11-10-2024, 03:21 PM
"Magic" is a singular topic...
It's both the use of unintelligible means to effect a change in the 'way things are,' or a name for the actual power making the effect or thing. It is sort of the epitome of an "explanation" that actually "explains" nothing. As an almost surrender of reason, it stops most inquiry into what it was, or is, that is actually happening.
"Science" has become the flip-side of that same coin. Everything has an explanation - this is a sacrosanct maxim of scientific reason. It is essential to remember that a lack of a scientific explanation does not mean something doesn't, or can't, happen. It only means that we don't know.
The natural manifestation of this is usually, if we can't explain a thing, or effect, we simply say "... It was like magic." (The other side of the coin.)
While magic, to some is a "thing," to many others it is a "lack of a thing," namely, a scientific explanation.
Saying something is scientifically impossible, usually is taken to mean "Such a thing is impossible" rather than "We can't explain it."
As science is refined... more and more explanations surface, even if only expressed as 'models' and 'statistics.' As the sum of our knowledge is expanded further (even if only theoretically) the potential for "magic" is diminished to an infinitesimal probability (but ironically, never verifiably zero.)
But we are discussing two labels, both of which represent how we embrace what we observe.
Each of these words have immeasurable baggage... steeped in materialistic pride, spiritual power, and even religious or academic prestige.
Those factors taint many an analysis... bias creeping in through all the cracks in the foundation of reason not yet fully engineered.
Contextually speaking, human understanding is a crop still requiring cultivation...
It's both the use of unintelligible means to effect a change in the 'way things are,' or a name for the actual power making the effect or thing. It is sort of the epitome of an "explanation" that actually "explains" nothing. As an almost surrender of reason, it stops most inquiry into what it was, or is, that is actually happening.
"Science" has become the flip-side of that same coin. Everything has an explanation - this is a sacrosanct maxim of scientific reason. It is essential to remember that a lack of a scientific explanation does not mean something doesn't, or can't, happen. It only means that we don't know.
The natural manifestation of this is usually, if we can't explain a thing, or effect, we simply say "... It was like magic." (The other side of the coin.)
While magic, to some is a "thing," to many others it is a "lack of a thing," namely, a scientific explanation.
Saying something is scientifically impossible, usually is taken to mean "Such a thing is impossible" rather than "We can't explain it."
As science is refined... more and more explanations surface, even if only expressed as 'models' and 'statistics.' As the sum of our knowledge is expanded further (even if only theoretically) the potential for "magic" is diminished to an infinitesimal probability (but ironically, never verifiably zero.)
But we are discussing two labels, both of which represent how we embrace what we observe.
Each of these words have immeasurable baggage... steeped in materialistic pride, spiritual power, and even religious or academic prestige.
Those factors taint many an analysis... bias creeping in through all the cracks in the foundation of reason not yet fully engineered.
Contextually speaking, human understanding is a crop still requiring cultivation...
