On Being a Modern Day
As a practicing Mage of the natural sciences I am afraid I must object to the contention that scientists and especially technologists could or should be at all likened to modern day mages. I freely admit that many scientists would appreciate the sentiment. Their egos sufficiently stroked they would nod contentedly and respond “finally, someone appreciates us, gets what we do, we are not nerds, you may have mocked us mercilessly at one time, but lo, see what we have become, modern day practitioners of magic, the mages of our modern world.”
While many scientists may actually believe this it is the technologists who have fully embraced this characterization of their profession. Many of us, both scientists and technologists, have grown up immersed in the world of sci-fi and fantasy. Books, video games, movies, all serve to reinforce our worldview. Most often magic is reduced to nothing more than science yet to be explained. If we only knew more, understood the laws of nature more clearly, it would cease to be magic. As a working scientist this “explanation” of magic depresses me to no end. Why believe in magic at all if it can ultimately be reducible to science? This is the point of magic, of fantasy. It can not be explained by natural laws, ever. It exists outside the realm of science. Apart from it. Certainly scientific principles may restrict or enhance particular magical applications but ultimately the allure of the magical is its ability to transcend those limitations. The scientist Mage may be able to invent a device that allows him to cast fireballs but the true Mage needs no such device. He can throw fireballs in direct opposition to all natural laws which “prove” it is not possible to do so.
I don’t want to be a science Mage but I very much desire to be a Mage. In the actual world every day I do things that the smartest men of the Middle Ages would call magic. If the same can be said of the things I do today by men of the future than it is not magic. I freely admit the power of such allusions to draw more people into scientific fields of study but they need to understand they are not mages in training but merely the next generation of scientists. Future mages will also need specialized training, training that the best science and engineering programs in the world will never be…
