I’ve heard that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. What if magic, not the appearance of magic, actually is the highest science? I am not talking about neo-magic, illusion or scams like ‘email marketing.’ I do mean actual magic.

The world that we consider ourselves so superior for having left behind would be the technological capital of the solar system. It would be the very naturalism that is preached throughout the developed parts of this world that prevent us from seeing the truth. We would be the ignorant primitives who will, in the future, only be read about in history books. Reality, real possibilities beyond anything that we know, could be passing us by as we live in our chosen ignorance.

Please be advised that I am not talking about anything as neo-materialist as witchcraft. What I am talking about is the technology of altering the very physical reality that we have, of late, been trained to worship without question. How do we know that anything is really here? Is it the force of our belief that keeps us living in a banal reality?

There would be no point in having a completely subjective reality. Real magic, a technology all its own, would have to have rules to be viable. We need a collective reality, even if it turns out to be an illusion. A game that has no rules cannot be played. What fun would there be in such a thing?

Remember also that Man is not God and cannot become God. There has to be an impartial referee to enforce the rules of the game or there is no point in having rules. The force of law is never greater than the ability to enforce that law. Magic would need a judge who is mightier than magic.

If you have to call beyond the universe for the services of magic, then magic is not a part of the fabric of the universe. That is why I leave out neo-naturalist practices like witchcraft. My question requires that magic be the highest technology of the universe and not just something that you call to alter the universe. Being a technology imposed the rules requirement. Technology is a way of doing things, like an art based upon the science of the place where it is practiced.

How would such a universe operate? It would work the same way as the universe around us. Everything has competing interests, so no excessively large things can be done. The force of the magic in the people that you would be acting against would contain you by exceeding your magic. Magic would also require an understanding in order to be able to use it.

You would never get enough people to agree to any single thing large enough to force it onto the whole universe. There would be conflict in the details. Enough small conflicts would have the same effect as a single, large conflict. Magic would have its limits because Man has his limits.

Man is further bounded by his intelligence. As stupid as some people can be, they are bounded by their intelligence so that they will not act in some ways. Each of us could be predicted, given enough data and the ability to make a projection based upon that knowledge. The judge saw to it that magic will be bounded even if limitless power was available for magic.

Imbalances would still exist, however, imbalance is the heart of energy and movement. You could not do much without a difference of potential. Magic, as a technology, would have this limit as well. Time itself will come to an end when there is no imbalance to propel it.

How do we know that magic is not the highest of the real technologies? It doesn’t matter because we do not believe that it is.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 25th, 2006 at 12:01 am and is filed under Mulligan Adventures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.