I believe that to properly discuss magic and technology, one has to understand what those actually are. While there seems to be a general
consensus here, as to what constitues technology, i.e. using existing laws of universe to one's advantage, we need to get a better
understanding of what is magic.
Since magic first entered our collective consciousness long before the birth of modern fantasy novel, I'll try and define it's meaning
basing first and foremost on historical occurences. All the fantasy wizards owe their existence to the past anyway.
What's most important to understand, is that magic is not an idea existing by itself, it's a logical derivation of more general world
philosophy, closely related to religious beliefs, a particular brand of cosmology. This parent thought is central to polytheistic religions,
of which good examples are beliefs of ancient Greeks, Babylonians, or Germanic tribes. The idea in question is that there exists a
primordial, chaotic, all-encompasing substance from which everthing in the world emerged. Note that this is, at the time of creation, not
a sentient being, it's not a monotheistic God of Judaism and it's daughter religions who wills the world into existence by the virtue of
his omnipotence.
It's the abyss of Chaos for Greeks, oceanic Tiamat for Babylonians, icy Ymir for the Norse. While all those beings are indeed personified
and often even "killed", their inert essence is what remains and is prone to being manipulated by a skilled technician, or in other
words, a mage.
Take for example Tiamat - an endless sea. She is personified as a huge sea monster, from her body randomly sprout gods, powerful beings,
unlike Tiamat sentient and not chaotic, who at some point combat the monstrous beast and having thus "killed" her, they render her no
longer able to spontanously create anything. However, what's important, her body remains. It remains as a substance from which gods
create the world, it remains as a primordial and superior even to gods force. Yet, it's been killed, which means that it's powers have to
be called upon by somebody skilled in the arcane art. This art, this magic is aimed at reaching the chaotic essence of creation
and altering the very being of the world.
Thus the mage does not subvert any laws of the world, he creates new aspect of the world, on par with the godly creation surrounding him.
So his magic is not subject to existing physical laws, rather it trumps them, for the same force which gave birth to whole of the
universe can alter that same universe if coerced.
Still, the force from which the mage draws retains it's unpredictable nature, causing magic to be equally chaotic. A mage then rather
than simply "using" it, has to "coerce" it to do his bidding. With varying results, largely depending on the mage's "power" or attunement
to that force. Unsurprisingly, gods, or titan or giants who are closely related to the primal chaos have greater ability to mold it, yet
they're not all powerful, and still subject to the very same force which begat them. This is why a mage can try and influence gods by
reaching to the prime essence.
This is also why any monotheistic religion negates the existence of magic. Not because, as we're often lead to thinking, that the priests
are afraid of independent and powerful wizardly individuals, but because the monotheistic cosmogony does not include any sort of force or
essence or chaos which is primal and superior to God. Instead it's the God who is the begining of all things, it's his will that created
the world, and this will, and by extension the world's laws, cannot be bent, coerced or altered by any means.
Within any fantasy world with an estabilished monotheistic cosmogony, or in other words, with an omnipotent god, there can be no magic.
Similarly, for magic to have a right of existence, the polytheistic cosmogony must be an estabilished fact. Note that there can in fact
be just one god, or even no "living" god(there had to be some sort of demiurg at least at one time to shape the chaos into being) at all
within this cosmogony, as long as his and all the rest of the existence is subject to the type of primordial force described earlier.
Concluding, magic is a logical follow up to a certain kind of cosmogony, or "the history of creation of the universe", and to assert it's
existence, one has to first accept the dogmatic source from which it's derived, mainly the primordial chaos, mana, darkness etc.
Magic is logically separated from the monotheistic point of view, while being a part of certain religious point of view itself.
Magic creates "effects" which are in essence acts of creation, altering and shaping the laws of the world. Thus it's always superior to
technology in raw power, or range of abilities.
Magic is chaotic and difficult to properly draw upon, owning this to the chaotic nature of the matter from which it draws. This gives the
technology and edge by the virtue of it's reliability.
Mage's power depends on his knowledge of arcane rituals, as well as his "attunement" to the "mana", while technology is purely knowledge
based.
One can influence the gods by the use of magic, while one cannot do so with technology.
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Topic: "Magic Versus Tech" Is Dumb. (Read 12370 times)