Science, Magic, and the Inexplicable

In our scientific age, magic has been reduced to conjurers and wands. Yet, Newton and Wittgenstein saw the accounts of science as ultimately inexplicable. Should we see our theories as limited and, in a sense, magical or would this undermine all knowledge? In our recent IAI TV debate on this subject, mathematician George Ellis argued that, while to the everyday user science and magic may appear similar, the two are not the same. Science not only works; it offers explanations for why it works. Ellis made his name focusing on some of the big questions of cosmology and relativity. Along with Stephen Hawking, he co-authored 1973’s The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, which attempted to describe the very foundations of space itself. More recently, Ellis has been focusing on top-down causation. Ellis is also an active Quaker and was a vocal opponent of apartheid during the 1970s and ‘80s. Here he speaks to the IAI about the danger so of magic, the importance of mystery, and the line that...