Magic versus Science, round one

[brightlotusmoon]

Dear Pagans, Writers, and People Who Enjoy Fantasy,

What are your thoughts on magic versus technology, Functional Magic, and Magic Realism as they all relate to each other?
I ask because of a debate Adam and I had about Larry Niven's corollary to Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law, which of course states that "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology."
Adam fully agrees with this corollary, having been taught this as a teenage magic practitioner. I, however, would like to believe that magic is inherently organic and comes from the person using it, not from a tool or device, because a tool or device would make it technology. Example: Telekinesis. If I were to point at something and make it float, I could call it magic. But if I were to use technology, it would be science, because I wasn't personally involved, having used a machine. Adam counters with the idea of injectible nanotechnology and computers that hook up to people's brains. But, say I, that would still be science, because the scientists are using technology to aid the brain. For me, magic is a pure force, an element beside science, one that is controlled by a person's will. Ah, says Adam, but isn't science? Without people, wouldn't technology be pointless? Both magic and science need someone to wield them!
And now I am left feeling slightly disappointed, because I want magic to be something beyond science and technology, to be... you know, magic. Why wrap a person's broken limb in a cast if you could set the bone with your mind? Why point a gun at someone if you could point your finger and cause a heart attack with your mind? Why use a broom if you could sweep up all the dust with your mind? Etcetera.

And yet, the universe that my novel and other stories are set in use both. Or, more precisely, magic and technology are completely separate. The characters use magic and science whenever one or the other is better applied. Not necessarily Magitech, but I guess maybe technology aids magic and visa versa.

Please offer thoughts, opinions, counterarguments, and suchlike.

Comments

[poelaramont.livejournal.com]

Too tired for heavy debate, but I did want to point this out:

Why wrap a person's broken limb in a cast if you could set the phone with your mind?

Heh heh. Phone.

The thing is that science doesn't need people at all. Machines do, yes, at least to a point (and that might not always be true as technology becomes more advanced and robots begin constructing themselves and whatnot). However, physics does not require living things. It is all laws and force and energy and all that, and it ran perfectly well before we came along. If science can work without people, then why can't magic?

Maybe technology="tool that must be constructed," and magic="tool that does not necessarily need to be constructed."

Then again, one might consider a spell a sort of construct.

Just a bit of rambling there. Hope I made sense. No brain power for more.

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

*blink* Oh holy crap, I must have been out of it. I need to fix that!

Magic and Technology

[sapharin.livejournal.com]

I've always believe in Magic, coming from within a person. Inheirent powers/gifts and all that. I'm like you...I'd love to be able to think something and have it happen. Think 'Heal' and a person's broken limb heal on the spot...Lift things with my mind...run a vehicle by thought alone...

I think that's why I love the Jedi and The Force from Star Wars, so much.

Technology comes from the mind also, but it is mechanical, and prone to failure, where Magic is pure energy wielded from the Wielder internally to the external, with an outcome. I would rather be a sorceress, or some sort of living magical being, than a designer of technology. That being said, I think the two can work together hand in hand, however. Just my two cents here.

Re: Magic and Technology

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the thoughts! You actually put it a little better than I did during the actual debate with Adam.
He talked a lot about nanotechnology evolving into magic, but I pointed out that injectable nanobots that could grant psionic abilities would still be mechanical -- someone would still need to invent them and apply them from an external source. Even over generations. Like, if you had your nanobots and they could be passed on to your offspring, it would still be technology -- unless your descendants evolved to such a point that the nanotechnology molded with their genetic makeup, in which case it would become genetic magic...

[lovefromgirl.livejournal.com]

Nanobots in the blood and computers hooked into people's brains are still tools -- very intimately connected tools, to be sure, but tools. Nanotechnology must still be programmed. Whatever we do with those computers in our brains, we are doing with those computers. To me, it's no different from glasses or hearing aids.

Intelligence differs from magic. Those who invent the advanced tools and study the advanced science can still back themselves up with the known. Magic reaches into the unknowable, the impossible, what we are not supposed to have as human beings -- but we do. Magic is waking up at the moment of a loved one's death, feeling the loss without being told. Magic is the ability to pull a future situation from the symbolism in a tarot deck. (The deck is technology. The reader powers it with magic.) Some people mimic magic by being exceptional synthesizers of facts. Some do both. (Hi!)

Why wrap a person's broken limb in a cast if you could set the phone with your mind? Why point a gun at someone if you could point your finger and cause a heart attack with your mind? Why use a broom if you could sweep up all the dust with your mind?

Magic -- the shifting of energies to effect change -- has its cost. In keeping with a certain universal law regarding the creation and destruction of matter (that is, "it doesn't happen"), some find themselves depleted after spellwork or intense prayer. I almost think that's why the order of many Neo-Pagan rituals includes cakes and ale: how else to replenish what was spent? Just one of my crackpot ideas; don't mistake me for an authority.

In the first place, I read Clarke's Third Law -- "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" as a commentary on human nature. What we cannot explain becomes our myth. For the longest time, we didn't know how we got here; now, we think we might have a handle on it. As time passes and we learn more about how our previous impossibilities function, perhaps the number of atheists and skeptics will rise, as it seems to have done drastically with the advent of modern science. I believe because science has not offered me an explanation for certain past events; had they never happened, I would likely have stopped believing.

Oh, God, I need to go back to school. That was me in essay mode. *facepalm* But you get the drift, yes?

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

I love this comment. Thank you. This makes very good sense.

Adam's main argument is that magic is meant to be unknowable, unseen, unfathomable, except to the person using it -- to that person it is a science and a craft. That magic becomes science when understood. Do you agree?

[lovefromgirl.livejournal.com]

To a degree. If we know the how but not the why, that's more magic than science to me.

[eta: Except, after thinking -- we're not sure of why the Big Bang happened, either. Huh, good question, and one I'd like to take and ponder for a while.]

[seferin.livejournal.com]

Any sufficiently advance science is indistinguishable from magic.

Any sufficiently advance magic is indistinguishable from science.

When it is predictable, when duplication is possible, it can be considered science. The difference is the mindset used to consider it.

Science is about knowledge. Magic is about will.

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

That was the gist of Adam's main argument -- to the magic practitioner, the magic is a science. To the observer to doesn't understand, it is magic. However, he did say that science is also about will, to which I disagreed -- science needs technology and tools to progress, where magic basically just needs an organism to wield it.

Science it's about will.

[seferin.livejournal.com]

The intent or willpower of the practitioner won't affect the result, but in magic it may. Science is cooking, magic is an art. Science doesn't require any will, it may be done by following a recipe, ergo, if the results are written clearly enough, a novice may accomplish the end result.

Magic, which would require the finesse and proper application of will, would require time to learn to focus. Intent isn't enough.

Re: Science it's about will.

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

*nods* Got it. That's a great way of putting it.

[notadoor.livejournal.com]

I think you're quoting it wrong; should be "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", no?

Well, yes, magic and science/technology are two different things. The key word is "indistinguishable"; that is, to an outside observer, a sufficiently advanced nanosystem (with no visible externals, for instance) and a person actually doing magic with their head look like they've gotten the same result. Maybe they're not the same thing, but it sure looks like it.

There are also two sub-laws of the corollary. One is:
To people of a less technological advanced civilization, advanced technology looks like magic. (This is really where I see people get the most use out of this rule: Star Trek, Enchantress from the Stars by Sylvia Louise Engdahl, the story where an explorer cows the natives into submission with the use of matches and an almanac -- Robinson Crusoe?)

The other is:
Once your tech is sufficiently advanced, you can have all kinds of fun with traditionally magic-type powers and still be an SF writer. (And not be labeled a fantasy writer! The horror!)

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

I quoted it directly from a website, although that site could have gotten it wrong. :)

Adam made the following analogy: Spanish conquistadors on horseback come upon two Mayan natives who have never seen a man on horseback, let alone a soldier with a gun. The leader of the conquistadors points a gun at one of the natives and blows his head off. The other native, terrified, sees this as great magic, as perhaps a godly act, while the soldiers just see it as technology.

I need some support here.

[tokio.livejournal.com]

Am I out of line?

I feel like I'm being incendiary, but I also don't think I should apologize for the way I feel or the way I'm reacting. Ugh.

Wrong question

[todabrilla.livejournal.com]

I am tired from a long day's drive, but I think I see a flaw in the argument that may help you frame your debate better.

Essentially, Clarke makes no claims about the nature of magic except that it is inherently mysterious to an observer. The idea is that a less advanced race would have no innate understanding of superior technology/science. He was not attempting a thorough definition of magic. In fact, neither the character nor even the existence of anything magical need be included in this corollary. The observation is a fairly trivial one, but that makes it no less valid.

As you know, it's a fairly obvious point that even a well educated seventeenth century individual would be dumbfounded by television, computers, etc. These devices would be literal black boxes without the background knowledge of the last three centuries. Heck, even with a basic schooling in science and technology few of us are very clear on the specifics. Certainly in our own lives what we Americans calls "magic tricks" and the British call "conjuring" are a good example. Magicians can use technology and manipulation of perceptions to create some masterful illusions that would dissolve if information was not withheld from us.

Could there be real magic in addition to our current technological wonders? The corollary says nothing about that.