The place of Science in Fantasy settings

[glass]

One of other rare exceptions to this is GURPS Technomancer, in which magic returned to Earth when the first nuclear bomb was detonated in 1945. In it, magic is fully compatible with technology - there are enchanted bullets, necronium reactors, one-shot programs that act as "scrolls", and so on. It even goes into magical theory - magical particles behave somewhat similarly to radiation. I fully recommend checking it out.

I love GURPS Technomancer, but I also like technology and magic being incompatible in some settings (I agree that 'incompatible with science' is a meaningless characterisation).



glass.

 

[prosfilaes]

Sure, they would. A science is a department of systematized knowledge as an object of study.

You state that as if it were truth, not definition. It's far broader than any definition of science I've ever heard, and includes too many things that rarely if ever are considered sciences.

(We'll ignore that you left out mathematics.)

That's because it's not a science. Mathematics is a game of logic, not a study of the real world. (I'll admit that it's frequently classified as a science, unlike many of the other subjects you bring up.)

philosophy, theology

I have never heard of philosophers or theologians considered scientists. Good, evil, gods, heaven and hell are all widely considered outside the realm of science.

Limiting science to that which employs the scientific method is reductionist and unnecessary.

I have no clue what you mean by reductionist here; I've looked it up and the definitions don't fit.

Definitions limit what words mean, so we can communicate. Looking at examples of the usage of the word--e.g. what subjects can you get a Bachelor of Science in, what subjects are classified as sciences in the library classification systems, etc.--I see that philosophy and theology are almost universally excluded, as is literature. History is usually excluded. That is, the use of the word in common practice is not nearly so vast as you want it to be.

It's not really useful for the two of us to discuss the subject; our definitions of the word are so far apart that we aren't discussing the same thing.

 

[Johnny Angel]

Who would exhibit the greatest amount of magical thinking if not spellcasters?

The important thing to remember about magical thinking and related fallacies is that we are all inclined toward it. It requires education and discipline to turn our minds from it.

So ... do we mean "Science" as in the application of the scientific method for the advancement of knowledge, or "Technology", which could be based either on the application of physical principles derived from scientific methods, or could based on rules developed by other means, including, for example, divine inspiration?

That's an important distinction, of course. Are we talking about magic and science or magic and technology.

Science is not a body of knowledge, though it is often loosely applied to a body of discovered explanations. But, to quote Gould, "Science, in its most fundamental definition, is a fruitful mode of inquiry, not a list of enticing conclusions. The conclusions are the consequence, not the essence." There is no reason to suppose that magic could not be subject to scientific scrutiny.

The question about the extent to which magic would co-incide with technology is a very different question. In many cases, technological advancements were made up of elements that were available for centuries, but had not been put together. The argument we've been having here has generally assumed that the driving force of innovation is need, and magic will remove the need for innovation.

Yes, innovation arises out of need. But unless your setting is like that of Robin McKinley's Spindle's End, where "The magic in that country was so thick and tenacious that it settled over the land like chalk-dust and over floors and shelves like slightly sticky plaster-dust" then magic is going to be the resort of very few. The vast majority of people who have to get something done -- masons, carters, smiths, cobblers -- must do without magic and will develop new technologies independently. So even if need or utility were the end-all and be-all of innovation, magic is unlikely to make need irrelevant.

But it isn't just need. Knowledge drives innovation as well. New discoveries put old ideas in new light, and people put old things together in new ways. The discovery of microscopic life substantially improved the efficiency of brewing, cheesemaking. Knowledge drives innovation, which creates new knowledge which in turn drives more innovation.

Even if we take it as read that magic eliminates need as a impetus for technological advancement, which I don't think it will to a significant degree, magic would be a profound source of new knowledge and new ideas. If anything, magic would substantially accellerate the advancement of technology.

And still I'm speaking as though there would be a difference between technology and magic, between the study of rerum natura and rerum magica, which of course there wouldn't be if magic were an empircally demonstrable phenomenon which behaved according to observable and predictable rules that were subject to scrutiny and analysis. On what criteria would we distinguish what is natural from what is magical?

 

[Johnny Angel]

I have no clue what you mean by reductionist here; I've looked it up and the definitions don't fit.

Not to be too much of a smart aleck, but Reductionism is the sin that occurs when other people define their terms and draw distinctions. When you yourself do it, it's clarity and specificity.

In science and mathematics, reductionism is a method of getting at the truth by breaking things down into their component parts. In the humanities 'reductionism' is a charge leveled against scientific thinking because of the likely significance of the meaning of the whole that is lost by looking too closely at parts. By analogy to this error, the term has come to be used broadly for anything that oversimplifies for the purpose of analysis, by which definition most accusations of reductionism are in fact reductionist.

 

[Tonguez]

It may be covered by science in an abstract sense, but that doesn't mean that people would develop science to deal with it. The core of science is physics, chemistry, and biology, in that order. ..

QUOTE=prosfilaes
I have never heard of philosophers or theologians considered scientists. Good, evil, gods, heaven and hell are all widely considered outside the realm of science.

Sir Ernest Rutherford is reported to have said that "Physics is the only true science, all else is stamp collecting" which I take to mean that fundamentally chemistry and biology as 'sciences' are a system of classification and analysis of cause and effect relationships that occur in the observable world. (whereas Physics by going beyond the immediately observable would eventually bring understanding of how things really happen)

Now irl gods and magic are not observable and so they fall outside the limits of science. In a fantasy world however gods can be spoken to and magic has an observable real process and outcome. Therefore a system to define, classify and describe magical or divine cause and effect relationships will arise and those who study it might be called philosophers or theologians.

Now I've done some study in the area of 'Ethnosciences' and its interesting to look at the emphasis of different knowledge traditions.
Western Science arose from a basis of alchemy and the analysis of 'physical substance' and which gave rise to modern chemistry and its reductionist mechanistic materialist approach this is not necessarily true in the develoipment of a magical science (although DnDs use of components will still incorporate it). In some non-western knowledge traditions their is a greater emphasis on non mechnistic, non-material 'energy processes' which fit into the realms of physics and imho a magical science would be most similar to Physics and lead to an entirely different approach than was the case with classic mechanistic sciences.
It will need a lot more thinking to work out how a magical science might look but I'd beat it would be alot more Schrödinger and a lot less Newton*

*PS I always love to point out that Newton was NOT a scientist - he is instead the worlds most famous alchemist and natural philosopher

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Scientists as a group are not holy, blameless creatures who approach all questions with a thoroughly open mind unshackled by preconceived notions and pet prejudices. In the real world, they have often been downright vicious regarding perceived threats to their favored explanations. They've engaged in slander, deceit, and scientific fraud in the past, and undoubtedly will do so in the future. In a fantasy world, there's no reason to assume the same sorts of things wouldn't happen.

True enough... but that hasn't prevented the gradual process of eliminating wrong ideas and theories. Eventually, the evidence against a wrong theory just becomes too strong and the scientist in the field either have to accept that evidence and revise their theories or become crackpots.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

It may be covered by science in an abstract sense, but that doesn't mean that people would develop science to deal with it. The core of science is physics, chemistry, and biology, in that order. Science doesn't deal with economics and psychology in such an easy way.

Sure, researching economics and psychology is comparatively "difficult" to the "basics" of physics, but only because the reactions of humans are harder to predict than those of fundemental physical, chemical, or biological processes.

And even then, scientific research in these fields is by no means impossible - just difficult because you tend to have to work with the reactions of a very large number of people and (usually) can't repeat your experiments. But even the "hard" sciences have their difficult areas.

Magic from D&D or GURPS (core systems, that is) will translate fairly well to science, as will alchemical type magics--though that doesn't mean people will develop them. But worlds where people arise that shape the world in unique ways by the power of their will alone isn't conducive to scientific exploration.

That's assuming that all a magic user has to do is will an effect into existence, which seems doubtful to me. If it were that easy, then he should be able to create 9th level spell effects right from the start, right?

Especially wizards constantly seem to study their magic - which seems to assume learning, experimentation, and reliance on certain formulas. That's not at all incompatible with science.

In game terms, any system that has a lot of GM interpretation isn't going to be conducive to scientific exploration, which assumes there's nice simple laws behind things.

I disagree - a GM doesn't need to know the fundamental theories behind the magic in his world to run magic users in it. I mean, I don't know how every circuit works in a computer to use it, either.

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

This has less to do with what science actually is (and what scientists are) and what magic actually is (and what magic-users are) than it does with the preconceived notions of the game designers, game masters and players.

All the games and game settings are utterly artificial. They are purely shared mental constructs where objective rules cannot and do not exist – what does exist it what people want to exist, what people force to exist through their strength of will and the power of their imagination. It does not have to be fair, sensible, just or well-thought out. All it has to be is appear to be presented forcefully.

Someone, somewhere said "magic and science are incompatible" and since then most everyone has taken that on faith, and resisted any and all other notions.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Yes, innovation arises out of need. But unless your setting is like that of Robin McKinley's Spindle's End, where "The magic in that country was so thick and tenacious that it settled over the land like chalk-dust and over floors and shelves like slightly sticky plaster-dust" then magic is going to be the resort of very few. The vast majority of people who have to get something done -- masons, carters, smiths, cobblers -- must do without magic and will develop new technologies independently. So even if need or utility were the end-all and be-all of innovation, magic is unlikely to make need irrelevant.

And when magic is available, it is doubtful it could fulfill every need without significant magical innovation as well. There's always one more application, one more useful magical trick in combat, one nifty magic item, one magical way of gathering information and so forth that no one has invented yet, but which will give the eventual inventor an edge. And even if a magical innovation is immediately only useful to a small, select circle, the rest of the world may just find other applications for it.

Magic can be part of the circle of innovation just as much as "mundane" technology.

 

[prosfilaes]

Sure, researching economics and psychology is comparatively "difficult" to the "basics" of physics, but only because the reactions of humans are harder to predict than those of fundemental physical, chemical, or biological processes.

Right; but the reason why we use the scientific method in psychology is because it works so well in physics. If something is useful in its primal phases, then it can get extended to the hard stuff. If something is not useful at the start, no one is going to spend the time and energy extending to work with the hard stuff.

That's assuming that all a magic user has to do is will an effect into existence, which seems doubtful to me. If it were that easy, then he should be able to create 9th level spell effects right from the start, right?

What's a 9th level spell? You're assuming a specific magic system here, and even in that magic system, sorcerers don't study their magic. It's entirely possible that after enough channeling of energy, the conduits a sorcerer uses simply expand.

Especially wizards constantly seem to study their magic - which seems to assume learning, experimentation, and reliance on certain formulas. That's not at all incompatible with science.

If you're going towards more of an alchemical wizardry, then sure, science will go hand in hand with wizardry. If, however, wizardry is pure soul "energy", and all these hand motions and study are pure placebo, then any proto-scientist who gets pulled into studying magic will be lost.

I disagree - a GM doesn't need to know the fundamental theories behind the magic in his world to run magic users in it. I mean, I don't know how every circuit works in a computer to use it, either.

A world where the rules are clear and cut is easy to study. In a D&D world where almost every mage know Magic Missile, Magic Missile can be studied easily. If everything is at the whim of the GM, even if that doesn't map to being at the whim of a god or the like, is a lot harder to study. If it comes down to needs of the narrative, it's basically impossible to study; how does science deal with a world where grenades take five seconds to explode in the lab but 37 seconds when thrown at John McClane?