A guy walks up to you in a bar....

Which would make quantum physicists in real life mages...

 

It's true that by observing subatomic particles move, one is changing their behavior, but that doesn't make quantum physicists mages. They're just well informed. We can't directly control anything in the subatomic world. Well, that's a lie; we can make subatomic particles from photons by firing them directly into a dense nucleus. The photon disintegrates into an electron and a positron, and the positron inevitably turns into a photon once it hits an electron (the electron turns into a photon too).

 

They might be wrong about the universe and so might scientists in our world. Scientific method begins with the assumption that reality has rules which we can learn. It is a leap of faith which seems to work, but that initial assumption cannot be proved scientifically. Maybe all this belief in an ordered universe is creating one.

 

Conclusions are what happens when someone gets tired of thinking. For example, I conclude that you win and are right, while I am wrong.

Nonetheless, that's my theory about magick vs technology and why both seem to have a field effect in arcanum.

For the record, I believe in the scientific method, but it depends on being humble in the face of reality, rather than an absolutely certain asshole.

 

Cool. Peace, Dark Elf.

I always like this story about it: Monk says to Novice, "What is the nature of reality?" Novice replies, "It is only an illusion." Monk says, "Oh really? So what's this?" And hits the novice around the side of the head. Case closed, reality is real.

 

I think the onset of the Dark age sufficiently did that, many decades ago.


Have you read any of Xenophon or Plato's works about Socrates, DE?

 

The outer world has no reality and is not real. The outer world is the world of change and decay. The inner world also has change and decay. But only in the inner world can we perceive immutable, eternal, necessary truths of logic and mathematics. The best life is one spent contemplating these truths.