The world is not magic
Sean Carroll of Cosmic Variance wrote this post three years ago. It is of fundamental importance.
Caroline, after making a good-faith effort to understand the distinction between quarks and leptons, pleasantly but firmly demanded to know “What is the practical use of all this? What can we actually do with it? Why is it worth spending time on it?”
My line on these questions is that there isn’t necessarily any practical application (although there may be spinoffs); we do it as part of a quest to understand how the world works. I was trying to explain this, with less than complete success. But then Caroline’s younger sister ... leaned across the table and said “Because the world is not magic. This is what I always taught my kids, and it’s what everyone should understand.”
The world is not magic. The world follows patterns, obeys unbreakable rules. We never reach a point, in exploring our universe, where we reach an ineffable mystery and must give up on rational explanation; our world is comprehensible, it makes sense. I can’t imagine saying it better.
I am able to think and make this post because Hydrogen is fusing into Helium in the core of the sun, keeping its third planet warm and providing electrochemical energy to a wide variety of vastly complex molecular machines that inhabit it; because billions of years of competition have evolved molecular machines that are just barely capable of intelligent thought and action; and because the last five hundred years of experience have taught those intelligent machines that knowledge and understanding come from applying the scientific method. Every link in this chain is worth understanding in exquisite detail, because it betrays the other point of Sean's post.
Of course, there are different connotations to the word “magical.” One refers to inscrutable mystery, but another refers simply to a feeling of wonder or delight. And our world is full of that kind of magic. ... The very fact that our world is comprehensible should fill us with wonder and delight. The world is not magic - and that’s the most magical thing about it.
Caroline, after making a good-faith effort to understand the distinction between quarks and leptons, pleasantly but firmly demanded to know “What is the practical use of all this? What can we actually do with it? Why is it worth spending time on it?”
My line on these questions is that there isn’t necessarily any practical application (although there may be spinoffs); we do it as part of a quest to understand how the world works. I was trying to explain this, with less than complete success. But then Caroline’s younger sister ... leaned across the table and said “Because the world is not magic. This is what I always taught my kids, and it’s what everyone should understand.”
The world is not magic. The world follows patterns, obeys unbreakable rules. We never reach a point, in exploring our universe, where we reach an ineffable mystery and must give up on rational explanation; our world is comprehensible, it makes sense. I can’t imagine saying it better.
I am able to think and make this post because Hydrogen is fusing into Helium in the core of the sun, keeping its third planet warm and providing electrochemical energy to a wide variety of vastly complex molecular machines that inhabit it; because billions of years of competition have evolved molecular machines that are just barely capable of intelligent thought and action; and because the last five hundred years of experience have taught those intelligent machines that knowledge and understanding come from applying the scientific method. Every link in this chain is worth understanding in exquisite detail, because it betrays the other point of Sean's post.
Of course, there are different connotations to the word “magical.” One refers to inscrutable mystery, but another refers simply to a feeling of wonder or delight. And our world is full of that kind of magic. ... The very fact that our world is comprehensible should fill us with wonder and delight. The world is not magic - and that’s the most magical thing about it.