Magic, Science & The Future
The future is magic.
I don’t mean that we are going to recite hocus-pocus, or that I believe that if you dance in front of a well for long enough, that your broomsticks will multiply. No. There’s a different kind of magic at work.

The more we delve into budding technologies and scientific discoveries of the natural world, the more I look at it and ~wonder~. What else will we discover that contradicts our common sense? What else will be proven to us by the scientific process, despite our wildest disbelief?
The link between magic and the edge of discovery and proven methods is strong. The metaphor that comes to mind, is a burning piece of paper, going backwards. What is solid (and in this case, magically expanding), is science — the solid piece of paper. What is at the edge is magical discovery, the bleeding edge of science, the little known yet, and the materializing of facts — the enflamed. In the void, the facts to be discovered, the absence of solid substance, and yet the holding ground for possibilities to come — the magic. Here we resort to imagination, theorizing, and dare point the finger when one ventures too far. The deviants, however, play a vital role in what is to come: They make us dream. And what has yet to happen, is magic.

As Marcelo Glazer mentions on NPR, prompted by scholar of Jewish philosophy and mysticism Ehud Benor, “science tries to make magic real”. What would average 18th-century civilians say if we told them that we had been to the moon? That we communicate across continents via objects that orbit the earth, sending invisible messages? And that we can see inside the body with the help of Magnetic Resonance Imaging? Heresy, some may have said. And yet, we are on the edge of another future that will be even more incredible than what we’ve seen to date.
The relationship is reciprocal. It is useful, if not essential, to experience discoveries of science and nature as we would a magic trick.
Take the phenomenon of a seed. A single seed contains the potential to form a plant, a tree, a forest. Programmed inside that one nugget is the structure and chemistry of an entire species, and with mutations the birth of future ones. We understand it, but understanding does not dampen our amazement at what sprouts before us. The seed, in itself, is a truly magical occurrence.
