D&D General Wizards are not rational/scientists

[doctorbadwolf]

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[doctorbadwolf]

That wizards study spellbooks and have schools doesn't require them to be scientists. It makes as much sense to compare them to philosophers, theologians, Jungian psychologists, and English lit majors as to physicists.

I disagree. They are very very similar to Hermetic alchemists, with the primary difference being that magic actually works in D&D land.

I see nothing banal or prosaic or any of the other dismissive adjectives that have been used in this thread about Tycho Brahe, Wizard of Ill Repute.

 

[Voranzovin]

playing wizards like mathematicians and not mysterious and arcane takes me right out of it.
Ymmv

I like to think of them as combining anything they combine—compelling spirits the extraplanar and laws of magic throufh lost lore…not dudes with algebraic equations or whatever.

I don't see those two things as mutually exclusive. Femat's last theorem is basically lost lore from an ancient master, and it took hundreds of years for the solution to be rediscovered. I can find the shortest path between two orientations using a Quaternion slerp, but I can't visualize how the solution is found, because Quaternion space is four dimensional and human brains literally can't comprehend that.

I think math is a great analogy for magic precisely because it IS strange, arcane, and mysterious, and people who have been initiated into it's mysteries frequently seem incomprehensible to the outside observer.

 

[squibbles]

I disagree. They are very very similar to Hermetic alchemists, with the primary difference being that magic actually works in D&D land.

I see nothing banal or prosaic or any of the other dismissive adjectives that have been used in this thread about Tycho Brahe, Wizard of Ill Repute.

Point conceded, very similar.

But even if Hermetic alchemy is has the big "T" Truth, that doesn't make it scientific.

The Wikipedia article on Hermeticism has this nugget:

"Throughout its history, Hermeticism was closely associated with the idea of a primeval, divine wisdom, revealed only to the most ancient of sages, such as Hermes Trismegistus. In the Renaissance, this developed into the notion of a prisca theologia or "ancient theology", which asserted that there is a single, true theology which was given by God to some of the first humans, and traces of which may still be found in various ancient systems of thought."​

So, though hermetic-alchemy-wielding wizards may have the universe figured out (and in my cynical headcannon, they only think they do), their means of knowing are based at least in part on revelation. That's qualitatively different from science, even if the scientific method is sometimes employed. (btw science might not even have a monopoly on "T"ruth IRL, there's a super interesting TED talk about how limited human perceptions undermine scientific empiricism as an epistemology)

That wizards study spellbooks and have schools doesn't require them to be scientists. It makes as much sense to compare them to philosophers, theologians, Jungian psychologists, and English lit majors as to physicists.

Incidentally, no offense meant to any of those disciplines. They're just the ones that came to mind as examples of academics who use rationality and logic but not necessarily the scientific method (and I probably don't know enough about Jungian psychology to make that judgment in its case).

Plenty of academic disciplines are not science, but are still worthwhile.

And of course, if learning one lets you fly and shoot fireballs, well...

 

[doctorbadwolf]

But even if Hermetic alchemy is has the big "T" Truth, that doesn't make it scientific.

That doesn’t, but the fact they used the scientific method to better understand the world, and genuinely advanced the world’s knowledge of how nature works in the process, does.

Paracelsus invented toxicology by experimenting based on observation and then he published his work and iterated it in conversation with other alchemists.

This is also how optics were invented in (IIRC) Baghdad (by Al Jabir? Or one of his contemporaries, I’m pretty sure), and many other developments and inventions over the course of a couple thousand years.

Newton was an alchemist, who believed in numerology.

The line between alchemist and scientist is purely one of chronology, and bias.

And Hermetic alchemists are just alchemists who worked in the tradition tracing from classical Greece, through the Muslim world and post classical Europe.

The fact they were also mystics doesn’t make them not scientists. That isn’t how science works. If it were, there wouldn’t be scientists that believe in the divine or spiritual world.

 

[squibbles]

That doesn’t, but the fact they used the scientific method to better understand the world, and genuinely advanced the world’s knowledge of how nature works in the process, does.

Paracelsus invented toxicology by experimenting based on observation and then he published his work and iterated it in conversation with other alchemists.

This is also how optics were invented in (IIRC) Baghdad (by Al Jabir? Or one of his contemporaries, I’m pretty sure), and many other developments and inventions over the course of a couple thousand years.

Newton was an alchemist, who believed in numerology.

The line between alchemist and scientist is purely one of chronology, and bias.

And Hermetic alchemists are just alchemists who worked in the tradition tracing from classical Greece, through the Muslim world and post classical Europe.

The fact they were also mystics doesn’t make them not scientists. That isn’t how science works. If it were, there wouldn’t be scientists that believe in the divine or spiritual world.

Point taken. Those are great counter-examples.

I would respond that it's not that scientists cannot also be mystics, it's that, if how you know what you know about the world is deeply informed by mysticism, you aren't quite doing science.

And, of course, if you asked them, hermetic alchemists would not say they were doing science or understand their enterprise to be non-mystical. Even people in the 1800s whom we 100% would call scientists (e.g. Darwin) understood themselves to be doing "Natural Philosophy", a thing that is similar to but not interchangeable with science. Back projecting our words onto historical people always involves interpretation (and therefore bias).

Suffice it to say that I don't think of Paracelsus as a scientist, though it's true that he made meaningful contributions to scientific knowledge.

And, to bring us back on topic, I can see where my objection to the term scientist in reference to D&D wizards makes less sense, if you DO view Paracelsus as a scientist. We're definitely talking past each other a bit here.

I also want to clarify that some of the loaded phrases I used above--cargo cult thinking, pseudo-scientific nonsense, midichlorian-esque fantasy babble, etc.--are my own headcannon interpretation of the 5e component lists, and not shots fired or shade thrown.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I think part of the problem is if wizards are scientists all worlds are destined to become eberron but that would be undesirable so wizards should have another component to it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Suffice it to say that I don't think of Paracelsus as a scientist, though it's true that he made meaningful contributions to scientific knowledge.

I think that if the bolded is true, and this was done using the scientific method, that person is a scientist, regardless of whatever else they also do.

And, of course, if you asked them, hermetic alchemists would not say they were doing science or understand their enterprise to be non-mystical.

Science wasn’t a term, so sure. I won’t get into the experiential observation elements (unverified personal gnosis in modern pagan parlance) of the mystic praxis, but it wasn’t quite as “woo” as it may seem from a modern perspective. They applied logical methodology to their mysticism. Quite sophisticated methodology, or “ritual technology”, in fact.

if how you know what you know about the world is deeply informed by mysticism, you aren't quite doing science.

Sure you are. You’re just also doing other stuff. They aren’t mutually exclusive. Even less so in a world where the mysticism not only works, but works predictably, and in ways that are deeply tied to how the universe works. Understanding how fire magic interacts with thermodynamics and with the mystical underpinnings of mortal and immortal consciousness and with the Plane of Fire, is all the same activity in D&D.

But even if the mysticism is separated from the rest, doing a mysticism doesn’t preclude also doing a science.

And, to bring us back on topic, I can see where my objection to the term scientist in reference to D&D wizards makes less sense, if you DO view Paracelsus as a scientist. We're definitely talking past each other a bit here.

I don’t think we were ever off topic, tbh.

How we are each using the term scientist is pretty central to understanding any part of the discussion.

Side note, about things like the “pun” nature of material components and the like. My way of looking at it with my gnome rogue/Wizard alchemist is that if bat guano and saltpeter can create an explosion of fire, he reasons, and is experimenting to test the idea, that some admixture of those materials must be associated on some natural or cosmological level with explosions of fire. We can hypothesize that this should be true because we have shown through experiment and through logical analysis that material components have a resonance with some part of the universe, either consciousness, cosmology, or material nature.

By understanding how the elements of spells interact and commingle to create the predictable spell effect, we can expand our understanding of nature, and this comes around to also then increase our understanding of the component parts of magic.

 

[Tonguez]

Point taken. Those are great counter-examples.

I would respond that it's not that scientists cannot also be mystics, it's that, if how you know what you know about the world is deeply informed by mysticism, you aren't quite doing science.

And, of course, if you asked them, hermetic alchemists would not say they were doing science or understand their enterprise to be non-mystical. Even people in the 1800s whom we 100% would call scientists (e.g. Darwin) understood themselves to be doing "Natural Philosophy", a thing that is similar to but not interchangeable with science. Back projecting our words onto historical people always involves interpretation (and therefore bias).

Suffice it to say that I don't think of Paracelsus as a scientist, though it's true that he made meaningful contributions to scientific knowledge.

And, to bring us back on topic, I can see where my objection to the term scientist in reference to D&D wizards makes less sense, if you DO view Paracelsus as a scientist. We're definitely talking past each other a bit here.

I also want to clarify that some of the loaded phrases I used above--cargo cult thinking, pseudo-scientific nonsense, midichlorian-esque fantasy babble, etc.--are my own headcannon interpretation of the 5e component lists, and not shots fired or shade thrown.

Newton is widely considered a father of Science and his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) which expounds on the laws of motion and his law of universal gravitation; was the most referenced work of science prior to Einstein.
But Isaac Newton was a Natural Philosopher who did his work in order to understand the mind of the creator, God Pantokrator.

The notion that science and mysticism are distinct is a very very modern conceit

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

There are quite a few modern or at least modern-ish references as well. For example, the component for detect thoughts is a copper piece ("Penny for your thoughts?"), and the one for silent image is a bit of fleece (pulling the wool over someone's eyes).

I have no problem, in a world where objective morality is a quantifiable science (if there is Law, and Chaos, and Good and Evil, a scientist is bound to measure it... "Hey Dave, it's snack time, can I eat a prisonner?" "No Jim, this action is in the 3 kiloRaistlin range") but anyway, in a world were this objective morality is linked to the player's morality, I have no problem envisioning a world were the magic's physics is based on the players' cultural and linguistic references as well, even if it doesn't make sense for the wizards involved (they don't speak English after all). The player's place in the cosmology is getting weirder and weirder, though... What will happen when the wizards, in setting, will realize that their time stops whenever Friday's sessions end? And are they alone in this situation (cue The Twilight Zone musical theme)