and 'looser', for the lack of a better word. It is dependent on perception, on history, on feeling. Factors which are hard to define and in many cases hard to know."
He gestures to the books.
"One reason that many components are non-organic or animal based is because the variables are relatively fixed. It's what makes the magic stable enough to use reliably."