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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mythusmage" data-source="post: 2279707" data-attributes="member: 571">A Few Observations*Every story has the author's morality at its core. No matter what the story is about, no matter how the story is about it, the author's moral sense informs it.*Christ figures have far more to do with the Jesus of legend than the Jesus of history.*Arthur C. Clarke: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.Alan Kellogg: Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.*The word, "psionics" was coined by the late John Wood Campbell Jr. At the time he was working with J.B. Rhine of the then brand new Rhine Institute, and he came up with "psionics" for electronic devices designed to amplify psychic abilities. Since "psionics" sounds more scientific that "psychic abilities" it became used in place of the older term in science fiction fandom. E. Gary Gygax (our own Col. Pladoh) uses "psychogenic" in Dangerous Journeys and Lejendary Adventures in place of "psionics"  on the grounds that "psionics" really refers to electronic devices that amplify psychic (or psychogenic) abilities.*Which last lead us to ...But before we get to it I must first inform the reader that what I say deals not with the appearance but the heart. That is, my thesis deals not with the architecture but the engineering.That said, the basis of fantasy is magical thinking. The idea that understanding is an individual thing, a matter of revelation. An understanding that cannot be taught to others. How one understands reality is unique to that person.Fantasy is also romantic. Romantic in that it relies strongly on authority and authoritarianism. In that there is a right and wrong way to do things, and that what is right and what is wrong cannot change. Star Wars relies on magical thinking, Star Wars is at its core romantic. Once you learn to see the foundations instead of the decorations you see that Star Wars is a fantasy.The basis of science fiction is scientific thinking. The idea that understanding is not unique to each person, but can be taught to others. That understanding, however imperfect and incomplete can be universal in application.In that last comes another essential difference between magical and scientific thinking. In magical thought understanding can be perfect and complete. In scientific thought understanding cannot be perfect and complete because we as human beings are not capable of seeing things perfectly and completely. We are limited and so our understanding is limited. You get right down to it, a scientific theory is nothing more than the best description of a phenomenon we can come up with based on what we know about the phenomenon in question. When we learn more about a phenomenon we must perforce devise a better description.The "the past was better and the future can only get worse" trope is not exclusive to fantasy. Nor is the "the future can only be better than today" trope exclusive to science fiction. You could write a fantasy in which the future means better things, and you could write a science fiction tale in which things are worse than they wore before, and will continue to get worse.(Historical fact: The Tasmanian Aborigines lost their previous level of technology because they simply didn't have the people necessary to maintain it. They lost the fishing net because those who knew how to make and use fishing nets died without teaching others their knowledge.)In short, it is possible for a fantasy story to have starships and lasers, while it is possible for a science fiction story to have magic spells and elves. What matters is whether it is magical or scientific thinking that informs it.</blockquote>

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