Science as Magic

This post is perhaps kin to Truth, Bliss, and an Epicure which I wrote a long time ago. It started as a message board post on one of the internet forums I hang out on. Thought it was good enough and standalone enough to deserve a blog.

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To quote Arthur C Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. So if you showed a television set to someone from medieval Spain, you will in all probability be accused of witchcraft, and should plan to have a flame retardant suit to go with the TV!

I believe that one of the reasons humanity became religious was because we inherently seek explanations to what we see around us, and in the absence of a coherent explanation, fall back on faith. Whether this is a misguided choice or not is for another rant at another time. We speak today of those that make the other, in my view braver, perhaps more rational choice. We speak today of the rationalists, and those who wish to be men of science.

To me, science in general is either fundamental (seeking explanations for the big questions), or applied (in that it finds practical uses for known axioms and theories). Fundamental science is what the rationalist would propose as an alternative to religion, for it is this that invades 'faith-space' and gets as close as anything else to answering ontological and eschatological questions. When you survey fundamental science it is clear that the holy grail quest today is for a Grand Unified Theory (GUT)...

They tell me scientists are able to explain electromagnetism, the strong and the weak nuclear forces in a consistent way, but are unable to bring gravity into the mix. I hear also that of the three contendors for the status of GUT (General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and String Theory) the first two contradict each other, and the third is not yet 'mature'. Google for a "Higg's boson", for "dark matter" and so on, and you will find more stuff in that vein.

But that is all I really *know* and sort of understand.

My point? I believe what has happened of late is that fundamental science has become indistinguishable from magic for the Average Joe. I believe our understanding of the universe is no longer "our" understanding, but that of the squirrely haired archetypal men in lab coats.

In Newton's time, he could easily explain his science in common sense terms even to illiterate folk; Here's a simple attempt at this:

The Three Laws of Motion

First law - if it is moving (or not), it keeps moving (or not) until something makes it stop.
Second law - it takes more strength to make a heavier thing move faster.
Third law - if you move your legs a certain way in the water, you are pushed forward...

and...

Gravity: Everything always pulls everything else toward itself, the pull gets weaker the farther you go, and is proportional to how big the thing is).

See my point?

Einstein and Heisenberg and Max Planck screwed up this ballgame, and perhaps it was inevitable and necessary... They thought on a level inaccessible to the majority. Their successors, the Hawkings and Penroses and Feynman's of the world may elucidate parts of science to a general crowd, but the details escape us.

It has got bad enough that the Average Joe (who was never much for the scientific method anyway) has given up on science as something the geeks do in their remote dust-free corners of the world. Hence the reopening of discussions about evolution and genesis and so on. And the rabid return of religion in every sphere of social interaction.

I believe this is also why the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries saw the world at large (or the memes of the popular conscious as I know them) returned to religion and fantasy fiction in a big way. It is no coincidence that The Lord of the Rings saw a revival of interest at the turn of the millennium. No coincidence that for the first time since the 1950s, when nuclear/ apocalyptic fears drove it, science fiction is once again becoming a respectable ouvre.

Did it happen randomly? A kind of business cycle for the public conscious? Perhaps, but I wouldn't think so.

I think it happened because we tried to distinguish reality from magic and understand it, but the complexity of the world defeated us. Now, once more, we seek escape.

Peace... out!