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The January 2018 One Week Challenge Theme Is... (currently 13920 views)
DustinBowcot
Posted: January 19th, 2018, 12:06pm
Guest User
That's the thing though, magic could never have held on. If it did, then we would never have evolved and we would have stayed completely ignorant, never learning. Constantly believing that it rains if we dance hard enough around a fire. It would work well with satire, but if a serious story then I'm not buying magic.
It's not that he got me there but I must admit that I feel that this film shows me a little of that "hidden strength" which is a huge accomplishment for a 3 minute short. We haven't even understood 1% of this whole field. IMO the short only tries to communicate its overall existence. And it is.
We later are going to explore the bio-chemical process, then, it will become science I guess???
I think there's a little mix-up on terminology. The scientific method as a self-aware concept, definitely modern. The pursuit of what works and what doesn't using essentially scientific principles is as old as learned behavior. A lot of superstition started off as mis-learned science, and religion can be thought of as a set of superstitions organized around relatively self-consistent philosophies. The conflict between religion/magic and science is that the former venerates the ancient while the latter wants to rip out the ancient and replace it with something new ASAP.
Kosher was a huge public health coup in Leviticus's time; it curtailed food poisoning and the spread of some infectious diseases. It is intertwined with some mystical bits which are no more or less silly than what you see in other religions. The ritual aspects have some social value as well. My take is that modern practitioners are fully aware that more modern food preparation and storage techniques have developed since, but they stick to Leviticus's methods more out of thankfulness to God for giving them such useful knowledge so long ago when it may well have given them an advantage over their neighbors. Observance of kosher has practically become a ritual aspect in itself, serving the social function of cementing norms and providing a shared experience among the practitioners.
Your post about superstition is exactly how a rationalist would describe Magic coming about...someone wanted rain and when they picked up a stone it started raining...they then came to believe that certain stones could make it rain and when rain was needed, they went looking for them.
That simple kind of thinking is why magic was humankind's first overriding ideology...predating the others by a considerable distance.
Again, I think the only issue here is terminology. Anyone capable of associating the rock and the rain is engaging in abstract thought that could only exist in the context of causal inference (the whole do X to Y and Z happens thing).
Superstition emerges when an otherwise scientific process involves a large amount of uncertainty from the practitioner's perspective. For predictable processes (making stone tools), holding onto what works and jettisoning what doesn't works fairly well. For unpredictable processes (fishing in deep ocean), it's not feasible to suss out the causes and effects (all the villagers know is that sometimes the boat never comes back), so people cling to whatever seemed to work at least some of the time. If one takes all the proper precautions and still fails, well they just didn't do it right (the No True Scotsman fallacy).
An alternate history story where the general population believes in magic: plausible. An alternate history where wizards go around shooting fireballs and conjuring elementals: not.
We later are going to explore the bio-chemical process, then, it will become science I guess???
More or less
An example I use is the term Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI has captivated and scared people for a long time, but that's because we only apply the term to stuff that isn't quite working yet, and the lay-person associates the unreliableness of AI in the real world to the AI portrayed in SciFi.
Optical character recognition and natural language processing were major early projects in AI research. It took a while, but we basically solved optical character recognition, and by the time one could buy consumer-grade OCR software, no one was calling it AI anymore. Natural language processing is a tougher nut to crack, so the AI label is still there, and people struggle daily to get Siri to follow simple directions.
The thinking goes something like: Siri is AI, and Siri can't even figure out the pronunciation of my wife's name. Autonomous androids will be AI, how screwed up will they be?
There are things like Obeah and Voodoo. Albinos are still killed and their parts used for magic in Africa, virgins are still raped in the belief it can cure HIV.
There are even Muti killings taking place in the UK, these days...
All it takes is for one group, or one man to become particularly prominent in some way and they get to set the narrative for society...Let's say famous Elizabethan Sorcerer John Dee became Prime Minister, or something....
TBH it's science that's the most vulnerable because there are a lot of things that it relies upon...technology, education, energy...so all it takes is one event...a solar flare for instance and we're back to the Dark Ages.
If the magic thing is done properly then it can slide. But if people are actually going to start levitating and conjuring things into existence then this is a no-no. Belief is one thing, it actually being real is another.
I think there's a little mix-up on terminology. The scientific method as a self-aware concept, definitely modern. The pursuit of what works and what doesn't using essentially scientific principles is as old as learned behavior. A lot of superstition started off as mis-learned science, and religion can be thought of as a set of superstitions organized around relatively self-consistent philosophies. The conflict between religion/magic and science is that the former venerates the ancient while the latter wants to rip out the ancient and replace it with something new ASAP.
Kosher was a huge public health coup in Leviticus's time; it curtailed food poisoning and the spread of some infectious diseases. It is intertwined with some mystical bits which are no more or less silly than what you see in other religions. The ritual aspects have some social value as well. My take is that modern practitioners are fully aware that more modern food preparation and storage techniques have developed since, but they stick to Leviticus's methods more out of thankfulness to God for giving them such useful knowledge so long ago when it may well have given them an advantage over their neighbors. Observance of kosher has practically become a ritual aspect in itself, serving the social function of cementing norms and providing a shared experience among the practitioners.
Well, yes.
If you expand the term "science" to include any successful manipulation of matter...regardless of the ideology behind it...then "science" has always existed...we couldn't have eaten anything without it because eating something edible would count as science from your definition.
We must also call modern day Orangutans and other tool using animals such as Bird's "scientists"....but that's surely taking it too far.
If one Googles "When was science invented"... the earliest date offered will be the 1200's, with Roger Bacon (famous Friar and Alchemical "wizard"....it's a recurring trait that great men are often religious, occultist and scientific all at once and goes back to what I was saying before about the genesis of Modern Science and Alchemy) often being mentioned.
I prefer to use the established terminology that:
Science (from Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge")[2][3]:58 is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
I think to extend the concept of science beyond the point people had even conceptualised it as a discipline/methodology, is a bit disingenuous.
Anyway, all good.
On another level: There is something of a conflict here between the Alternate History theme and the genre being open....Fantasy would be a legitimate choice of Genre....but could interfere with any realism required of the Theme.
Well, this today's debate will cool down soon, necessarily it will, but it is really interesting to me to see writers here do think about such demanding stuff, and I missed that philosophical sight on this board completely since it's nothing less than exactly our task to communicate publicly what's state of the game. Nobody else will do that job.
Science (from Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge")[2][3]:58 is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
And that's really interesting because knowledge is a relative term bound to interpretation. You also later use the word prediction, cut the "pre"… and you have language, exchange.
I really know not much about the topic and some stuff you both say go over my head but I interpret the debate like this: there's language and physical movement, both are the same but have another perspective.
I now go and do what good Germans do watch Football and drink some beer.
Very interesting stuff guys...
BTW You both may want to check out In Transit on Unproduced Board genre Comedy...
The writers going into some stuff you explain here but has problems to translate with necessary substance yet
If you expand the term "science" to include any successful manipulation of matter...regardless of the ideology behind it...then "science" has always existed...we couldn't have eaten anything without it because eating something edible would count as science from your definition.
We must also call modern day Orangutans and other tool using animals such as Bird's "scientists"....but that's surely taking it too far.
I was trying to clear up a misconception that "magical thinking" predated "scientific thinking," and therefore magic predated science. Practical arts of a scientific character (strike these rocks together this way to get a sharp stone) predated practical arts of a magical character (wear a bear pelt when fishing because bears eat fish) for no other reason than you couldn't conceivably have a bear pelt without tools.
But anyways, the emerging consensus seems to be that the Fantasy genre (as in swords-and-sorcery) seems implicitly excluded from the OWC. Superhero stuff tends to get lumped into the Fantasy genre, though, and there might be some plausible path from the Fall of Rome to establishing order through vigilante justice to costumed heroes without over-the-top superpowers. Purported superpowers would be fine (such as all the supposed abilities of ninjas).
BTW You both may want to check out In Transit on Unproduced Board genre Comedy...
The writers going into some stuff you explain here but has problems to translate with necessary substance yet
I'll try to find time to look at it. It's 110 pages and there seems to be quite a bit of discussion already... which I don't want to read before the screenplay, so as not to bias anything.
Only do it if you're interested of course, don't want to talk anybody into something. I'm an ESl so I make some mistakes as saying "you may want to…" which is different from "you might be interested" ...
I'm so often misunderstood in those fine areas ;-)
Not sure if the writer's even around anymore… But there was that certain topic that one of you talked about here, that a person him/herself defines their surroundings… The script at least addresses such stuff, just not successfully yet
I was trying to clear up a misconception that "magical thinking" predated "scientific thinking," and therefore magic predated science. Practical arts of a scientific character (strike these rocks together this way to get a sharp stone) predated practical arts of a magical character (wear a bear pelt when fishing because bears eat fish) for no other reason than you couldn't conceivably have a bear pelt without tools.
But anyways, the emerging consensus seems to be that the Fantasy genre (as in swords-and-sorcery) seems implicitly excluded from the OWC. Superhero stuff tends to get lumped into the Fantasy genre, though, and there might be some plausible path from the Fall of Rome to establishing order through vigilante justice to costumed heroes without over-the-top superpowers. Purported superpowers would be fine (such as all the supposed abilities of ninjas).
You don't need any technology to perform Magic...just a simple desire and a belief your thoughts can change reality.
I understand what you're trying to say. Humans are basically the same beast today as we were then, or vice versa, they were capable of deductive reasoning, observation and manipulating their world.
It's just that it's not strictly "science". At least under no definition I've ever seen.
Science is not just about performing individual physical acts and realising their efficacy...It's as this dictionary definition suggests: Science is the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.
It's deliberately, and objectively, trying to work out systems, or how the whole system works, not just how to sharpen rocks, or learn how to fish or similar activities.
Physical activity by itself is not science. It becomes science when you are doing it to create systematic classifications and to understand underlying concepts of why things behave like they do. What the mechanisms are.
Here's a little piece from Wikipedia on the history of science.
In prehistoric times, technique and knowledge were passed from generation to generation in an oral tradition. For example, the domestication of maize for agriculture has been dated to about 9,000 years ago in southern Mexico, before the development of writing systems.[6][7][8] Similarly, archaeological evidence indicates the development of astronomical knowledge in preliterate societies.[9][10] The development of writing enabled knowledge to be stored and communicated across generations with much greater fidelity.
Many ancient civilizations systematically collected astronomical observations. Rather than speculate on the material nature of the planets and stars, the ancients charted the relative positions of celestial bodies, often inferring their influence on human society. [b]This demonstrates how ancient investigators generally employed a holistic intuition, assuming the interconnectedness of all things, whereas modern science rejects such conceptual leaps.[/b]
The bolded bit is key...the ancients were recording and observing things for MAGICAL reasons (to see what the Fates were saying, or to predict the future etc). They were not performing objective, scientific experiments to work out what the stars were, and what they were made of.
They were not scientists, or even natural philosophers. They were magicians.
Magic, unequivocally, came before science. By a distance of 100,000+ years. It's not a close run thing.
But anyway, last post about that.
I agree about the genres...I think that was Mr Blonde's intent. A realistic world.
However, strictly speaking...the Open Genre allows for things like Fantasy and Supernatural Thrillers or any other genre that is populated by mythical, invented or similar characters.
Like I say, I don't think that's his actual intention.