Why Mystical Science Fiction? Part 3: I Like to Challenge Others

In Part 2 of this trilogy, I explored how I think the mystical science fiction genre chosen for Sleight of Mind is more challenging, for me personally, than plain science fiction.  In this segment, I'll outline reason #3: why I think it might be more challenging for you, the reader.

I'm sure a lot of people who know me think this ought to be the number one reason I chose.

There are those who say stuff like "any sufficiently advanced technology is going to look like magic."  I'm not so sure that's true anymore.  I mean, sure, a tribal people who've only ever used a bow and arrow might see a flying machine and think "magic" but would the modern people of this world see highly advanced technology and decide it was magic?  Would you?

I think we've completely tipped the scales in the other direction.  I think we are now sufficiently advanced that we would assume magic is actually just futuristic technology.

So the third reason - and maybe this really is the most compelling reason but it is still my tertiary driver - I chose this format is so that I can try to expand the minds of my readers.  I want to find that edge... the place were you can't decide if a character is grappling with an extremely advanced mechanism or the product of an ancient rite.

We're so full of ourselves, now.  I see self-proclaimed scientists resting on some assertion he's made with the claim "there are things we really do understand about the universe."  As a species, we've rounded up whole groups of nerds, placed them in ivory towers, and given them license to play around with mathematics and prescribe how things supposedly work.

...and most people just accept it...

I want to take that edge between "well governed reality" and "that's just got to be magic" and make us all look at it in the hopes that we can take a step back from the certitude of science or religion and admit that we can't really know how or why anything works.  We can only keep making better tools that predict which responses will be generated by which stimuli.