If every time you say Abracadabra, X happens, that’s still science. It’s no different than making the lights go on by flicking a light switch. It’s a reproducible event with predictable results.
Yes it is.
Yes it can, unless you mean literally and not metaphorically, in which case we have tools other than microscopes.
Thats not Science…come on!
That is DEFINITELY science. It’s just that you’re not required to understand how electrical circuits work to make it happen. But SOMEONE is. Vaccines are also science, and they also work regardless of whether people know how the immune system works.
With your Abracadabra, SOMEONE figured out that saying “abracadabra” putting emphasis on the right sounds and moving your fingers juuuuusssssst so (or whatever) makes X happen, and then they spread that knowledge around, so now more people know that doing those things makes X happen. That’s science, and the dissemination thereof.
And sometimes the words or motions that trigger the magic are simply a way of focusing to get the actual magic done.
Wheel of Time had this with channeling–Third Age channelers, in general, had to wave their fingers and arms around to “weave” the elements together to produce the desired result, while channelers from previous ages (who were more advanced) needed no motions and could just weave the elements using their mind. The results were the same, and the required weave was the same, it was just a matter of whether they could do it without the arm waving. (note: this is from the actual written series–I have no clue how it’s done in the show because I didn’t watch it).
Just like now, where you can be required to flip the switch to turn on the lights or, if you have the right house system installed, you can just tell the lights to turn on. But the lights still come on because the electrical circuit was closed, and closing the electrical circuit always makes the lights come on (provided the circuit isn’t borked, which in this analogy would mean that the weave was… warped?).
Dude…don’t ruin Magic for peoples.
You wanna believe its Science? Fine.
Dont shove your belief into peoples. Science is one thing, Magic is another.
If things behave predictably, that’s still a scientific field of study. You might as well be saying that science is one thing and physics is another. If things DON’T behave predictably, then nobody should use magic because there’s a decent chance it’ll blow up in their face instead of doing what they want them to.
Important to note here that originally the word wizard was literally just ‘person who knows things’. When Tolkien used it in Lord of the Rings it was with this connotation. The Wizards weren’t Wizards because magic, but because they were wise and knowledgeable. They just happened to be knowledgeable about magic, amongst other things, and that aspect stuck and thus we have modern wizards.
All that said I much prefer soft magic and it makes me a little sad that there is so much attention and emphasis given to hard magic these days.
Tolkien’s Wizards were also not human (or elves, dwarfs, hobbits, etc.). They were Maiar (sort of the equivalent of second-class angels), just like Sauron.
Yes, but that’s not really related to why they were called wizards. The people who gave them that title (possibly the people of Rohan? I can’t recall exactly) didn’t know they were supernatural. Just that they were very smart dudes.
And also because they were Tolkien’s version of the angels, with a bit of nordic mythology
There’s a spectrum of hard and soft magic systems. Hard magic basically treats magic as a branch of science. There are rules and limitations, even if we as the reader don’t fully understand it. A physicist knows more about the laws of physics than I do, but the laws still affect me just as much. Soft magic is less defined, and doesn’t have a many rules. It can do pretty much whatever you want it to, and we don’t understand the limitations of it.
You can definitely prefer one over the other, but neither is less fun, or harder to understand. It depends on taste
I mean, it sort of was. They only knew a lot of stuff because they were Maiar.
The problem with soft magic is that now you have to come up with convoluted reasoning as to why the solution to every problem isn’t just “magic, every time, all the time” or have your characters hold the idiot ball as if their lives depended on it.
True, I suppose I just meant that as far as the people of Middle-Earth knew they were ‘just’ wise-men and were called as such without knowing why they had so much knowledge.
A little too much simplistic as spectrum/scale of classes
Please, keep in mind the wording I used in my post: I don’t actually decry the usage of rules or techniques in the magical process. I do however feel that defining magic only by its limitations and as a mere force to be studied can diminish its effects, utlity and wonder.
I am a fan of Gene Wolfe, an author whose magnum opus (Book of the New Sun) has, according to him, 0 magical elements and even the most supernatural-looking events are ultimately the result of technology beyond human comprehension. Yet, despite this, his work is by far one of the most magical epics in the genre, a complete masterpiece in which each page is filled to the brim with symbols, mysteries, puzzles and hidden relationships between the characters and the marvels that occur during the journey of Severian.
Despite being, ultimately, mere technology, the “magic” is nevertheless present as an active mystery whose hidden purposes and twists act upon the narrative in the same way an ancient shaman could think about jungle spirits and mountain gods. Thereis purpose, hidden realities within his world that tie everything together.
The assumption that magic is a force of “nature”, in the sense of being some kind of passive element that can be studied in a lab and thus understood by the same token we can understand the composition of a rock is in the first place the idea that I am questioning.
What is the “magical” formula for Pulowi, the ancient, magical serpent-goddess of some south amerian peoples, to shapeshift into multiple forms and exist in multiple cave systems and mountains at the same time? What is the chemical principle by which witches and ill-doers can take the wings of birds in order to hidde and shoot invisible arrows to make other people sick? Even in cultures in which some form of “magical” energy is recognized plainly “supernatural” actions that do not belong to said process are commonly seen among gods, demigods and monsters. Those powers depend not on some form of force or energy, but in symbolic relationships that are as real for some of these cultures as the earth, the sun, the moon and the physical world. It obeys a poetic reality, not one only made of energy and matter in motion.
People imagine sometimes the relationship between technology and magic as in making shotguns able to shoot fireballs. Meanwhile, in some ancient cultures it would be much more appropiate to say that throught magic, throught the interaction with unreliable spirits and gods and demons you learn how to make a gun.
I repeat, I don’t think it is “wrong” to make magic scientific. I do believe however that it can be much more interesting if one looks to older stories, folklore and poetry, but this is, at the end, my preference.
This is still the application of scientific principles, though. If it isn’t, then the spirits CAN’T tell you how to make a gun, because if doing the same process yields different results, then how they tell you to make a gun might not, in fact, result in a gun being made. If doing the same process DOES give the same results, then, congratulations, science can be applied to it, because there’s a reason that doing that specific process gives a result of ‘gun’.
The interaction with spirits is the highly poetic and extremely unreliable interaction we would consider magical, not the application of said knowledge in order to fabricate a gun. Yes, the later process obeys regular scientific principles, but it is ultimately framed by a worldview in which agents not bound to mere energy and matter influence reality.
I understand what you’re saying. There are aspects of folklore that don’t have a particular scientific basis, and it would be difficult to apply that basis. I don’t have an issue with a more romantic take on magic, that is about feeling and sensation and literary symbolism. That has its place for sure.
All I am trying to say, and this is not directed at you, is that it is deeply frustrating to me to see science (as a process of gaining or understanding knowledge, not just as formulas or rules) being put into this box as something that can never exist alongside magic, nature, art or the appreciation of such things (which I recognize is not what you are trying to say).
I would like to see more stories where science is treated as a marvel, not an instant buzzkill, only enjoyable or interesting to people who are humorless or lack social graces. Like in Jurassic Park, where Ellie and Grant are mesmerized by the dinosaurs, these creatures they’ve spent their lives scientifically studying, or Entrapta who is constantly fascinated by how things work, while also being a fun person to hang out with and a good friend (though she is still a little awkward).