Magic versus mundane: why the distinction?

A while ago I read an essay titled "Breaking out of Scientific Magic Systems" which discussed, among other things, the tendency for tabletop role playing games to segregate magic from mundane physics and offered alternatives to doing so.


This essay has been responded to before, but because of the way the claims are worded they are often misinterpreted. More accurately, the claims are this:

1. Magic is a [exhaustively and effortlessly] known system and thus non-mysterious [i.e. spells work the same way every time they are cast without regard for environmental factors, personal quirks or other hidden variables]
2. Magic is a force separate from Nature [which operates according to real physics, with the neatly self-contained magic system tacked on to cheat it]
3. Magic [only] happens as spells from deliberate users [and never spontaneously in the natural world like weather or because of circumstance]
4. Magic obeys conservation of (magical) energy [i.e. wizards are limited by spells slots or similar mechanics for game balance because their attacks are vastly more powerful than the fighter's, utility spells have arbitrary limits rather than operating like mundane equipment and skills]
5. Magic works regardless of morality, ethics, or other intangibles [i.e. games generally don't adjudicate "purity of heart," "true love," moral tests with a genuinely tempting pass/pass outcome, superpowers that cannot be turned off when inconvenient, or principles of sympathy and contagion]

Now these statements don't hold true in all circumstances, but this is generally how most magic systems are designed to work in games. Each of these is worthy of an essay on its own, but for now I will restrict myself to the second claim: "Magic is a force separate from Nature."

Essentially, the reality of the game world works according to the rules of our own reality... except for a self-contained magic system tacked on, which exists solely to let magic-users ignore physics whenever convenient. Some tabletop games do not make this distinction, such as RuneQuest, Exalted and Ars Magica. In those games, everything operates according to arbitrary magical laws rather than real physics.

I assume it is easier for designers and players to understand the game world this way. Even so, I wanted to try something different. The ramifications of removing the magic/mundane distinction are pervasive. Rather than inventing magical alternatives to mundane skills, all mundane skills would effectively become "magical" as they increased in proficiency. Instead of having dedicated clerics for reviving the dead, anyone with a high enough healing skill could accomplish the same thing.

Or something like that. The game mechanics would have to be structured around this conceit. Like I said, pervasive. My future forays into planar revision will use it, at least abstractly.