Magic [&/Is/Vs.] Technology
Location
Janet Ayers Academic Center, JAAC 4094
Presentation Type
Presentation
Start Date
23-9-2016 10:00 AM
Description
Magic produces marvels by harnessing hidden natural forces—the magician, wise in occult teachings, intones the magical words and the Golem rises, ghosts flee or the rabbit pops from the top-hat. What is the magician’s secret? Technology. Not digital projections, hidden speakers or mechanical props, but technology as the -logos of techne-: the study of the art, skill or craft of doing or making (done by the magi). While etymologically and historically inseparable, today, it’s technology versus magic, be it conquest of primitive thought or destruction of wonder. This philosophy student and faculty panel explores technology and magic as lenses through which we see the world—magnifying the unseen, producing illusions, tools for alteration, enhancement of human ability, as reshaping the limits of the possible—and questions whether the rationalization of magic is our technological manifest destiny, and thus a pinnacle of human success or tragic means or consequence of disenchantment.
Recommended Citation
Walton, Melanie; Lutz, Topher; Willard, Samm; and Marshall, Millie, "Magic [&/Is/Vs.] Technology" (2016). Humanities Symposium. 8.
https://repository.belmont.edu/humanities_symposium/2016/2016/8
Magic [&/Is/Vs.] Technology
Janet Ayers Academic Center, JAAC 4094
Magic produces marvels by harnessing hidden natural forces—the magician, wise in occult teachings, intones the magical words and the Golem rises, ghosts flee or the rabbit pops from the top-hat. What is the magician’s secret? Technology. Not digital projections, hidden speakers or mechanical props, but technology as the -logos of techne-: the study of the art, skill or craft of doing or making (done by the magi). While etymologically and historically inseparable, today, it’s technology versus magic, be it conquest of primitive thought or destruction of wonder. This philosophy student and faculty panel explores technology and magic as lenses through which we see the world—magnifying the unseen, producing illusions, tools for alteration, enhancement of human ability, as reshaping the limits of the possible—and questions whether the rationalization of magic is our technological manifest destiny, and thus a pinnacle of human success or tragic means or consequence of disenchantment.
Comments
Convocation Credit: Society and the Arts and Sciences