High Magic - High technology, historical question

[fusangite]

There are a set of factors which can be viewed both as independent and interdependent in social development: technology, science and philosophy.

While philosophy and science took a beating for much of the medieval period, major technological developments proceeded independent of this -- the three field system, major improvements in metallurgy and the heavy plough.

Similarly, science and philosophy, while often linked can also proceed independently so that one can have a society which is becoming more scientifically sophisticated even as its capacity to discuss philosophical concepts is in decline (such as modern capitalism or Soviet communism).

Therefore, it's my inclinate to treat magic as a variable that is as dependent on these other things as you want it to be.

Thus, one can design a society in which the magic theory is to real magic as modern chemistry is to the physical sciences (ie. an actual, if incomplete, understanding) or one can design a society in which magic theory is to real magic as alchemy was to the physical sciences (ie. a mixture of sound observational data and apocrypha integrated into a system premised on false ideas). Or, one can design a society in which magic theory is to real magic as Platonism is to the physical sciences (ie. completely unrelated). It's really up to you.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

There are a set of factors which can be viewed both as independent and interdependent in social development: technology, science and philosophy.

While philosophy and science took a beating for much of the medieval period, major technological developments proceeded independent of this -- the three field system, major improvements in metallurgy and the heavy plough.

Hey, there's evidence that the monks Henry VIII destroyed were using blast furnaces, but...

OMG, you did not just dump on the Medieval philosophy!

Aquinas and the Scholastics rock! As do the Nominalists and any number of Jewish, Muslim, and Chinese schools.

Oh, I'm also writing to recommend a specific and published technology theory:

Questioning Technology by Andrew Feenberg is a very recent and well respected look at the philosophy that deals with technology and the manner in which technology is mythologized and developed/exploited by capitalist societies. There might be less utility with regard to more or less medieval systems, but I think it could still be very useful.

There are plenty of very good books on Medieval technological development, an offshoot of the fairly recent work into the Medieval 'Industrial Revolution.' I haven't read any of the larger works, but Crichton has a nice bibliography at the end of Timeline that focuses on them.

Thomas Kuhn's Structure of the Scientific Revolution is very popular with a lot of my friends and professors, haven't read it don't know that I want to. Focuses on his idea of paradigm shifts. As I said, very popular with thinking folks, I'm avoiding it, though I will probably read it eventually, because from the way it's represented I fear it will promote a very abstract understanding of what are at root very human and economic phenomena.

 

[fusangite]

Dr. Strangemonkey. I agree with all you're saying -- my point is that medieval thought was in many ways more advanced than modern capitalist thought. (Capitalism is about the only system of thought since the stone age that has decided the problem is what we have as opposed to the problem being what we want.) So, I agree with everything you say in your post.

I just note that while actual science went downhill in the medieval period (until the late medieval synthesis with which Aquinas is associated), there was continuous progress in engineering and metallurgy.

 

[Salad Shooter]

My apologies if anything I say here has already been mentioned.

I draw attention to a CRPG entitled "Arcanum." In the game, you can advance through technology, and through magic...but as your character advances through one, he gathers penalties for the other. Characters in your party could be dominantly magic users, or dominantly tech users, or a combination of the two.

A slight variation of this might be where there are factions in the world that abhor technology and rely only on magic, or vice versa...and maybe a more open minded individual reaps the benefits from both.

And thats my thoughts on the matter, I've always toyed with the idea of an archmage piloting a Madcat or some similar giant mecha doodad...

 

[Salad Shooter]

This is why the Bayonet charge rules warfare until the civil war.

And even during the civil war the bayonet charge was brought to good use...as quite ably demonstrated by Chamberlain at Gettysburg (Little or Big Round Top, can't remember which...)

being pressed by the Confederate army, and running extremely low on ammunition, while holding a critical point, Chamberlain ordered his forces to fix bayonets and charge, which saved the Union flank from being over run

Don't quote me on any of these facts, I'm not a history buff, and I could be wrong on a few details.

 

[s/LaSH]

If we assume that we're talking about a standard D&D paradigm here, then things get easy to answer.

Magic equals elitism. There are those who cast spells, and those who don't. While anyone can fire a gun, not anyone can read a Fireball scroll (in fact, probably around 1% of the population, I'm guessing). Wheras technology distributes power to a number of people, magic concentrates that power - a gang of peasants with muskets is all well and good, but one archmage can rain meteors down upon them, call up monsters from other planes of existance, build minions to protect himselt, etc.

Magic can be concentrated into one place much more than technology. A peasant with twenty muskets is no match for a wizard with one Fireball. Magic items simply accelerate this elitism - a wizard won't make too many, because of the XP cost, and it makes sense for the items to be very powerful and for one recipient, turning that recipient into an unstoppable juggernaut.

Basically, magic enhances about the same absolute quantity as technology, but rather than enhance a lot of people a little it enhances a few people a lot. This enforces a mindset of 'the little people' which few would be willing to break - medieval culture simply wasn't as advanced as we are now. Why teach the peasants how to read? Or count? They don't need it!



Right, another concept: psionics. No! Don't run! Stop and listen. I'm talking about scifi 'induced psionics', a science often based upon genetic and neurological principles (and quantum mechanics) where volunteers are enhanced with some treatment that gives them psi powers that greatly resemble magic. This is often the plan of a mad wizard, right? Create underlings with unstoppable powers! But how does the wizard do this? Food for thought.



Another concept: Education. The primary reason wizards are such a mythological force is because they're insular - they keep their power to themselves. What if they started teaching everyone how to operate magic? Now, to be fair, only about half the NPC population could ever cast even a cantrip (INT 10), but hey, how many people can do calculus in the modern world? An educated populace can advance faster than an uneducated one - and has certain other benefits, as education is simply concentrated experience. I honestly believe I'm higher level than most people from medieval times. Anyway, if you educate the populace, you get innovation, and some of that's going to be technological - some wizard zaps a group of slaad with a lightning bolt and notices that the dead one's legs still twitch when the bolt goes by. A little experimentation later, and you've got conductivity. That sorta thing.

Education is an increase in regional power. If everyone in the region is better trained than the people in a neighbouring region, you'll probably conquer them soon. It also lends itself to other things, like democracy and equality, simply because every citizen has this advantage and wants to keep it. So elitism suffers a crippling blow. Soon, easily-distributed tools are favoured over tools that give one person power. Technology is the best way to implement this, unless someone discovers an XP siphon/generator (not unlikely, but not in the core rules). Technology becomes an area of interest. The elites still stay elite, trying to keep ahead, which leads to more advancement, more techniques and insights that make existing spells more powerful, etc etc. Pretty soon, the standard of living is greatly advanced and level 1 spells can rival Fireball.

Um... looks like I'm ranting. I'll stop now.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Very true - considering that the cheapest golem costs 50,000 gold to make, no one in their right mind is going to use one for labor... 50,000 gp worth of laborers will get the job done faster by several orders of magnitude. Not to mention that golems, as per the standard D&D rules, are pretty useless for skilled work, and for unskilled labor, 50,000 gold buys you (assuming 12 hour work days, and DMG labor costs) 6,000,000 man-hours...

On the other hand, golems are very useful for tasks in which lots of unskilled labor can't replace them.

In Urbis, for example, I have them pulling trains - putting a couple of dozens of humans in front of a train who have to stop anyone needs to be replaced because of exhaustion is too much of a bother. And they probably still couldn't go as fast as golems...

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Re: Re: High Magic - High technology, historical question

So what's the difference between magic and technology? A pretty major bit of silliness in the Fantasy Genre is that "magic" and "technology" are really just used to refer to what kind of props you're using. Once magic becomes real, it's technology.

If detect magic causes a reaction, it's magic.

Seriously, for magic you need - at least initially - a person who can command otherworldly forces, like a wizard, sorcerer, cleric, druid... They command the forces (or ask them nicely, in the case of the latter two), and the effect happens.

For technological devices, you need only a single genius (or a particularily inventive fool) to build the first device. After that, you only need people who can follow instructions in assembling the device - hell, you can distribute the construction among as many people as you want, with no participant needing to know anything more than how to create his part.

And using the device usually needs little to no special knowledge at all - pretty much anyone can do it.

With magic, either it is the skilled people who do everything themselves, or who need to put magical energies into an item. Sure, these items often can be used without any further instructions as well - but only the magical experts can create them. This means that their supply is limited by the number of magic-users.

And whether common technological devices are feasible in your world depends on what percentage of the population does the farming - if most are peasants tolling in the fields, then there aren't as many people who can manufacture complicated goods.

Fortunately, in Urbis, the number of farmers is rather low - at least when compared to the hordes of migrant workers...

 

[tarchon]

Re: Re: Re: High Magic - High technology, historical question

If detect magic causes a reaction, it's magic.

Seriously, for magic you need - at least initially - a person who can command otherworldly forces, like a wizard, sorcerer, cleric, druid... They command the forces (or ask them nicely, in the case of the latter two), and the effect happens.

For technological devices, you need only a single genius (or a particularily inventive fool) to build the first device. After that, you only need people who can follow instructions in assembling the device - hell, you can distribute the construction among as many people as you want, with no participant needing to know anything more than how to create his part.

Not everyone can use an assembler to create software. Is it magic? Special knowledge, skill, or ability doesn't work as a criterion for magic.
Command doesn't work either, since there's no evidence that magic necessarily involves communicating commands in any higher sense than flipping a light switch involves commanding a lightbulb (and I'm confident that commanding an assembler is far more involved than using a command word on a wand).
On the flip side, the assembly criterion for technology also works for things which you would probably call magic. D&D rules don't require the caster to craft a magic item himself, and several casters can participate in creating a magic item.
If you posit that "magic" actually works, the only difference is whether you want to call it a "frost ray" or a "ray of frost," nothing more than a question of which genre convention you choose to draw your trappings from.

 

[Sixchan]

If we assume that we're talking about a standard D&D paradigm here, then things get easy to answer.

Magic equals elitism. There are those who cast spells, and those who don't. While anyone can fire a gun, not anyone can read a Fireball scroll (in fact, probably around 1% of the population, I'm guessing). Wheras technology distributes power to a number of people, magic concentrates that power - a gang of peasants with muskets is all well and good, but one archmage can rain meteors down upon them, call up monsters from other planes of existance, build minions to protect himselt, etc.

Magic can be concentrated into one place much more than technology. A peasant with twenty muskets is no match for a wizard with one Fireball. Magic items simply accelerate this elitism - a wizard won't make too many, because of the XP cost, and it makes sense for the items to be very powerful and for one recipient, turning that recipient into an unstoppable juggernaut.

Basically, magic enhances about the same absolute quantity as technology, but rather than enhance a lot of people a little it enhances a few people a lot. This enforces a mindset of 'the little people' which few would be willing to break - medieval culture simply wasn't as advanced as we are now. Why teach the peasants how to read? Or count? They don't need it!



Right, another concept: psionics. No! Don't run! Stop and listen. I'm talking about scifi 'induced psionics', a science often based upon genetic and neurological principles (and quantum mechanics) where volunteers are enhanced with some treatment that gives them psi powers that greatly resemble magic. This is often the plan of a mad wizard, right? Create underlings with unstoppable powers! But how does the wizard do this? Food for thought.



Another concept: Education. The primary reason wizards are such a mythological force is because they're insular - they keep their power to themselves. What if they started teaching everyone how to operate magic? Now, to be fair, only about half the NPC population could ever cast even a cantrip (INT 10), but hey, how many people can do calculus in the modern world? An educated populace can advance faster than an uneducated one - and has certain other benefits, as education is simply concentrated experience. I honestly believe I'm higher level than most people from medieval times. Anyway, if you educate the populace, you get innovation, and some of that's going to be technological - some wizard zaps a group of slaad with a lightning bolt and notices that the dead one's legs still twitch when the bolt goes by. A little experimentation later, and you've got conductivity. That sorta thing.

Education is an increase in regional power. If everyone in the region is better trained than the people in a neighbouring region, you'll probably conquer them soon. It also lends itself to other things, like democracy and equality, simply because every citizen has this advantage and wants to keep it. So elitism suffers a crippling blow. Soon, easily-distributed tools are favoured over tools that give one person power. Technology is the best way to implement this, unless someone discovers an XP siphon/generator (not unlikely, but not in the core rules). Technology becomes an area of interest. The elites still stay elite, trying to keep ahead, which leads to more advancement, more techniques and insights that make existing spells more powerful, etc etc. Pretty soon, the standard of living is greatly advanced and level 1 spells can rival Fireball.

Um... looks like I'm ranting. I'll stop now.

All of the above makes perfect sense (to me, anyway). This makes it likely that we won't see the beginnings of the Scientific revolution until the twilight of Feudalism and the rise of Mercantilism. Mercantilism depends on the lower folk mch more than Feudalism does, mainly because the peasants are needed to grow your crop, mine your material, construct your product, etc. etc. This means that the Merchants want new mining, farming and industrial techniques to produce more, make more money, and get an edge over competition (although competition isn't so big a worry until Mercantilism becomes Capitalism).

Of course, in some campaign settings, there are places already at this point. Amn in the FR is a Republic that is Mercantile in nature (though not in practice, because they don't have any overseas colonies yet), so if there is going to be a SR, it could well be there (especially with their unfavourable attitudes to magic, which will likely tempt the intelligent people towards science).