Science Is Magic

[Maxmars]

I've heard the distinction made between "magic", "sorcery" and "witchcraft", too. I suppose it's a matter of labels, and intent, to a degree.

But you've got me thinking about imitation and contagion. The practice with tangible objects, okay. Tangible objects have persistence and objective observability. But can the same "magic" concepts be applied to non-tangible structures, such as words and ideas? Oh no, "meme magic"! Haha. It makes me wonder about advertising, which some have described as spellcraft. Manipulating contagion of mental association. Imitation of effect -- why did Joe Camel look the way he did? Contagion via the emotional voodoo doll of propaganda. And perhaps with science we're dealing with a more strict set of idea-structures, ones that require a certain consistency, a certain empirical uniformity. Does this "chase away" such magic? That is the devout hope of some. But perhaps, if that is something that can never quite be done, it merely "squeezes" the spellcraft to a higher level, wider and less determinable in effect. But not less powerful.

Something to think about, thank you.

... and you got me thinking...

Isn't memery very akin to sympathetic magic?  Like voodoo and other such things, don't memes carry forth a form and response which elicits a reaction by design?  Doesn't it carry "mind viruses" that linger and spread? Joe Camel has become a meme of sorts... 

Magic as a practice is a difficult thing.  It requires a diligence and focus of purpose that is never part of the new literature.  Classic magic requires a precision and degree of certainty that betrays most purposes.  From what I have gathered informally, a magician must be a particularly focused and somewhat isolated person.  I often wonder if that's true though, as some casual dabblers in the practice seem not to fit that image.

Science can be stringently demanding as well.

I wonder if there are any who are both scientist and magician?  Or are they the same... operating on different sides of the coin?