You watch intently as the magician fans out the cards revealing it to be a normal 52 card deck. You keep a close eye on his hands as he gathers the cards back into a stack, turns the deck over and taps it with one finger. As he fans out the cards again, you’re amazed to see that every card is now an Ace of Spades! How did he do it, you ask, what is the trick?
Any rational person knows that this is not done by “magic”. We know that there is a rational explanation, that it is an illusion, using slight of hand. We know this because we know that cards do not spontaneously rearrange themselves into other cards. We can confidently conclude that the illusion was carefully crafted and carried out by the magician.
But what if we were able to film the trick in super slow motion and examine the card deck under the highest powered microscope and observe as the cards actually do reorganize their molecules into Aces of Spades? Would we believe it was magic then? Or, would we still hold that there was a trick to it and that the magician must have come up with an as-yet unknown invention to induce the cards into reconfiguring themselves? I would certainly hope that it would be the latter! To believe it to be magic, with no rational explanation, would be intellectually lazy and foolish.
So what of the universe and all of its observed self-organization? What is the rational explanation for that? Is it magic? Or, is it carefully crafted using an as-yet unknown method? I would certainly hope that it would be the latter, as to believe it to be magic, with no rational explanation, would be intellectually lazy and foolish.
