The Magic Trick effect

Alfred Borden: The secret impresses no one. The trick you use it for is everything.
-The Prestige

Alfred Borden: Never show anyone. They'll beg you and they'll flatter you for the secret, but as soon as you give it up... you'll be nothing to them.
-The Prestige

One apple plus one apple equals two apples. But it does not create two apples for you.

-Author

If you impress someone with a magic trick, the more they see you do the act the more they would be caught up into it, unless they somehow find out how it was achieved. If you were to disclose it to them, they would never ask to see the trick again and the whole effect and attention received earlier would vanish. It is the trick itself which is interesting, once it’s decoded-it becomes a boring mechanism of fooling the other.

The lovers of science are always trying to understand the way things work around them. It is a trial and error world. The moment they know how it works they feel like they own it and as if it is them who made the amazing act of nature happen. If they modify it in some way, they feel thrilled to think they created a better version of what they had.

The problem with this is- No matter how efficient the equation gets, one apple added to the other only gives us the logic of how it happens. It does not actually fill the stomach with two apples at all.

When science witnesses the greatness of nature, perfection of universe, placement of life, coordination of all the elements in the universe to support life they end up trying to describe the reason to its perfection and not appreciating the perfection in itself.

There are 4 kinds of reactions to a simple observation-

1)      Look at the sun, its nothing but a chemical reaction and a result of nuclear fusion.

2)      Look at the sun, what an amazing creation of God.

3)      Look at the sun, how perfectly has it been placed for us and how interestingly the simple changes of energy millions of miles away provide us with just the precise amount of energy we need... Praise for the creator.

4)      Look at the sun, it is such a coincidental perfection and everything else that’s around it is also such an interesting coincidence.

I appreciate the third opinion the most. It is a very humble form of appreciation for both- i.e the understanding of how the nuclear reactions happen, its necessity for us and how magnificent the creation is, and thus, how magnificent would the creator be.

I am usually surprised at the reaction of people. They look at a machine, (say a brand new Lamborghini Huracan) and say “Amazing!! What a fine car! What a lovely piece of design and great automotive feat”, with their jaws literally dropped open and heads turning to take another look. Yet, they fail to appreciate the ability to be able to comprehend the machine itself (animals cannot understand it, they will walk by a Lamborghini just as they would walk by a cycle- a dog would lift a leg and piss on both without discrimination); they fail to appreciate the ability granted to be able to put together such a machine, to have the resources for it and to have the dimension of time to invest into the making of it. They fail to appreciate the creator itself.

If you appreciate this machine so much for its beauty and technical superiority, what makes one to not appreciate the night sky lit by millions of bright twinkling stars, endless beautiful green forests

with trees older than centuries, brightly colored insects that would mesmerize any man, the glorious rivers and an entire world in itself beneath the oceans.

Saying that a butterfly is spotted only because it is saving itself from its predator by its apparent appearance is not a false idea, but don’t let the ‘explanation’ of magical placement of God’s nature tarnish the need for its appreciation. It would rather be better to be always mesmerized by the beauty and curiosity than to know the trick itself.

Diminishing the beauty of something as small as a butterfly by saying that its bright colors and large spots are only to fool the predator into thinking of it as a risky snack is a sad and half eye view of the moment. It is rather the appreciation for the magical effect it creates which is more soothing than the explanation for it which makes it reduce the its worth.I rather wonder, how the butterfly thought of evolving its wings to have large spotted figures to make the predator think of it as eyes. A brain less insect was intelligent enough to discover and implement it thousands of years ago and it took us millions of brain cells and thousands of years to finally understand why it was so.

The creator is the common factor in any equation. Can we not breakdown every element and arrive eventually at the same base substance-a combination of protons, electrons and neutrons. Does that not point to one single source of creation? How naively we look at iPhones, iPads and iPods and recognize the source of creation as one organization and appreciate their technical expertise and yet we look at the entire universe made for us with the same building blocks and we reject that it isn't from one single source and technical expertise beyond our comprehension. We praise an extra ordinary CEO who could create the pinnacle of success through phones and musical devices and read stories, biographies and quote from his experience, not acknowledging the fact that the same person could not reverse or stop the process of returning to the creator and yet we don’t want to fully appreciate the creator himself who has placed among us an ocean full of such CEOs and other infinite miraculous examples. I don’t mean to tarnish the work of Steve Jobs, nor will I ever make the mistake of comparing a creation’s creation with that of the creator’s creation. Neither will I make the mistake of comparing the creator with anything at all, because he is nothing like anything that we know of.

The evidence is all around us.

So,





Don’t let the secret of the magic trick, discredit the magical effect itself.

-Irshan


I extend my humble courtesy to the photographers for their efforts. I don't know who or where they are but they have done a wonderful job.