Let's believe in magic!

I finally understand what I don't like about the newest Star Wars movies (besides the acting and plot, etc.). It lies in the distinction between science fiction and fantasy.

Today, we live in a world where it is assumed that everything that happens has a "scientific explanation." This means more than that everything is explanable; it means that everything is understandable and accountable in terms of matter governed by mathematical laws. If anything out of the ordinary happens, we simply assume that it can be explained scientifically, even if we don't exactly know how yet. This modern-day perspective is often called scientific naturalism. This perspective is intricately connected with determinism, which is the assumption that all events are predictable, if you know all of the preceding circumstances. In other words, whatever happens, happens inevitably.

Scientific naturalism hasn't always been the prevailing assumption in society. In the past, and even in places today, people often applied a "teleological" explanation to the events of nature. The Greek word "telos" means end, or purpose. In this world view, things in nature act with a purpose, for a specific end, in an agentic kind of way. It is in a teleological worldview that we ascribe human characteristics to trees and rocks and "mother earth", etc., as we often read in older literature or modern fantasy. Even the idea of human agency or free will is a teleological explanation of human behavior, and is seen by many scientists as an "artifact of the past," as all human action is believed by them to be reducible or explanable in terms of neurons interacting in the brain. Human teleology is the last surviving link to this more archaic mode of explanation, and we are rightfully most reluctant to let go of it, although it is growing more and more popular to do so among the biological and psychological sciences.

Here is a key attraction of fantasy: in a world saturated with naturalism, fantasy invites us to "suspend" our assumption that all events are scientifically reducible and explore the possibilty of things that transcend the scientific realm, such as spirits, magic, and even free will. In a fantasy, the future is undetermined, non-mechanistic. Science fiction, although enjoyable to read, does not require us to suspend our basic assumptions about the world. Although the events that happen in science fiction are often impossible within our scientific framework, it is nonetheless assumed by the reader and the characters of the story that in the fictional science fiction world, all events are scientifically reducible.

This is a primary difference between the original Star Wars movies and the newer ones. In the original Star Wars movies, the force was not a scientifically reducible entitiy, but rather an exception to the scientific framework, a more spiritual entity, something that could be directed and channeled teleologically. Jedis were "sages" with military combat training. The movies were called by most critics a "fantasy." In the newer movies, however, we find the guiding assumption that all things must be scientifically explanable, and thus with the introduction of the "mitochlorians" Jedis became individuals with a certain evolutionary advantage over their fellow beings, and the force, rather than being directed agentically, had some sort of scientific connection with the cells in their body. The story stepped over the line from fantasy to science fiction. (one could argue that it was straddling the line in the beginning, the newers ones merely clarified the allegience, but the distinction is still illustrative)

Perhaps we should ask ourselves, "Why is it so hard for us to believe in things that are scientifically irreducible?" We see today a growing trend to reinterpret even scriptural accounts of miracles in terms of modern science, and assume that God himself cannot transcend the scientific realm. If we believe in human agency, we already believe in at least one thing that can transcend a deterministic, scientific framework. Might there also be others?

My First Post!

This is my first post!