Towards a Scientific Understanding of Magic -- The Noct Cabal

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Date Posted: 14:34:55 05/18/02 Sat
Author: Chris
Subject: Towards a Scientific Understanding of Magic

I sent this to the other young mages, but I'm also very interested in your comments Eduna.

Introduction
A very diverse approach has been taken to understanding the strange phenomena collectively known as Magic. There are a large number of theories being thrown about, but little discussion of why certain theories are better than others or even, on a more basic level, what types of theories we should be presenting. One might make the analogy of two-dimensional beings looking at a triangular prism and fervently arguing whether it is a triangle or a rectangle. I have to confess that I�m just as guilty as anyone else in this regard. So a structured way of approaching this problem should be found, which is the purpose of this paper.

Why Science?
Why should a scientific and rationalist structure be used to understand this rather than something else? This is not as easily answered question as it first appears.

There are three main subjects I�ve been able to observe, who nicely form a continuum from mystical to scientific understandings. Richard understands things on a very primitive and mystical level. He believes that his shed blood is part of his power for instance, and he seems to interact with spirits. Robert understands things from a more modern, but still mystical perspective. He perceives auras around people and objects for instance. Jessica has been taking a consciously scientific approach. She measures the physical properties of objects for instance rather than getting feelings about them. Her results are scientifically confirmable, where the others seem to perceive things that are not as easily measured, but no less real.

What�s interesting to note is that the scientific approach and the mystical approaches each seem to have advantages and disadvantages. A scientific approach is unable to explain spirits or the Umbra, while a mystical approach does a poor job of explaining anything but the personal experience of magic. All of these diverse approaches are able to accomplish things than can only be explained by magic and that are observable and repeatable under controlled conditions. This is notable because it seems that no one theory put forward has a privileged position.

So we are brought to the question of why we should adopt science if other methods seem to work equally well. Based on the above, it seems that there is no good reason to do so. So I won�t. Rather than advancing some theory on how magic works and testing it in a scientific fashion I will advance a theory on how to study how magic works. A �meta-theory� if you don�t find Douglas Hofstadter morally repugnant. How do we avoid infinite recursion? Well, we can�t really, so for now we will take as axiomatic that we only dare to venture up one level into meta space. But it seems clear to me that because no one theory has a privileged position we must work at the meta-theory level, all be it scientifically.

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Thomas Kuhn wrote at length about the meta-theory level of science. To state his position in brief, science works by the accumulation of small discrepancies in the current paradigm. These accumulated errors go unnoticed by the majority of workers until a small group makes a break through and establishes a new paradigm. So from Kuhn�s point of view the discovery of DNA was not the significant break through. The break through was noticing that years of looking at proteins bore no fruit and that nucleic acids might be another candidate.

How does this relate to the state of magical theories in a global sense? Well, first of all let me be clear that my information is very limited. I am basically limited to the statements of certain members of the Traditions as well as certain role-playing books that seem to have some kernel of truth in them. Based on the limited information at hand, four groups seem to have a chance of approaching these questions scientifically.

The Technocracy seems to represent the accepted view among mages, if only because of their size. However, it seems to be one that is stuck in an incorrect paradigm. They do not accept the existence of the Umbra, something that seems analogous to the Church not accepting that the world is round. This suggests they are very unwilling to accept Kuhn�s paradigm-shifts.

The Sons of Ether, Hermetics, and Virtual Adepts all seem to have fewer obvious flaws in their paradigms. However, each of these groups is relatively small and obviously has not been able to make convincing arguments to the rest of the community.

So based on my admittedly highly limited information, no group has been able to both construct convincing arguments and demonstrate the flexibility to shift their paradigm. I do not at all mean to suggest that there is no such group or individual out there who fulfils these criteria, just that none seems evident to me at the moment. It is clear that scientific progress is made by these paradigm shifts and that many currently advanced theories do not accept that major shifts are possible. This is inherently limiting, and something that must be avoided at all costs.

The Inclusive Nature of Science
So I�ve shown, hopefully, that both in my personal research and in my review of the magical community there is no one paradigm that can be accepted as the standard. No one paradigm explains all observed phenomena better than other paradigms. Also, and importantly, all paradigms observed seem to work in some, often many, situations.

Its important to realize when thinking of scientific meta-theory, that science does not work solely by discarding what was previously known in a Kuhnian paradigm-shift. In fact, any theory advanced must explain not only how things work, but also why previous theories fit the facts so well. Newton�s physics is still taught in physics classrooms because it does work under most conditions. Einstein�s physics, while on one level was a revolution, on another level was merely a refinement of Newton�s ideas.

So any theory that is accepted must include explanations of why a great number of other theories function quite well in the real world. The Traditions seem to take the view that all theories have their own validity, while failing to realize that the observed validity of multiple theories, in itself, casts doubt over them. The observed behavior of mystical phenomena as well as scientific phenomena must fit into one scientific theory.

Conclusion
So let me end by discussing the goals of my meta-theory. Any theory that is accepted by my meta-theory must have two properties. It must be flexible and non-dogmatic enough to revise itself readily. In this way it will avoid what I see as the failings of magical theory as it has been presented to me.

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Replies:

Re: Towards a Scientific Understanding of Magic -- eduna, 06:05:06 05/20/02 Mon