Enchantment, Witchcraft, Trick: on the destiny of Magic in the age of Technology
Por:
for Jonás, so that he continues believing in magic
When comparing concepts like Magic and Technology we immediately perceive a kind of conflict or violent polarization. In most cases, after recognizing a common atmosphere of application in our operative ability regarding all phenomena, we put both of them at irreconcilable extremes of the same continuous line. When we lack a satisfactory explanation regarding a particular phenomenon, either because our level of knowledge still doesn’t embrace its dynamics or because it openly contradicts our perception of the world, we banish it to the domain of magical thought, with the hope that, with the expansion and accumulation of knowledge, it will end up finding its place some day in the constantly expanding domain of scientific knowledge. If doubt persists, if the phenomenon in question resists obeying all known laws that would allow us to domesticate it, then it is simply pushed outside of the paradigm, it is discredited and vilified by those who defend mysticism or obscurantism. In the same way, those who refuse to surrender to triumphant technological power — reinforcing the radical nature of mystery, the impossibility of fundamentals, the inaccessibility of the ‘noumenon,’ or simple and (...) Leer más