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The Magic Singularity

C.O.T.

Devoted Cultist
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In science, or maybe better in the blurry limits between science and religion, aka, transhumanism, has been pointed the idea that scientific development walks towards a Singularity. A point of no return in which humanity is surpassed and transcended by the evolution of it own thechnological achievements, a point in which history lose it normal development. As someone interested in science and magic at the same time have to say that we are walking too towards a Magic Singularity.
This came from 2 fronts at the same time:
- Science start to converge with magic, and I'm not talking about, a cosmetic idea in which thecnologies seem to us each time more closer to something magic. But i talk of something more deep. Science starts to discover the real means which magic are build, leading to a true convergence of science and magic.
- Magic brings future scientific knowledge to the present, that has been done many times in the past, but it starts to be something massive that leads to the science-magic convergence.
This 2 trends will be try to be stopped, by a current of what we could name as neoscuratism, but without complete success. The tide is too high.
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Can you give us an example of such convergence?
 
The most important on magic would be the scientific definition of what is that dimension that magician and mystic talk about, that second universe that is correlated with this one, but at the same time, lacks of time and space features. Possibly this is related with the kind of environment-energy that allow telepathic communication without any electromagnetic interchange.
Nowadays we have some scientific clues of phenomena that we can't explain and that show some kind of interactions that are in a way that still we can't understand, out of the space and even of the time restrictions, showing that maybe something is happening on a level of the reality that is not this tridimensional space-time level.
And for scientists bringing ideas from the future by magic, I'm sure that many of the forum members would bring us not only one but many examples of that scientific-magicians. I don't want to point nobody :D.
 
... maybe something is happening on a level of the reality that is not this tridimensional space-time level.
I experience spacetime as quadridimensional. Tridimensional spacetime leaves me flat.

Seriously, if there is a scientific explanation for magic, telepathy, and any number of other currently unexplained phenomena that may have a provable reality, I think it will involve other dimensions*, as different from space and time as they are from each other. I've often thought our perception of time has something to do with our brains being able to slightly twist the experience of 3-D space to tap into the fourth dimension. Could they also twist in another direction?

*I'm using the dictionary definition of dimension here, not the inaccurate meaning some people use that's roughly synonymous with "alternate universe".
 
a scientific explanation for magic, telepathy, and any number of other currently unexplained phenomena that may have a provable reality, I think it will involve other dimensions
Yes, and probably it will come from phenomena similar to entanglement in which space seems to become irrelevant, and sometimes others in which even time breaks the causality line. For example there are some particle experiments in which it seems that future changes the past.
Example:
Anyway it will come from study of physical phenomena, not by analysing human experiences.
Other indirect way to reveal the existence of magic will be the persistent incoherence in the results of this kind of experiments. It will show a external try of sabotage them.
 
@C.O.T., are you indirectly talking of some of the concepts of quantum physics? The entanglement theory is very interesting to me.

I do find, that in the simplified explanation of quantum physics, much of it reminds me of some of the basics of magic working.

My introduction to basic quantum physics was reading "The Dancing Wu Li Masters". I read this after graduating from school and then wished that the science teachers had introduced these ideas to us. It made some of the physics experiments we did, such as the double slit experiment to show the properties of light, more meaningful and understandable to me.

I was in the wrong generation to learn of quantum physics.
 
The idea is not that particle physics is "magic", but the idea that the things that in magic and ESP seemed completely out of any nature explanation, by new discoveries in physics, that will bring new, far wider paradigms of explanation, will become then possible into that wider view. It will make possible then a scientific explanation of that phenomena.
It will bring then an even stronger magic. And with the possibility of achieving information from the future and bring it to present times, the start of a temporal loop in which the development of the future science is available even without have been reached still. Cause it breaks what has been the development of humanity till that moment, that we could describe it as a singularity.
 
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The idea is not that particle physics is "magic", but the idea that the things that in magic and ESP seemed completely out of any nature explanation, by new discoveries in physics, that will bring new, far wider paradigms of explanation, will become then possible into that wider view. It will make possible then a scientific explanation of that phenomena.
It will bring then an even stronger magic. And with the possibility of achieving information from the future and bring it to present times, the start of a temporal loop in which the development of the future science is available even without have been reached still. Cause it breaks what has been the development of humanity till that moment, that we could describe it as a singularity.
Yes. I did not mean that particle physics is "magic", but that the expanding research into quantum physics seems to come closer to explaining some of the magic work concepts, which have remained metaphysical concepts which are currently difficult to prove or explain why magic does work. Not sure if I'm explaining this well.

The singularity concept I'm not familiar with and am having a little difficulty getting my head around (understanding).
 
... The singularity concept I'm not familiar with and am having a little difficulty getting my head around (understanding).

The label "singularity" is used in a number of scientific and technical fields:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singularity

.. in which it generally refers to a situation, state, or analytical context in which things become incapable of specification / determination / prediction. For example, a black hole represents a singularity condition in which the known laws of physics are believed to break down or be surpassed such that one can only speculate what happens within the black hole.

It's also a well-known trope in science fiction, trans-humanism and futurology, originally denoting a time at which technological advancement (most specifically artificial intelligence) renders biological humans and their civilizations obsolete. This transition or transformation is alleged to be so radical that we have no way of specifying what it may involve (hence overlapping with the scientific usage of the term).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

This latter theme is the one that seems to me most evident in C.O.T.'s description.
 
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The label "singularity" ...It's also a well-known trope in science fiction, trans-humanism and futurology, originally denoting a time at which technological advancement (most specifically artificial intelligence) renders biological humans and their civilizations obsolete. This transition or transformation is alleged to be so radical that we have no way of specifying what it may involve (hence overlapping with the scientific usage of the term).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

This latter theme is the one that seems to me most evident in C.O.T.'s description.
I happen to be playing Horizon Zero Dawn. This sounds kind of like the basis for its plot, though I last played it four years ago (incomplete) and just started playing again.

It is still an idea I have to take time to consider in order to understand it.
 
I have heard the singularity referred to as the Nerd Rapture. That seems appropriate.
 
The prospect of a technological singularity is one that I've been exploring for twenty years in various SF stories and articles I've written and edited. The prospect of a hybrid science/magic singularity is intriguing, and I'm fairly sure that there will be certain magic-like elements to the phenomenon, assuming it occurs before our civilisation collapses (due to the various pressures it is currently enduring).

Even if there is no actual singularity (I'm not completely convinced that a hard-take-off is necessary), the gradual increase in complexity and sophistication of our technosphere will probably lead to some pretty amazing results. Especially in the realm of mind-brain-computer interfacing we have only the vaguest idea of what is possible. We currently only have the merest inkling of what goes on inside the human skull; I expect that this will inevitably change, so that the human mind will become like a newly-discovered territory to be mapped and augmented at will. And I mean profoundly augmented; in a century or less it should be fairly trivial to link every human mind directly to a smart or even truly sentient subsystem that is at least ten times as complex as that human mind - and that's just for starters. When people start using high-bandwidth brain-to-brain connections, magical ESP will be redundant.

True technomagic would ensue if there was any practical way to reverse causality - a time machine, even one which only transmits data - would have so many spectacular results that I hesitate to imagine what the world might be like if this were possible. For a start, any computation would be guaranteed to be flawlessly accurate, since the results could be checked before the processing has even occurred. The effects of any action could be anticipated - and perhaps avoided - if data could be reliably sent back in time. As Paul Daniels might say - that's magic.

I should point out that I don't think that there really is anything in the universe that is supernatural per se; if we discover anything unexpected, or detect some new quantum-level weirdness about the universe, or develop any bizarre technology that allows us to experience consciousness on a different level - that would all be natural, not supernatural. Even if we manage to make contact with another dimension, or to explore it in some way, the phenomena we experience there will still be natural, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive. So I'm entirely open to a singularity that blurs the boundaries between science and magic - but it seems to me that the science part of the deal will always expand into the magical part, converting 'supernatural' phenomena into natural ones.
 
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The prospect of a technological singularity is one that I've been exploring for twenty years in various SF stories and articles I've written and edited. The prospect of a hybrid science/magic singularity is intriguing, and I'm fairly sure that there will be certain magic-like elements to the phenomenon, assuming it occurs before our civilisation collapses (due to the various pressures it is currently enduring).

Even if there is no actual singularity (I'm not completely convinced that a hard-take-off is necessary), the gradual increase in complexity and sophistication of our technosphere will probably lead to some pretty amazing results. Especially in the realm of mind-brain-computer interfacing we have only the vaguest idea of what is possible. We currently only have the merest inkling of what goes on inside the human skull; I expect that this will inevitably change, so that the human mind will become like a newly-discovered territory to be mapped and augmented at will. And I mean profoundly augmented; in a century or less it should be fairly trivial to link every human mind directly to a smart or even truly sentient subsystem that is at least ten times as complex as that human mind - and that's just for starters. When people start using high-bandwidth brain-to-brain connections, magical ESP will be redundant.
The Borg - We will assimilate. The Hive mind. Scariest villian ever imo.

Questions, especially philosophical ones such as Decartes "I think, therefore, I am". Would we even be able to ask these?
 
I'm hoping that big-data analyses of things like the human brain, human societies and political constructs, and the various types of artificially-intelligent entity we may construct in the net few centuries, will answer a lot of philosophical questions - and open up new, even more profound ones.
 
reverse causality - a time machine, even one which only transmits data - would have so many spectacular results
Not really into the magic level, but quite close. It would be a particle device capable to send signals to the past. The first technician that try it would get surprised that the machine would start to emitt a message. And that message could come then from the future. But...if you would have such a device? You would sent to the past receiver an important message, knowing that maybe the reception of that message in the past could erase you from present time?
 
Not really into the magic level, but quite close. It would be a particle device capable to send signals to the past. The first technician that try it would get surprised that the machine would start to emitt a message. And that message could come then from the future. But...if you would have such a device? You would sent to the past receiver an important message, knowing that maybe the reception of that message in the past could erase you from present time?
The question to that would be is there a receiver in the past that would work with future technology? Though it could be argued that as the future researchers would know of the older technology, they could make it compatible with the old technology.

Though the present technology is not able to do this, so there'd have to be a lot of forethought in the design.
 
And for scientists bringing ideas from the future by magic, I'm sure that many of the forum members would bring us not only one but many examples of that scientific-magicians. I don't want to point nobody :D.
Yaysayers, please signify. :bananas:
 
I'm hoping that big-data analyses of things like the human brain, human societies and political constructs, and the various types of artificially-intelligent entity we may construct in the net few centuries, will answer a lot of philosophical questions - and open up new, even more profound ones.
Great idea for a thread.
You are a philosopher. Express the next best rhetorical question, if you will. Me, I don't reckon on 'new' questions, just sparky insights into the big ones we've always had.

As for singularity, I
 
Some posts have more implications that others, ones are simply notes about a cultural topic, but others are something more, a notice, some essential data, or even a new approach on very old topics. This thread is of the kind of important ones, it is related whit other threads previously published, mainly with the text MOTUU, posted since the beginning, you can find a copy here: Motuu, and the thread about the idea of the "Golumification of the magician", you can find the thread here: Golumification. Together with this thread it works as a engine, as a system of thought. Some post before this i told that i was not talking that time about magic. Well, this time that i have to say is that this time it IS about magic. So, here comes the magic part:
This process of achieving the Magic Singularity will start not very late with some strange, not very shiny notice on the specialist science magazines. A marginal note i wich it talks about some repeated inconsistent results on many physical experiments about non continuity of time and space or both. The note will be quite marginal cause, what kind of notice is a inconsistency on experimental results, is not the kind of thing that deserves a big article.
But it is important...and a lot. Cause what it will show would be the efforts of magicians trying to sabotage the experiment results. If someone who read this see it in the future he must try to find a magician to search for magic work around that results.
When this will be fount, he or she would understand what to do, and Thoth will help them on doing it. Cause they will be doing a mission set by Thoth itself.
And that is the magic part.
 
I have an alternate point of view, in that the increasing dominance of technology will send us back to something like the Dark Ages when it eventually fails - as everything does. (Entropy Entropy, it's all got it in for me {well all of us}. To misquote Kenneth Williams).

I believe we urgently need the equivalent of the Butlerian Jihad in Dune before we utterly destroy ourselves with what we have invented. Using machines instead of our own brains will destroy us.

As to magic, I believe magic is possible, but that it also is explainable. I believe in divining (not remote divining) for example, but I also believe that when it is investigated properly honestly and with an open mind a mechanism will be found. In the process we may rediscover senses that for example birds seem to have but we no longer access.
 
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