Tech Magic

I want to devote my first (real) post to the very reason of my blogging. My next posts will be far less philosophical than this one, like in a tale I'm just giving the "falvour" of the setting. WARNING: long post, VERY long post. As the neat quote below the blog title says there are very strong points of contact between what magic and technology are. This is not a matter of how things work (obviously), but rather a matter of how things are percieved and related one to the other.

Why Leonardo? Read on...

Anyone who has ever rolled a dice at D&D or the likes perhaps can already figure out what I am talking about, and this is a problem. It is a problem because the parallelism between magic and tech is involving instead of evolving. At the beginning of western civilization pre-scientific and magic knowledge were one like in alchemy, then, slowly but unerringly, their paths forked in a curious way. Magic was mainly discarded, freeing mankind from the burden of superstition but tossing away also part of what good was in those beliefs. The eve of a golden age of illuminated consciousness for all? Only partly. As the scientifical knowledge became broader and broader more and more commonners started to understand the mechanics of the universe around them and most important of all, they started to care about it and to struggle for knowledge wether for the goods it brought or for knowledge shake alone. It was the gilded age of Robinson Crusoe, the westener bourgeous man who knew enough of everything and knew how to use it to bend nature at his wills. But the dream of omniscience was just a short illusion. Soon the broadening and deepening of scientifical kowledge was so vast to prevent anybody from handling but a small discipline in his life, leaving him totally unaware of the rest. After all it was Leonardo da Vinci himself to say that "Intensive Knowledge can be attempted by humans but Extensive Knowledge is God's prerogative"... kind of weird from the man whose interests spaced from politics to aerodinamics to anathomy, or was it just the senile wisdom of a man forced to part from all his unfinished works? The end of the story? You wish! There was an even sadder consequence in this story, perhaps the saddest of all: people slowly stopped caring about it all. They started to have all they needed without any encouragement to think to what lays behind it. Today people takes for granted whatever is thrown at them in a shiny package and tech has slowly filled the gap that superstition left open and that nothing could really fill, not the consumerism alone, nor comunism, nor religion which is perhaps the most eminent victim of this process (no judgement intended, I'm merely stating what I see). This is what I mean when I say that contemporary parallelisms between magic and technology has more to do with cheap fantasy visions (God bless cheap fantasy, but this is not the point) than with late '700 illuminated mystic theories to explain everything and reach a new level of enlightenment for mankind. This is grim. If you are not tyred of all my babbling, let me split the thing to better explain myself. Think of the clichet cheap fantasy setting (if none comes to your mind you are a blessed one but you don't know what you are missing). Now follow me trough some basic assumption about magic in this fictionary world and then about tech in our world and see if the two things make sense or not.

Magic is powerful, magic can do almost anything or at least this is what commoners think about it. Thech is powerful, with tech you can do almost anything or at least this is what commoners think about it, if you cannot do it now perhaps you will be able to do it in the futures, or your sons will.

Magic is difficult, you have to devote your entire life to it to master one aspect of its powers. Tech is difficult, you have to study your entire life to master one disicpline and keep up to date.

Magic is for few initiates organized in guilds, an elitarian organization of people who tend to influence the rest of the world with their powers and to keep closely the secret tomes of knowledge. Tech is understood by a few engineers hired by corporations, an elitarian organization of people who tend to influence the world with their products and defends his achievements with copiright and lawyers.

Magic in his highest form consumes the soul of the mage as it overthrows the very foundations of the natural world. Tech at its highest level poses serious moral dilemmas as it breaks the boundaries of what is right to do and what is possible to do.

Shall I go on? Mmm, better not, my point should be clear by now. Ok folks, thanks for your patience reading until now. That's it, I am not an engineer (nor a mage) so this blog will be about tech, geekeries, free software, toys and stuff like that... but with a pronounced man 1.0 flavour. Enjoy!


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