The Battle of Understanding: Magic and Science

Andy Walsh: 00:01:11

Foreign.

Will Rose: 00:01:14

What if you had magicians, however you want to define that term, on one side of the room, and scientists, however you want to define that term, on the other side of the room, and they had a showdown, however you define that, who would win? Well, in this episode, we are going to find out. Maybe. Welcome to another episode of Systematic Ecology.

I am one of your hosts, Will Rose, AKA Wilbo Baggins. And with me, I have one of my favorite scientists, Andy Walsh. Andy, how are you doing? And what are you geeking out on these days?

Andy Walsh: 00:01:56

Hi, Will. I'm doing well, thank you. And what am I geeking out on?

Well, recently I finished watching the first season of the show, Dark Matter, Apple tv, Jennifer Connelly and Joel Edgerton, I think. Yeah, it's a multiverse show, so kind of following up on the theme.

Last time I was talking science on the podcast, we were talking about the multiverse. And so, yeah, it's an interesting show about basically, a guy gets kidnapped by his mirror universe version of himself. He steals his life. Right.

So their worlds diverged when he decided to marry his wife. Or in the other universe, he decided, no, I'm going to commit myself to my job and not pursue the. Not continue in this relationship.

And so the guy who chose career uses.

Uses his career, eventually uses his career to build a machine to travel the multiverse and go into the other world and kidnap his alter ego and just take over his life and sends his alter ego back to his home universe. So they basically swap universes, but only one of them consensually so.

And then it unravels from there in terms of, you know, trying to find a way back and what are the implications of all that? And yeah, so that, I mean, that, you know, that's not a spoiler. That's pretty much the first.

First, you know, few minutes of the first episode is kind of setting up all that premise.

Will Rose: 00:03:36

It's just one season on Apple plus.

Andy Walsh: 00:03:38

So far, just one season. I believe there's intention to have more, but that's all there is right now.

Will Rose: 00:03:43

So Freaky Friday. Except you just switch multiverses of yourself.

Andy Walsh: 00:03:49

Yeah, it's a good way to.

Will Rose: 00:03:50

All right. Yeah, there, man. It's hard to boil down just to one thing I'm geeking out on.

I will say I'm loving severance, which is kind of like a swap kind of thing that they do with kind of workplace regular life. It's. It's very well done. It's the hottest show on TV right now, and love it.

I'm loving these Movie trailers we have coming out, whether it's Superman or Fantastic Four. Super excited about the movies we have coming up. Comic book movies just here shortly. And then I will say that I am.

I'm all in on this new animated series on Disney plus your friendly neighborhood Spider Man. I'm liking this new animated show. I like the feel, like the vibe. It's from the MC universe, kind of Tom Holland ish kind of timeline early in.

In his career or life as. As Spider Man. But it has a great feel to. It feels like a comic book right on. Right on the screen.

And I will say that I this is one of the shows that I'm not skipping the intro. It has that option skip intro. And I'm not because the song is great, the graphics animation is great.

And then the final image is like a comic book cover that's going to share share with you what's going that particular episode.

So one is with focus on Osborne and like his faces up on kind of the final kind of comic book cover leading you in which is, you know, if you're going to hit me in the feels for comic books, show me a good cover and then let that cover tell me what's going to happen in the episode. I'm good. So I'm liking. I don't know. And if you're watching watching that animated series yet or not.

Andy Walsh: 00:05:26

I caught the first two episodes from last week I'm not up to date on. I think there were new episodes today. Is that right?

Will Rose: 00:05:32

Yeah, they dropped three today and I got through one of them this morning. So there's two more waiting for me later on. So there's five as of recording five episodes out there. Okay, cool. Yeah. Well, again. Hey geeks.

Glad that you're here. Welcome. Today's episode.

Today's episode is one of our yearly themes episode Finding the Good where we pit one IP or fandom against or topic against the other. And then it's our task to not only make the case for the particular franchise we're choosing, but also to try to find the good in the other side.

And Andy, I don't know if you know this, this may be news to.

To your ears, but there's a lot of division and polarization in our world right now and even in our the things we geek out on and the fandoms and you know, it's been our goal and vision at systematic ecology to create a different kind of conversation and to curate healthy conversations around these things, even if we disagree about things, to create kind of a different narrative out there and not be as toxic or as divisive. And even if there's something we really, really like or choose to try to find the good in the other.

And that's a tall, tall task these days in all areas of life. But that's what we're going to do. And so, for example, we have some episodes coming up.

Starfleet versus Klingons, vampires versus Werewolves, even elves versus Dwarves, and even. Even Bruce Lee versus Jackie Chan. And all those topics. I kind of know what I would choose. But today, our specific.

There's no real specific fandom or ip. We're just picking, like, a theme or topic and then kind of searching for an IP that we could wrap around that and then share that a little bit.

So today is magic versus science. Of course, magic. All kinds of magical realms are in our fandoms.

And of course, science and tech and science fiction and speculative fiction is all part of our fandoms who like to play with that because a big part of our lives. And so if we do magic versus science, oh, man, I hope that one of them can survive. Andy.

It may be that, like, it may be to the death today and that from here on out, we either destroy magic or destroy science. I'm nervous. I'm nervous.

Andy Walsh: 00:08:02

So. So here's a. Here's a hot take that'll get the ball rolling. If we destroyed magic, would anyone notice?

Will Rose: 00:08:08

Oh, man, that's right. I guess there'd be some shows in Vegas that would. Some unemployed people and.

Andy Walsh: 00:08:18

But that's just applied science, right? We call it magic, but it's really, you know, applied psychology and.

Will Rose: 00:08:23

That's right. That's right. Yeah. Okay, that's a good hot take. Coming out. Firing Andy. Coming out. Shots fired. Already early, man.

Before we get too far into the episode, we just want to help, you know, invite you to consider rating and reviewing the show on whatever device you are on. It really helps us get out there in the world and want to thank our supporters.

We can't do this podcast or what we do with cismic Ecology without you. So today, we specifically want to thank Jonathan Augustine. Jonathan, thank you so much for your support, buddy. We really appreciate it.

And we want to invite our listeners that you can support the show as little as $3 a month. And a little birdie told me someone shared with me that we have over 20,000 subscribers around the world.

And to all you subscribers out there, your listeners, if just 100 of you, you know, joined up, for $3 a month, we could get a table at a comic Con and go out into the world, maybe even travel the country to certain comic cons and let people know who we are. So help support the show and thanks for everything that you do with us. And yeah, we're glad to geek out with you. Okay, and now to the episode.

You heard those shots fired. No specific ip, just magic versus science. And so, drumroll. And what did you choose?

And then is there a particular IP attached to magic or science that you want to lift up as an example of why either nobody would notice about magic or how science applies to our daily lives? Andy, go for it.

Andy Walsh: 00:10:09

Sure. I don't think it will come as a surprise after that introduction that I come down on the side of science. I like my fiction with science in it.

There are certainly plenty of stories with magic that I have enjoyed and I have been a fan of stage magic. We've got a cool venue here in Pittsburgh that's just for stage magic. I've been several times and had a great time every time.

Some super talented folks do that kind of stuff, and that's not what I'm talking about. I have a lot of respect for the work that goes into that kind of entertainment.

Will Rose: 00:10:46

Don't buy the good in it yet. Don't buy the good in it yet. We have a battle first. There you go.

Andy Walsh: 00:10:50

I don't know how this works.

Will Rose: 00:10:51

I know we're too polite. It says Mike ecology to throw too much shade at the beginning.

Andy Walsh: 00:10:58

But yeah, so I would come down on the side of science.

And I think if we're looking for somewhere to have that conversation, to me, I mean, it's a little bit obvious, but to me, the place where those things kind of hit the road, the rubber hits the road the most is in superhero comics because you've got all these different characters that have come from different backgrounds and different origins that then have to coexist in this. In a. In the same universe.

And so you get a lot of those, you know, magical characters bumping up against science characters and the egos of, you know. Well, isn't. Isn't magic just science? We haven't, you know, figured out yet or, you know, all that kind of stuff.

And so, you know, Tony Stark being sniffy towards Dr. Strange and Mr.

Fantastic saying that he doesn't believe in vampires even though he's met Blade, which was an interesting to take in the most recent blood hunt event. I don't know if you read any of that.

Will Rose: 00:11:52

I did Fantastic four times.

Andy Walsh: 00:11:54

Yeah. I was just like, I don't. I mean, you know, I love Ryan North, I love his Fantastic Four.

I like Reed Richards, but, man, I did not understand the hairs that were being split there. Yeah. So, you know, that kind of thing comes up a lot. I mean, maybe even most famously, right.

Superman, you know, Superman, his only weakness is magic or, you know, one of his weaknesses. His other weaknesses, famously kryptonite. But, you know, they've also really played up the whole thing that magic is another weakness of his.

To give him something. Right. To give Captain Marvel, AKA Shazam, something to do when the two of them are standing next to each other, I guess.

So that, to me, seems like an obvious place if we want to have a more concrete conversation.

Will Rose: 00:12:42

Yeah.

Andy Walsh: 00:12:43

Of where the two are very prominent in equal measure.

Will Rose: 00:12:48

Yeah. I. Yeah. So if you were to, as a scientist, share with us, again, there might be some first listeners out there who do, what kind of science do you do?

And then if someone, like you're in an elevator and you only have like 10 seconds with them, 20 seconds with them, they're like, oh, define science. What is science? How would you kind of capture that, to define that term, just to kind of know where. Where we're at?

Andy Walsh: 00:13:12

Sure. So in terms of the science that I do, my training is in the biology of infectious diseases.

And for the past 15 years or so, I've worked for a software company that provides software to public health departments, helping them to analyze electronic data from healthcare settings, primarily emergency departments, hospitals, to identify patterns that are relevant to public health departments.

So it requires some understanding of the different things that make people sick and the different reasons why people go and seek healthcare, and an understanding of computer programming and of statistical analysis and so forth, to kind of put that all together to help the folks who work on the front lines of public health, who work for your state, your county, your city, or the federal government to do the actual kind of work of public health, giving them tools to help them understand better what's going on in their communities.

Will Rose: 00:14:11

Oh, man. You're. With this day and age, how. How is your job secure? You're doing okay with what I'm hearing out there? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andy Walsh: 00:14:22

You know, our. We. We are paid via contracts with primarily state health departments. They get a lot of their funding through the cdc.

Will Rose: 00:14:32

Okay.

Andy Walsh: 00:14:32

A lot of that funding has been, you know, dedicated or already set aside for the next couple years. So the kind of short to medium term should be okay.

In a normal situation, if somebody decides to just turn off the federal funding in ways that are unprecedented, then we might have a whole other kind of situation. But I Mean, that is the reality of public health in this country.

If you don't know, some of the budget comes from your state taxes, but a lot of it comes from grants that the CDC awards to state and county health departments.

Will Rose: 00:15:05

Yes, yes. Well, that's going to make it hard for me to not choose science right now. But we have to have a versus.

So, yeah, someone says, oh, then what is science? Science. Define science. How would you like, in a phrase or two, how would you define that term?

Andy Walsh: 00:15:21

Yeah, so I would say that science is primarily a method. It's about how we study the physical world.

It's a systematic study of the physical world to understand causes and effects that are consistent over time.

So things that happen once are hard to study with science, but things that happen many times or patterns that occur in many different settings that we can repeatedly demonstrate, those are the kinds of things that we can study with science and understand how, you know, how could different things cause. What are the different causes that are possible in the world and what are the different effects that those causes have?

Will Rose: 00:16:01

Yeah, yeah.

So it's like this repetitive research and experiments to try to figure out patterns or repeatable patterns to help us figure out the reality of the physical world that's around us. So, yeah, the random things that happen. But if that happens more than once, you're trying to.

Scientists aren't just trying to prove something that sometimes they're trying to prove something doesn't happen the way it is. So they, they're their own kind of like, you know, what's the word I'm looking for?

It's kind of like sometimes they're doing research to disprove themselves and prove themselves, to see what kind of research is out there to help the world. So I like it that it's not just in a lab, but you're doing all these kinds of things.

I guess your devil's at your own devil's advocate at times to try to make sure you really have it right to do these repetitive research projects or experiments to make sure what you see is really happening in front of you.

Andy Walsh: 00:17:00

Yeah. If you want to be successful in science, you do need to be very critical of your own results. Or you shouldn't believe your own hype.

You should, you know, because you, you know, it's ultimately a, you know, it's a social endeavor. It's a, it's a community endeavor. Right. It is not. It's about kind of coming to a shared understanding.

What are the things that we can all agree on through applying the same methods to the same shared external reality. Right.

So things that are internal to myself are hard to study with science because they're part of my own, you know, subjective reality that other people can't interrogate in the same way.

So it's about coming together and working together to understand the shared external reality, objective reality, whatever kind of words you want to use that we all have access to together. So that does make it a communal project.

And that means that if I'm throwing a lot of ideas out there that I haven't really thought very carefully about and haven't tested very thoroughly, I'm going to waste everybody's time because they're going to go and chase them and then they're going to find that I wasn't right.

And so part of, you know, part of being a good scientist and being a good part of that scientific community is being sure that being careful that you don't go and tell everybody else about things until you're pretty confident that you have you figured it out yourself and you've kind of answered all the questions or ruled out all the other possible explanations before you go and say, I think the answer might be X, Y or Z. Yeah.

Will Rose: 00:18:33

If you're chasing fame or be the first one to put something out there, or grant money or whatever, you're chasing these things.

If you're not careful for what you're doing, you're going to get found out real fast what you're doing isn't correct, or you have to start all over again and be seen or shown not to be true or as a fraud or whatever. So there's some we'll get later.

Now, it's hard for me to go down this road, but there's members of my church who are researchers and scientists at the University of North Carolina and even at CERN over in Switzerland. And even when they think they're on onto something, they're like, oh, we're not going to release this yet.

Something might be coming down the road, but we got to be careful. We have a lot more experiments and examination and experience to make sure what we're saying is going to be correct.

And I think that was some people's hard times during the pandemic.

There was a sense of urgency, but they're also watching science happen in real time where they're like, they say one thing, but now they're saying this other thing. Well, we're learning as we go here. And that plane was being built while it was still flying. So there's urgency.

But, you know, science is out There, there are new things that happen all the time, but yeah, it's fascinating and yeah, thanks for what you do, Andy. In this day and age. Oh. Oh, boy. All right, so the. For sake of verses, I'm choosing magic.

And I do like the hard sciences and I like the science in my fiction and I'm a fan of like Reed Richards and Tony Stark, those kinds of characters. But man, I really love the magical realms. Whether it's Middle Earth and Tolkien or Narn, Harry Potter, I like Harry Potter.

Even Star wars with the Force is this kind of magical force, mysterious magic space wizard that's in this kind of space fantasy opera. But I'm choosing Doc Strange. Doctor Strange. And he has science background. He was a surgeon, He's a scientist.

But I really love how that first movie captured this dilemma of that he couldn't figure, fix his whole life with the science around him. He had to go and find the guru or the spiritual realm or someone to help him out to show him a different reality.

Whether it's different dimensions or multiverse realities or spells or whatever, he's having to wrestle with this idea of mystery, enchantment, magic and faith, along with understanding the world through physical means as a doctor who's so used to fixing other people. So the magic that I'm choosing, there's a lot out there. The magic I'm going to Pick is, is Dr. Strange because he is the source of Supreme.

He's a source of Supreme. Well, not anymore. Marvel Comics now Doctor Doom is. That's coming up later. Oh, boy. We'll see what happens with that. But for a long time, Dr.

Strange was sorcerer supreme and I'm choosing magic. So now here we have you. You alluded to it. There's sometimes, whether it's Reed Richards or Tony Stark, button heads against Dr. Strange.

How do you see this battle to the end, Andy? Dr. Strange versus, you know, the hard, close minded scientist of Tony Stark.

Andy Walsh: 00:21:46

Yeah, I mean, you know, this is a challenge because. Right. The first, the first rule of storytelling is, especially in comic book storytelling is, well, whose book is. Is this event happening in.

Will Rose: 00:21:58

Right.

Andy Walsh: 00:22:00

You know, if it's a Doctor Strange story, then obviously magic is going to come out on top or there's going to be something that can only be solved with magic. And if it's, you know, if it's a Tony Stark book or if we want to go straight up.

For a while, Hank Pym was the scientist supreme of the Marvel universe.

Will Rose: 00:22:18

100% good pull. Yep. 100%.

Andy Walsh: 00:22:21

You know, and there's a There's a great. There's a great one shot by Mark Waid. I apologize, because I'm forgetting who the artist was on it. And, you know, it's one of these goofy books.

It has a goofy title like Age of Ultron AU or something like that. When they were. I don't know when they were putting those like periods and letters after the titles of comics. It's like event tie ins or whatever.

And it was this one shot about Hank. Him and how he is.

He's a scientist for the, you know, for the purest sake of curiosity and wonder and trying to just kind of figure out the world and be curious about the world and with a sense of whimsy and delight and, you know, not trying. You know, he's not a Tony Stark trying to engineer something that he can sell or that, you know, will fix a certain problem.

He just wants to know more about the world because he wants to know more about the world. And you get a little bit of that even in the movies with Michael Douglas as Hank Pym, he's much grumpier. He's not a terribly likable character.

He's not as charismatic as Tony Stark or Stephen Strange. But man, that guy loves ants. And he is just gonna study ants and figure out ants because he wants to. He wants to know what makes them tick.

And yeah, he also invented this thing that makes him be able to shrink and grow and has lots of technological applications. And he's not quite the same sort of pure scientist in that setting, but he's still got his love of ants.

And he gets that moment in Ant Man Quantumania where he gets to ride in and save the day with his ant friends. And I really enjoyed that for all the other goofiness of that movie. So my struggle with this is that, what do we mean by magic?

What does it mean when science goes up and get magic? We do this a lot in narrative settings because magic is a narrative device. But you get that question, is it just science we haven't figured out?

Thinking about the Doctor Strange movie. Doctor Strange has some very specific things that he's able to do.

He's able to teleport, essentially, make portals and move from one part of space to another. He can turn back time. All these things deal with aspects of physical reality, space and time and so forth.

And there are proposals largely from different solutions of general relativity, of how you could actually travel, you know, across space in that way or manipulate time in different ways. And so, you know, if somebody could actually do the things that Dr. Strange could do. Would that be magic or would it be science?

Because we could study it, repeat. You know, he can consistently make those portals or whatever. And so, yeah, so maybe, maybe I'll put the onus on you here. What do we mean by magic?

How do we. I don't know how to decide this question of magic versus science until we know really what we mean when we're talking about magic.

Will Rose: 00:26:30

I like that because I presented you with the question of what is science? You know, you presented what is magic?

And I don't have a definitive term other than, like, using its own words to define itself, like enchantment and wonder and awe and mystery and those kinds of things.

You're casting spells or tapping into a spiritual realm to make unbelievable things believable in front of you, or you're manipulating reality to your own will. And so I think about those passages in. In even the scripture that talks about kind of forbidding of magic, that you're going down a road.

There's only powers specifically that are gods, which is like the sovereignty over the physical and spiritual realm and world. And so magicians are manipulating, becoming gods there themselves by tapping into godlike powers to control reality.

And so whereas there were those back in the day that were upset of Tolkien and Narnia, or maybe not Narnia as much, but Harry Potter is like, oh, you can't read those. Christians can't read those books because dealing with magic and witches and sorcerers, they scare us.

There's an element of, I guess, the two commandments and obeying the first command, having any idols and those kinds of things, what you're really doing with your power.

But for me, and kind of the creative imaginative fandoms, IPs that we follow, it's a narrative device to tap into kind of the supernatural, spiritual realm of the realities around them. And some have hard rules when it comes to the science that they're using. And others are just like, well, it's just magic. We're just casting a spell.

We can do whatever we want. So, yeah, I mean, maybe there's a listener out there, someone who's listening, who's like, no, that's not your defined magic.

Or if there's a real magician out there who does it, and. And he's talking about illusion, or she's talking about illusion and sleight of hand and a way to help somebody perceive something differently.

I don't know, maybe there's a better way to define it.

But I think where the division is is that, you know, you have like you said, you have the people who are tapping into or the characters tapping into, mystery spells.

And the scientists are like, like you said, just, just magic is just something that science hasn't figured out, but one that God in the gaps argument. We'll figure it out at some point from a scientific point of view.

And I think of that line from, from the Martian, like one of the things I would have pulled if I would have.

If I would have chosen science, I would have said the Martian, the, the book and, and the movie where he says, well, I'm gonna solve this problem because I'm gonna science the beep out of this thing. And, and so, yeah, I'm gonna. At some point, we're gonna figure it out.

Our science is gonna catch up with the mystery around us and be like, yeah, we can figure out that. We, we know, we know, we'll know the answer.

So, you know, as a person, I guess that's kind of where the division goes at, where maybe one, maybe one leans into the mystery and the spiritual realm of things and science. Like, oh, we'll figure it out at some point and you're just not giving us the time. Or maybe the scientists are looking where you're just.

You believe in fairy tales and the scientists or the magician is like, oh, you're just all about the facts and the numbers and don't want to see mystery in the world. And that's kind of the strawman stereotype between the two, wouldn't you say?

Andy Walsh: 00:29:47

Yeah, I mean, that's definitely one way that it gets put.

If we're talking about magic as directly imposing one's will on reality or something like that, then I don't see how science wins against that, because science will always be constrained by certain rules of cause and effect and what can be done. And so if you can just kind of circumvent that with, oh, I just want things to be the way that I want them to be. There will always be.

There'll always be a loophole. There'll always be some way to get around things.

But yeah, this idea that science eliminates all the wonder and mystery and beauty and so forth is kind of that strawman why we don't like science or what's bad about science or what's stereotypical about scientists.

And I think there is a certain sort of overly reductionist way that you can go about science or maybe more to the point that you can go about thinking about the world and your sort of metaphysics that the only thing that matters is kind of the fundamental Particles, the smallest bits and everything else is just sort of make believe or stories that we tell ourselves. But it's the particles and the forces that matter that are the only things that are real.

And I think that is unhelpful and that encourages the kind of pushback of. But what about love or beauty or those kinds of things? And I think a healthier way to approach science is to acknowledge that these things are real.

They operate at different levels of organization or different levels of reality in terms of scale and so forth. Right.

You know, we don't ascribe love to electrons and photons and so forth, but you know, it is a real category of phenomenon that is, that is useful when you're talking about people and the relationships between people.

And to deny that just because we don't have, just because there isn't a quantum field from which love emerges directly, you know, I think is a bit silly. And I think most people would acknowledge that.

You know, I don't think that's a particularly, I don't think that's a minority view or anything like that. But I do think you can find the sort of very strident views that kind of get the most, sometimes get the most attention in either direction.

Will Rose: 00:32:27

Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, listeners, you know, the irony here is that Andy is a scientist who also happens to be a person of faith. And I am a minister who also has done a lot of work with faith and science and helping create a healthy conversation between the two.

And have many members of my church here in a university setting who are in the sciences, whether evolutionary biologists or particle physicists.

And so those big questions around the two things, we are very open and really seek to have healthy conversations between the two and see how they can work together. So you could. We're going to have a faith and science conversation at some point a little bit later on.

But, but in terms of magic, you know, I think that the, you know, this kind of loss of enchantment in the world or mystery, there's this reductionism to materialism when it comes to science. But really.

And the scientists that I've spoken to, if I'm going to find the good and the other now and leap over to your side that scientists that I've spoken to, it is mystery and awe and wonder that drove them to study the sciences, to learn more about what they are curious about. And as they are learning, there's always a question to chase. There's always awe and mystery and wonder when it comes to that.

Now there's exceptions to the rule.

But the ones that I speak to and the ones I've had experience with, they still experience enchantment and mystery and awe and wonder when it comes to whatever they're studying or trying to prove or disprove in the sciences to understand the world. And there's still more to learn. There's. You never run out of things to learn.

And I think, you know, for me, looking over the fact that, yeah, even though Tony Stark is blah, blah, blah, but and Reed Richards, they're going to crunch the numbers to try to find a solution.

I love how you said Hank Pym is scientist supreme, but they're still work on their teammates with other people who have superpowers and magic and mystery. When it comes around to them, they're just using their gifts and their scientific mind to help solve the problems or use that around.

I'm sure if someone's looking at an ant grow or someone shrink down to the size of an ant, they're like, that's magic. Even though they're using quantum Pym particles that are a part of the physical universe to actualize and make that happen to an outsider.

Wow, you're just using magic. Look at that. Neat. Cool trick. Superpower. But they're really using science. So that's how I kind of to switch to find the good and the other.

There's still this aspect of enchantment and wonder and mystery and wanting to help the world that they're a part of.

Andy Walsh: 00:35:04

Yeah, I like all that. Thank you for all that. That's a cool way of looking at things. Yeah.

And you know, to think about sort of magic as something that exists largely in a storytelling setting. Right. There is definitely value in telling stories about things that don't exist in the real world or don't exist in the real world yet. Right.

Because that's how we move forward in making new discoveries, making new inventions, or even just finding new ways of talking about the world. Even that can be valuable if it brings people together or if it helps people collaborate on different things.

And so, yeah, if we kind of flip it around of, you know, or magic is science, I guess, flipping around. But, you know, if we looking at magic as science, things that science haven't figured out yet.

We need things that science haven't figured out yet so that we have more. More science to work on.

Will Rose: 00:36:03

Yeah.

Andy Walsh: 00:36:03

And having, you know, having those stories, you know, even something like Dr. Strange. Right. You know, that can. That can inspire people's imagination or Star Wars.

I mean, you know, how many, how many people have Been inspired by Star wars to pursue different kinds of careers in all kinds of different things, some of them scientific, some of them less so. But in terms of working to bring people together to bring good into the world, there are, there are various people now that are Jedi, right.

So you talk about speaking something into the world, into existence, right. George Lucas came up with the concept of Jedi and now there are Jedi in the world and there are Quidditch places, players.

And so it sounds hokey, right?

In the abstract, but that is actually something that people do on the regular is speak things into existence by describing a future that people want to go to and then we work towards it to get there.

And if that brings people together, if that builds communities, if that builds relationships, if that builds technology or tools that we can use to make people's lives better, that's all valuable stuff.

Will Rose: 00:37:16

Yeah, I think of the conversion of Han Solo, right. Like at the beginning, A New Hope. He's like, hokie, religions are no match for a blaster or however he says it.

And then eventually you get to Force Awakens and he's like, it's true. It's all true. I believe I've seen lots of things and it's all true.

So it's that experience with the other that helps you understand and enlarge universe. And so I think magic, science, together, working on the same team, I think it'd be helpful for the world.

So, you know, I don't know how much we set up. This really wasn't like a deadly blow by blow death match here. But we tried to lift up these two things and then finding the good in the other.

I think both of us in our realms of vocation, in our world, but also the stories we like. We're pretty much on the same page, Andy, when it comes to see the good in the other.

Andy Walsh: 00:38:06

Yeah, I mean, you and I, I think the Last Jedi is the only thing that we have found any kind of place to differ on. But yeah, I think we do generally have all the same tastes and preferences and enjoy the same things.

Will Rose: 00:38:23

Yeah, maybe, maybe we'll do finding the Good. You know, I think we've done that before with.

Andy Walsh: 00:38:26

Yeah, I don't think we need to relive that conversation. It just was the only thing that.

Will Rose: 00:38:30

Came to mind that will probably happen again before Saul said and done that, that the lightning rod of a movie, the Last Jedi, but. And there'll be more movies like that. And I'll be curious to see what this next Captain America movie and others.

We got some comic Book, movies, whether that's gonna do fine. The good in the other. There'll be more ways to practice and exercise that in, in our world.

So folks out there, you know, help us, you know, chime in on the socials. What do you think? What will you choose? How can you see the good in the other? I think this does apply to our.

And how we operate in the worlds and communities we're a part of. Look, look for that good in the other and try to see from their perspective.

And I think it's hard, it's hard to hate up close with those, those in front of you. All right, Andy, time to wrap this thing up.

We are going to have an extra question we're going to share here in a minute that we hope that Patreons can, can, can go on there and listen to. But before we head out, some recommendations.

Anything we've talked about tonight, or perhaps there's something else out there you want to recommend the folks to go deeper or just to geek out on. What are some recommendations you have?

Andy Walsh: 00:39:43

Yeah, so another story where there's kind of this intersection of science and magic, and is it magic or is it just applied science in a different way is the book by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland, or Galland, I'm not sure, called the Rise and Fall of Dodo. And then Nicole Galland wrote a follow up to that called the Master of Rebels. But they are, they're time travel stories.

They're also kind of multiverse stories because they're basically going and finding.

It's about finding different strands of the timeline and encouraging different events and different strands so that a majority of the strands turn out a certain way. And so being able to find.

Will Rose: 00:40:31

The.

Andy Walsh: 00:40:31

Right timeline involves what they describe as magic.

So there are these people that kind of use magic to sort of intuitively figure out the math of the timelines and where they need to wind up back in time to get the results that they're trying to achieve in the present. They're sort of tinkering with the past to get better outcomes in the present or desired outcomes in the present.

And so, yeah, there's some of that interesting interplay of is it science, Is it magic? There's cool time travel. There's a lot of neat learning about neat things to learn about the particular time periods that they focus on.

Neal Stephenson is a research monster, puts all kinds of details into his historical fiction type books. And so, yeah, there's a lot of cool things in those books.

And so if you're interested in this in Getting a little bit of magic in your science, or science in your magic. I think that's a good place to do that. That's off the beaten track.

Will Rose: 00:41:32

Yeah, I wrote that down. That's cool. Have you ever heard of the book this Is how youw Lose the Time War?

Andy Walsh: 00:41:37

Not only have I heard of it, but I just read it recently.

Will Rose: 00:41:40

Oh, man. So good. That's a whole nother. I was just talking about Enchantment. Just enchanted with this story and loved it so much.

And another time travel time war story. We'll have to talk about that on another podcast.

But, man, that book is absolutely beautiful, and my daughter recommended that to me, and I couldn't put it down. Every sentence is beautifully written. Very, very good. Oh, spoilers. Did you like it, Andy? Did you like that book?

Andy Walsh: 00:42:06

Do you like that book? I did, yeah. It.

You know, I don't know that I was necessarily as enchanted with it as some of the people that recommended it to me, but it's certainly very well done and, you know, very poetic. You know, it's. It's not a. It's not quite as straightforward of a narrative.

You know, it's a very interesting kind of stylus approach, and it's actually written by two different people, and so it's a series of letters kind of going back and forth. And so I think the two of them sort of alternated who was writing, you know, writing in the different characters. So that's an interesting structure.

You know, I think there's a twist that I thought was a little bit more obvious than I think it was supposed to seem, but maybe that's just because I've read too many time travel stories. There you go. But, yeah, no, very, very well done. And, you know, a quick. A quick read. So, you know, worth giving it. Giving a try.

Will Rose: 00:42:57

Yeah. Agree. Cool.

My recommendation, you know, I just interviewed John hendricks on our YouTube channel, who wrote the Myth Makers about the friendship of Tolkien and C.S. lewis. And that book inspired me to read more of Tolkien and Lewis in their own voice and language. It's been a while.

Like, I've read all their books, but it's been a while since I've read them. And after reading the Myth Makers, wanted to go back and read some of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and found a copy.

ays in there. Merry Christmas: 2005

Don't know if he ever read it, but it was beside his chair and I was like, oh wow, it's right there. And so I grabbed it and, and I just started reading it. I was like, I just did this interview talking about the friendship of Tolkien and C.S. lewis.

And so I was like, I haven't read this book in a really long time. It's, it's definitely foundational for me in terms of capturing my imagination and love of theology.

But it's been a while since I read the book and so I, I picked up and started reading again and it's just so.

I just love CS Lewis's voice and how he writes and you know, I'm at a different stage of my life in faith reading this book and kind of thinking, hearing his arguments but, or case for Christianity, but hearing his voice and how he writes on the page I think is so good. So my recommendation, if you haven't read one of their books in a long time, pick it up again. I love it. That Tolkien and C.S.

lewis were systematic ecologists. They gathered together and talked about the things they geeked out on and that Mere Christianity was basically BBC radio broadcast.

So basically he was podcasting some of his thoughts and here we are doing the same things that he was doing way back then. So those are our recommendations again folks. Rate and review the show, share, share and support.

And and you get an extra question if you become a patron. Three as little as $3. $3 a month you can get the answer to this question that we're getting ready to ask Andy. Okay, twofold.

If you could be an expert in any field of science, not the one you're already an expert in, what would it be? If you had to choose another science and if you could live in any magic based fandom, what would it be? And I'll answer the same.

I'm not an expert in science, but if I could be, I know my answer and I will answer that in a little bit. And I know which realm that I would want to be in. A magic built, magic based fandom realm. So hop on over to Patreon if you're not already a member.

Join and really appreciate your support and you listening. Share with a friend. Friends. Man, we couldn't be more thankful for geeking out with all of you. So as always remember, share the faith, share the geek.