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General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
The place of Science in Fantasy settings
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<blockquote data-quote="Tonguez" data-source="post: 3976152" data-attributes="member: 1125"><p>Sir Ernest Rutherford is reported to have said that "<em>Physics is the only true science, all else is stamp collecting</em>" which I take to mean that fundamentally chemistry and biology as 'sciences' are a <em>system of classification and analysis of cause and effect relationships that occur in the <strong>observable</strong> world</em>. (whereas Physics by going beyond the immediately observable would eventually bring understanding of how things really happen<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />)</p><p></p><p>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 <em>will</em> arise and those who study it might be called philosophers or theologians.</p><p></p><p>Now I've done some study in the area of 'Ethnosciences' and its interesting to look at the emphasis of different knowledge traditions. </p><p>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.</p><p>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*</p><p></p><p>*PS I always love to point out that Newton was <strong>NOT</strong> a scientist - he is instead the worlds most famous alchemist and natural <strong>philosopher</strong><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tonguez, post: 3976152, member: 1125"] Sir Ernest Rutherford is reported to have said that "[I]Physics is the only true science, all else is stamp collecting[/I]" which I take to mean that fundamentally chemistry and biology as 'sciences' are a [I]system of classification and analysis of cause and effect relationships that occur in the [B]observable[/B] world[/I]. (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 [I]will[/I] 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 [B]NOT[/B] a scientist - he is instead the worlds most famous alchemist and natural [B]philosopher[/B]:) [/QUOTE]
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