Would scientists call magic "magic"?

Question

Magic works by tricking the universe into thinking something is there when it isn't, or thinking something isn't there when it is. At least, in essence, that's the current theory. As a result, mages can levitate objects, make objects seem heavier, cause fires, make things much colder, and cause buildups of electrical charge where, ordinarily, there wouldn't be - and cause small lightning storms. Of course, there is something there: magic, which has, over the centuries, been observed and studied as much as electromagnetism and gravity. It follows an understandable set of laws which can be used to enhance inherent magical talent and advance technology.

In an effort to better understand magic, mages have become scientists like alchemists became chemists. At this point in time, their analogue of Neil DeGrasse Tyson could probably take on Dumbledore, but otherwise their science looks roughly the same as ours (although they have a slight technological edge in some areas). But because magic has been studied in such detail, I'm starting to question whether scientists would even call it "magic." It's an explainable, natural, recurring phenomenon which has been dissected and tested via the scientific method for centuries now.

If magic existed, would scientists call it "magic"? Or would they dismiss the word as mere superstition from a less civilized area and insist that it be called something else, with fewer supernatural connotations? Or would "magic" be nothing more than a word that high school students dread to hear, like "chemistry" and "physics"?

Answer 1

Our current scientific knowledge is the result of our finding replicatable experiments whose consistent results illuminate some aspect of our universe's underlying rules.

Your magic involves tricking those underlying rules, so that experimental results may not be consistent.

The presence of such tricks would therefore interfere with the process by which our current scientific understanding was formed.

But the tricks themselves would also illuminate aspects of how the underlying rules work. If those tricks are consistently affective, experiments would be devised to illuminate exactly how they work.

So a different science would exist in your world and magical tricks would be its trusted foundation. A unknown substance wouldn't be characterized by its conductivity, but rather by its conjurability. Not by its low density, but by its lack of predictability.

In such a world, magic would not be called "magic". It would be called "science".

Answer 2

Yes, they would call it magic.

Just as we call chemistry chemistry and physics physics.

The study of magic would just be another branch of science.

The reason magic is something "different" now is because it doesn't work. Any scientific study shows that it doesn't work...so study of it becomes quite futile except for excitable amateurs running around with electronics turned way past any meaningful sensitivity setting and pattern matching for any possible result they can find for a TV show.

Answer 3

In order to say that something was magic would not only require evidence of magic but a definition of what magic is. If we define magic as anything that would violate the laws of physics then magic is by definition impossible. Even if something that would violate the known laws of physics such as anti gravity, walking through walls, telekinesis, ghosts, and talking to the dead, or free energy were conformed using the scientific method that would not mean that the laws of physics could be violated just our understanding of them and in that case we would have to modify what we know about the laws of physics in order to account for these phenomena. Basically if any so called magic was conformed using the scientific method it would not be magic regardless of how extraordinary.

Answer 4

I claim that the subset of magic that would be driven predominantly via complex minds would indeed be a distinct field. In this regard, magic would fall within the category of Strong Emergent Phenomena. Also this to understand the philosophical types of emergence.

Weak emergence is an extension of the Cartesian principle of science, where some phenomena arise from the complex relationships between simpler, more fundamental phenomena

Strong emergence on the other hand, is the notion that there might be phenomena that happen beyond of what can be explained from complexity of fundamental phenomena alone.

In many mythologies and narratives, magic is driven by complex minds affecting or influencing phenomena in unexpected ways, Although there are exceptions; some religions use the concept of inert devices that can recollect or redirect magic energies for specific purposes. Notably, Terry Pratchett makes use of these narrative devices in the Thief of Time to great amusing effect.

Answer 5

I've written on this a few times here. See this post: Can magic be science? for example.

In one sense, learning about the universe is "science". That is, the rules of extracting the rules through observation: physics and chemistry emerged from superstition and alchemy.

But the rules have a particular nature to them: they are simple relationships based on the most fundamental things. More complex behaviors emerge from lower-level rules.

If you are not describing "physics" but real behaviors that we would call magic, it is operating on a teleological level rather than the moat fundamental constituants.

How can there be rules defined that operate like primate social behavior, with attributes that match human perception of the macro scale?

The nature of the universe would be very different, and I've indexed some posts reflecting on that in the one I linked to.

If rules are fuzzy and hard to isolate and reproduce results, understanding them will be more like economics and phycology as opposed to our idea of physics.

Answer 6

Maybe

As Tim B noted, it depends on whether you retain the meaning of "magic" as "something not explained by science". If it's just a word like "physics", then yes, absolutely they'll use it; it just won't mean anything special.

That's probably not what you meant, though, so the key to the answer is already in your question:

It's an explainable, natural, recurring phenomenon which has been dissected and tested via the scientific method for centuries now.

If this is the case, then no, it most certainly isn't "magic". You've exactly described not only a science, but a "hard" science (as opposed to something like economics or politics, which are more of an attempt to apply scientific principles to something which resists such analysis).

But wait...

What if you want to have real "magic"?

I'm currently working on a story that has genuine "magic" magic. Even though it's real and clearly demonstrable (in fact, it's a major part of society), it's still "magic" because its workings defy attempts at scientific analysis. "It works, but everything we know about science aside from magic says it shouldn't." It isn't universally available (not everyone can work magic), it's heavily influenced by the mind and intentions of the one using it, and spells in particular (spells are a way of 'baking' a magical effect into an artifact so that anyone can use it) act as if there is some sort of governing intelligence behind them.

Of course... simply being demonstrable means that, in some sense, it isn't "magic". The best you can hope for, then, is that it is a third brand of science. "Hard" sciences, which are consistent, rational, and can generally be explained and tested, "soft" sciences which are subject to too many chaotic factors, and "magic" sciences, which are (to some degree, but perhaps not entirely) consistent but which resolutely defy explanation.

Answer 7

I've said this in another thread: what if we already found magic but called it science instead?

Have you ever looked into the crazy world of quantum mechanics? When you dont measure it, it is one thing. When you do measure it it becomes another. Properties at different stages are completely nonsensical from a classical physics point of view. Fire a single particle through a double slit and it will interact with itself to create probable area's where it lands, many of those probable area's arent possible if you measure the particle during flight and that is the most sensible part of quantum mechanics.

So yeah, we could have found magic, and we called it science instead.

Answer 8

I think a definition of “magic” that cuts through some of the difficulties here is to define it as something occurs by Will instead of by Process. “Science” captures the set of phenomena that are repeatable by a known set of physical inputs (move these atoms like so, adjust the voltage, etc). “Magic” captures the set of phenomena where an individual’s will/spirit/soul is an input.

So to answer your question, I think the vast majority of what is considered “magic” would get subsumed under the label of “science”. Only if an individual’s Will is involved would the term magic be useful.

There is a quote by the author Ted Chiang that captures this approach to magic nicely

I think that there does exist an useful distinction to be made between magic and science. One way to look at it is in terms of whether a given phenomenon can be mass-produced. If you posit some impossibility in a story, like turning lead into gold, I think it makes sense to ask how many people in the world of the story are able to do this. Is it just a few people or is it something available to everybody? If it's just a handful of special people who can turn lead into gold, that implies different things than a story in which there are giant factories churning out gold from lead, in which gold is so cheap it can be used for fishing weights or radiation shielding.

In either case there's the same basic phenomenon, but these two
depictions point to different views of the universe. In a story where only a handful of characters are able to turn lead into gold, there's the implication that there's something special about those individuals. The laws of the universe take into account some special property that only certain individuals have. By contrast, if you have a story in which turning lead into gold is an industrial process, something that can be done on a mass scale and can be done cheaply, then you're implying that the laws of the universe apply equally to everybody; they work the same even for machines in unmanned factories. In one case I'd say the phenomenon is magic, while in the other I'd say it's science.

Another way to think about these two depictions is to ask whether the universe of the story recognizes the existence of persons. I think magic is an indication that the universe recognizes certain people as individuals, as having special properties as an individual, whereas a story in which turning lead into gold is an industrial process is describing a completely impersonal universe. That type of impersonal universe is how science views the universe; it's how we currently understand our universe to work. The difference between magic and science is at some level a difference between the universe responding to you in a personal way, and the universe being entirely impersonal.

Answer 9

I think that sceptics would legitimise their scepticism by being passively derogatory of their opposition. Like, they would use words like "tricks on the weak minded" or "mass hysteria" or "gullibility factor" or "mental illness" etc. In this way they can imply that the reason that anyone disagrees with their conclusions is that they are irrational, and therefore should be regarded dismissively. They would not be subject to any kind of peer review because contrary opinions are the result of this so called "magic" phenomenon and therefore must be dismissed. Any scientist who actually "saw" the magic would be out of a job, and no longer able to publish papers.