>>24875869
You're not doing the necessary nuance. See >>24874692

Magic is/was a lot like psychology, which isn’t a hard science at all.

Magic in George’s environment is a “science”, not a science. “Magic”.

It's at the edges:

— ‘"Fantasy needs magic in it, but I try to control the magic very strictly. You can have too much magic in fantasy very easily, and then it overwhelms everything and you lose all sense of realism. And I try to keep the magic magical — something mysterious and dark and dangerous, and something never completely understood. I don’t want to go down the route of having magic schools and classes where, if you say these six words, something will reliably happen. Magic doesn’t work that way. Magic is playing with forces you don’t completely understand. And perhaps with beings or deities you don’t completely understand. It should have a sense of peril about it.” - George R. R. Martin

No different from tossing to a wild beast a piece of meat and hoping for its favour.

No different from alchemists in antiquity chugging mercury thinking it’s longevity.

No different from psychologists poking at the human brain and claiming to know it.

No different from past physicists poking at nuclear cores and dying horribly in the process.

No different from mad science - "ah sweet, man-made horrors beyond my comprehension".

If mystery, wonder and horror make magic, then ignorance is the greatest magic of all.

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