123 réponses à ce sujet

[Medhia_Nox]

The question:  "What is the Veil?" is not a question of magic.  

 

No mage need answer it to use spells.  

 

And Dagna probably knows a million times more about the Veil than most mages.  

 

So, while a "scientific" question about a non-scientific dimension that has, as of yet, produced no reproducable laws as far as we've observed (except the constant of the Black City perhaps) - it requires neither mages, nor magic. 

 

This is like a scientist asking: "What is politics?"  or perhaps more appropriately... "What is belief?"   The later question something scientists often dismiss rather than try to answer because it doesn't fit the static scientific requirements of categorization. 

 

@Ieldra:  Yes, of course someone is trying to "understand it" - look at the language used in that understanding too.  "The ritual of medicine."  

 

Science is not a safety blanket that can just be thrown around all human thought. 

 

Understanding brain chemistry is not understanding 'the mind'. 

 

Lastly... there's a reason we have the term "soft sciences".

 

If we want to call magic "the softest science" just so we can fit it into the bubble of "science consumes everything" - I'm fine with that.

[Ieldra]

I do not have time right now,still i would try to respond and on evening change this quick response,and you clearly misunderstood what i intended as for "common knowledge" no moral postulate were intended as nature itself does not provide the possibility to do something because you are born with it.

It does. Almost all life forms on Earth are born with some innate predispositions. The simple fact that some animals can walk one minute after they're born, and that they don't even need to be nudged to try, should prove your claim wrong.

I understand your intention perfectly. You want to construct a fundamental contradiction between magic and reason. That is doomed to failure since no such contradiction exists in most fantasy settings. In RL, that contradiction exists exactly because maagic - as opposed to most fantasy worlds - does NOT work, or at the very least, works in an inconsistent and haphazard manner.

[Qis]

Science is not magic and magic is not science, simple. Both are incompatible, this is easily understood in other universe, but sadly Dragon Age have too much inconsistency, maybe intentional due to writers own scepticism.

 

Example, the writers did give a doubt regarding the Sacred Ashes by Oghren dialogue, that is scepticism. The writers don't want us the players simply take the Ash as magic/miracle, they need to put in doubt. It is because the writers are liberals

 

Scepticism will destroy imagination, making it not fun anymore. Magic only need to explained the core on how it work, doesn't need to be explained scientifically. You cannot give a doubt such as Oghren dialogue at the temple. just leave it to be a magic/miracle

 

In the world of magic, science have no place, or else it is not fun

 

The same happen in Star Wars, when they put in midichlorian, it pissed off many fans because The Force is no longer magic, no longer mysterious, no longer mystic, it is now science and biological...

[German Soldier]

Science is not magic and magic is not science

Magic a science?

I thought it was a myth,even Mass effect to me do not looks like as scientific at all,and there are no "mages" there.

[Kantr]

Science is not magic and magic is not science, simple. Both are incompatible, this is easily understood in other universe, but sadly Dragon Age have too much inconsistency, maybe intentional due to writers own scepticism.

 

Example, the writers did give a doubt regarding the Sacred Ashes by Oghren dialogue, that is scepticism. The writers don't want us the players simply take the Ash as magic/miracle, they need to put in doubt. It is because the writers are liberals

 

Scepticism will destroy imagination, making it not fun anymore. Magic only need to explained the core on how it work, doesn't need to be explained scientifically. You cannot give a doubt such as Oghren dialogue at the temple. just leave it to be a magic/miracle

 

In the world of magic, science have no place, or else it is not fun

 

The same happen in Star Wars, when they put in midichlorian, it pissed off many fans because The Force is no longer magic, no longer mysterious, no longer mystic, it is now science and biological...

Lyrium infusing the Ashes still makes them magical. Just not a miracle by a god. Lyrium is alive and magical.

[Ieldra]

Science is not magic and magic is not science, simple. Both are incompatible, this is easily understood in other universe, but sadly Dragon Age have too much inconsistency, maybe intentional due to writers own scepticism.

 

Example, the writers did give a doubt regarding the Sacred Ashes by Oghren dialogue, that is scepticism. The writers don't want us the players simply take the Ash as magic/miracle, they need to put in doubt. It is because the writers are liberals

 

Scepticism will destroy imagination, making it not fun anymore. Magic only need to explained the core on how it work, doesn't need to be explained scientifically. You cannot give a doubt such as Oghren dialogue at the temple. just leave it to be a magic/miracle

 

In the world of magic, science have no place, or else it is not fun

 

The same happen in Star Wars, when they put in midichlorian, it pissed off many fans because The Force is no longer magic, no longer mysterious, no longer mystic, it is now science and biological...

The distinction is between the world of the intrinsically mysterious and the mundane in people's perception. Magic in Thedas, however, isn't a mystery, a thing of wonder, it is a tool. Creating a fireball on Thedas isn't an artistic expression of your imagination, it works as reliably as a gun. The wondrous isn't predictable, else it wouldn't be wondrous.

 

Magic isn't science, it's more akin to technology, only that it uses a magical conceptualization of the world. As a story element, it often doesn't need to be understood, but you can bet that in-world there will be a drive to understand it as completely as possible, and science is a tool for understanding. Eventually, people will want to know what makes people mageborn, they'll want to know what exactly a mage is doing, and what happens physically, when a spell is cast. Nothing of that would lessen the usefulness of magic or its identity as an innate set of tools controlled by mental discipline.

 

The element that opposes science isn't magic, it's religion. Here, your hopes and dreams are invested into something intrinsically mysterious, and here it is actually important that it can't be understood in order to serve its function. The Force isn't just magic, it's an intrinsically mysterious element of the universe, and the ideologies of its users have often been described as a religion. Those and similar ideologies conceptualize the universe in terms of the social psychology of the human species, that's why, for instance, there is often some built-in morality.

 

If you understand magic in low-fantasy settings like Thedas as something intrinsically mysterious, you are mistaking it for religion. Thedas isn't like Middle Earth. Middle Earth is a high fantasy setting, and its magic is intrinsically interwoven with its mythology. Your arguments would be valid there.

[Aren]

 A. The idea that knowledge must be a common good...

(1)...is a moral postulate, not a description of reality, and thus has no bearing on how things are.

(2)...applies to knowledge about magic as much as to any other kind, and in fact on Thedas, everyone can understand magic and its princples - see Dagnat. The limitation that you must be mageborn applies only to its use. 

 

B. There is nothing intrinsically egalitarian in the idea of the rule of reason. In fact, I could make a good argument that egalitarianism is non-rational, based on the - rather strange, if you consider it - idea that everyone should have equal weight in politics regardless of personal capability. We have mostly agreed to egalitarianism only because we can't agree about standards for a - much more rational - meritocracy.

 

 

It does. Almost all life forms on Earth are born with some innate predispositions. The simple fact that some animals can walk one minute after they're born, and that they don't even need to be nudged to try, should prove your claim wrong.

I understand your intention perfectly. You want to construct a fundamental contradiction between magic and reason. That is doomed to failure since no such contradiction exists in most fantasy settings. In RL, that contradiction exists exactly because maagic - as opposed to most fantasy worlds - does NOT work, or at the very least, works in an inconsistent and haphazard manner.

To 1,A, B

Knowledge is a familiarity, awareness or understanding of someone or something, such as facts, information, descriptions, or skills, which is acquired through experience or education by perceiving, discovering, or learning and as such everyone is capable to handle it ,it is accessible to anyone unlike magic.. 

Magical knowledge instead it is something that requires as fundamental a mage,otherwise you will not be capable to perform experimental research on the field.

Dagna is no mage and as such she require other mages to experiment her theories,that poses  a natural limitation.

knowledge that require the scientific approach and lead to expertises do not bear such limitation.

 i don't see any moral construct in this.

 

 

To 2

What are those principles exactly?

What kind of fundamental magnitudes magic has if it's rules seem to be constantly shaped by whatever world/dimension?

It is clearly something that cannot be studied with the scientific approach.

All those who shift their form from your average human to your complex high dragon and in doing so alter physically their own bodies with their will,now let's find something rational in that.

They are the same person and yet the number of their cells become different....created from nowhere and gained by some mystical ancient religion.

until they decided to return exactly like before,like those animal/mages of Amaranthine or Flemeth.

That cannot be explained as far as i'm concerned with any scientific criteria and any method used by science.

Or the elves who create new dimensions with their will,that's beyond the scientific approach.

You can define those rules in whatever way you desire but they are far from being rules that can be understood with the scientific approach

 

Except that it does not since those arguments about innate "abilities" are flawed,those animals gained it after long process of adaptation,they didn't acquired it all of sudden

 

 

[mgagne]

Science cannot explain "magic" - ever.  (Yes, of course it can observe some "rules" about it - that's not "science" though.  Science is a specific form of rule observation.  Some rules aren't observable in this fashion.)

 

 

That is quite a bold statement to make in our world where there is no discernible magic to make comparisons.

 

In any case, causes can be observed through their effects if not directly.  Therefore when a mage shoots bolts of lightning or plasma those are tangible manifestations of magic that can be measured.  The brain activity of a mage can also be measured, while at rest or whilst performing a spell.  Genetic profiling of a cross section of the population of Thedas including both mages and non mages could also reveal lots of information.  Not to mention the experiments that could be performed with helpful spirits such as Cole for instance, when he materializes or dematerializes on the field of battle.  Analyses of the various foci (rings, amulets, staves, etc), when powered ('in use') or dormant, could also be conducted.

 

In my opinion there is no great mystery with magic in the DA universe.  I can easily imagine their world being located in a region of space that is exposed to a unique spectrum of radiation that has altered the living organisms on that planet.  Evolution then ran its course and some people (or animals) became exceptionally sensitive to the energy fluctuations in the magnetosphere, to the point of being able to manipulate it, consciously or not, in order to shape it into whatever desired effect.

[Silcron]

Science is nothing more than a method to understading our world and using this knowledge. Like how we leartn what electricity was and we learned to use it to power machines. I don't know why "science" has been mystified to become this nebolous abstract concept. There is nothing misterious about science, in fact, it tries to be opposite of misterious as hard as it can.

So if magic, in whatever form it may take, exists in a fantasy world science will tackle it no matter how formally it is presented. Just think of any time in a fantasy story when someone tried to understand what a mage was doing, or how a spell work, or learning to perform a spell. That is the basis of science, maybe it is not done in the formal way that scientific studies are done in contemporary times but that does not prevent this actions from being scientific.

In Thedas? It is very scientific, they have schools of magic and academic treaties about it. We have even had the inmoral scientist trope being the center of a dlc. Anyone remember the warden mage in the Keep DLC in Origins? He was carrying out an inmoral scietific study on the magical effect of the darkspawn corruption in the Grey Warden's blood and what it could be done with it.

In fiction it is not science vs magic no matter how many people will call it that. It is advanced technology (let me remind you that technology encompasses any kind of tool, including a rock you picked from the ground) vs magic. Science is put against religion, because the first centers around questioning, understanding and proving ideas whereas the second just asks you to put faith in it.

Science is a method to study subjects in a way that tries to be as objective as possible. Magic can be studied in fantasy settings by researchers and students, it would be a field studied with a scientific method, thus part of science.

[AlanC9]

Preach it, brother.

The only thing I'd add is that Thedas magic would be relatively hard to investigate, since practicing it requires both inborn talent and particular internal mental states. Maybe that makes magic a branch of experimental psychology. I imagine in a few centuries we'll see mages being put into FMRIs to work out the exact mechanisms.

[9TailsFox]

[robertthebard]

Just because something follows rules doesn't mean science can grasp it. 
 
All human convention - ALL of which is make-believe - follows rules.  
 
Magic in the DA universe abides - very poorly - by a set of rules that are prone to changing.  
 
Science doesn't change.  The rules are binding.

Except when they aren't? For centuries, physics operated under Sir Isaac Newton's theories, until, in the '40s, Mr. Albert Einstein said, "Sorry Sir, but you were wrong". The rules changed, as did the theories that allowed those rules to work.
 

Also - on Thedas - the "educated" mage is a myth.  There are only a handful of educated mages - Flemeth, Morrigan, Solas, Zathrian and Avernus (let's forget three of them are psychos and one is a craven survivalist).  You can be other things as a mage on Thedas... political (Dorian and Vivienne) - militant (the Saarebas) - a cause-head (Anders).  

 
None of them advanced their research... Dagan, a none mage - was a more educated mage than 95% of all DA mages presented so far.
 
You are born a mage... education has nothing to do with it.  Mastering magic is more akin to a religion (mental discipline, visualization techniques, etc.) on Thedas.  It's ridiculous to think you're "born prone to wanting to be educated".

So we are the sum of our birth, and cannot rise above that station? Being born a mage does not prohibit gaining an education. Being able to use magic does not preclude one from being educated, nor does education have anything to do with it at it's core. However, that does not preclude being able to gain knowledge, aka education. Can they be educated in the principles of magic? Yes, and if you've played the mage origin, you'll have seen this at work.
 

Also - it is pitifully unreproducable and obeys laws from the LEAST scientific place of them all.  The Fade.  A place of thought, mind, idea.  A totally chaotic irrational place that will never bend to the static categorization required for a scientific discipline to form around it.

Except that it's not? A fire mage that has learned to cast a firewall can cast that firewall again. That's a reproducible effect. It can be measured, and it can be relied on to happen. Now, if we're discussing DnD's Wild Mages, you'd have a point, since they never knew exactly what they were going to get. That concept, however, does not exist in Thedas. In fact, it's quite the opposite, barring a respect of your character. A Rift mage will have spells associated with that school of magic. Note, I bolded school because it drives home a point from earlier in this post: Being born a mage doesn't mean you can't be educated, and that education can indeed include magic, at it's very core.

[Illegitimus]

 

To 1,A, B

Knowledge is a familiarity, awareness or understanding of someone or something, such as facts, information, descriptions, or skills, which is acquired through experience or education by perceiving, discovering, or learning and as such everyone is capable to handle it ,it is accessible to anyone unlike magic.. 

Magical knowledge instead it is something that requires as fundamental a mage,otherwise you will not be capable to perform experimental research on the field.

 

Sure you will.  All you need are experimental subjects who are mages.  Or you know, study something magic that isn't spellcasting.  It's important to remember that "magic" does not solely refer to the casting of spells.  I mean are you going to say that lyrium, spirits, alchemy, and the blight are NOT magic?  

[AlanC9]

Science is not magic and magic is not science, simple. Both are incompatible, this is easily understood in other universe, but sadly Dragon Age have too much inconsistency, maybe intentional due to writers own scepticism.

This is only true when we use a definition of "science" that has nothing to do with what science actually is.

Edit: Actually, it could also be made to work by using a definition of magic which rules out the stuff that they teach and practice in the Circles. This isn't such a bad idea, really, though it would be confusing to talk about two different meanings of "magic."

Example, the writers did give a doubt regarding the Sacred Ashes by Oghren dialogue, that is scepticism. The writers don't want us the players simply take the Ash as magic/miracle, they need to put in doubt. It is because the writers are liberals.

Wait.. you think this is a political issue? How so? I thought it was the devs making faith in Thedas work just like faith in the real world. Which is, of course, what they said they were doing.

Scepticism will destroy imagination, making it not fun anymore.

Since your argument is, at its core, all about your feelings, could you get into those feelings a bit? Why and how does skepticism destroy imagination? This hasn't been true in my life, and I don't see why it should be true for anyone. But you're the one who's feeling this, so maybe you can explain it to me?

[Giantdeathrobot]

Also of note... the placebo effect.  Scientists in our real world know that belief can cause effects in the body... they don't know how, and they've largely dismissed it.  

 

Science cannot explain "magic" - ever.  (Yes, of course it can observe some "rules" about it - that's not "science" though.  Science is a specific form of rule observation.  Some rules aren't observable in this fashion.)

 

I'm not sure about that.

 

The fact that there are distinct schools of magic that use specific spells (for instance the Knight-Enchanters are known for their Fade blades, Shapeshifters for, well, shapeshifting, Mortalitasti for mastering necromancy, etc.) suggest that results of magic experimentation are reproduceable. A mage can train another one to bend the Fade in a specific way to cast a specific spell, it's not exactly peer review but it is a transmission of knowledge that has first been gain by observation, deduction and experimentation.

 

The fact that we don't know all there is to know about the field doesn't make it not akin to science. As Ieldra said, psychology is also a more murky scientific field that only allows for so much experimentation, especially if you take ethics into account.

 

One thing we do know is that the Circles definitely treat magic as science-ish as it can be. They have teachers, courses, different schools of thoughts, different methods, so one and so forth. Sure, the methodology and knowledge base is not as ironclad as in several real-world fields, but even in more advanced ones like physics can we truly claim to understand everything anyway?

[cindercatz]

My two cents:

Science is the attempt to describe and apply observation of the natural world (or given discipline or what have you), or to conceptualize those things you can't observe by their more or less observable effects. And (quite) often those conceptualizations are incorrect or incomplete, subject to amendment or replacement given new data. The march of science is by no means a straight line.

Magic is the practice of disciplines based in belief and observations of effects and tendencies we can't get a decent or reasonable conceptualization of based on our other agreed natural observations, or that directly contradict natural observation by the outside intervention of supernatural actors. In DA's fiction, this is replaced with the idea that humans born with a particular trait act as a focus for otherdimensional, non-sentient energies, and magical practice is essentially the applied control of the internal spigot on that font. Exclusivity comes from understanding those energies and how to apply them, not from their existence. Because there are significant drawbacks, and as in the real world, they don't truly know and understand what they're working with. Also, you have the general principle that benevolent actors give freely, not by ritual or on demand, and with purpose based in virtue and good will. Malevolent actors (demons, etc.) intervene based on contracts and self interest, to the mage's detriment, though they may act in a consistently observable way. Blood magic is essentially a contract whereby the malevolent actor will intervene in exchange for the mage's own life force or sacrifice, represented by blood. That's not far from what DA's version is. The end result of bargaining with devils is always to your detriment.

Faith is belief in the often observable, but non replicable at will, good will and grace of our all-present, intelligent and personified, loving, knowable God, who does what He wills as He will out of love, not on demand. Because He has a mind of His own and His own purposes. So be grateful for your gifts.

None of these are anti-egalitarian, really. In DA, being a mage makes you a font of a dependent source of power, but also a target reliant on principle actors outside yourself. DA doesn't much approach God, but leaves the question of faith up to the individual character in the game universe. Leliana, for instance, believes in an active, present Maker, which makes her dissident, but who's correct is left up to the player to decide (up to this point). Science and faith, or magic in this discussion, are never really incongruous, but the choice of belief can lead one to take that stance. Faith is a question of who. Science is an attempt to understand how.

[Aren]

Science is nothing more than a method to understading our world and using this knowledge. Like how we leartn what electricity was and we learned to use it to power machines. I don't know why "science" has been mystified to become this nebolous abstract concept. There is nothing misterious about science, in fact, it tries to be opposite of misterious as hard as it can.

So if magic, in whatever form it may take, exists in a fantasy world science will tackle it no matter how formally it is presented. Just think of any time in a fantasy story when someone tried to understand what a mage was doing, or how a spell work, or learning to perform a spell. That is the basis of science, maybe it is not done in the formal way that scientific studies are done in contemporary times but that does not prevent this actions from being scientific.

In Thedas? It is very scientific, they have schools of magic and academic treaties about it. We have even had the inmoral scientist trope being the center of a dlc. Anyone remember the warden mage in the Keep DLC in Origins? He was carrying out an inmoral scietific study on the magical effect of the darkspawn corruption in the Grey Warden's blood and what it could be done with it.

In fiction it is not science vs magic no matter how many people will call it that. It is advanced technology (let me remind you that technology encompasses any kind of tool, including a rock you picked from the ground) vs magic. Science is put against religion, because the first centers around questioning, understanding and proving ideas whereas the second just asks you to put faith in it.

Science is a method to study subjects in a way that tries to be as objective as possible. Magic can be studied in fantasy settings by researchers and students, it would be a field studied with a scientific method, thus part of science.

I do not understand if my post were clear or not,i even mentioned lighting bolts.

Where did i say that science is some form of ancient mystery?

I explained as for why i believe that magic is exactly that not science,and that the scientific method can't be used for something that is inherent to the world of dreams.

Produce a lighting bolt with a tool Like a Tesla's oscillator it requires knowledge on the physical phenomena

Produce a lighting bolt with your will thus creating new energy that was absent from the physical world is instead something beyond the scientific method the shapeshifter are even worse

Avernus experiments are not even something so impressive for science,since he conducted experiments subjects,tissues and organs,and worked on a physical substance like the taint.

But those magic that come from a dream world the fade,a realm constantly shaped like a dream,what kind of reproducible and static rules you want to find inside of it?

The Black  city ya and still people do not know what it is,all they have are religious myths about it.

Where are those chains of cause and effect?

You wish an ice cream and you have it from the dream world

you wish a fire storm and you have it from the dream world

you wish to shapeshift into someone else thus chaining your body and internal organs and perform a complete mutation with nothing more than the will.

Behind such a  number of internal transformations how many cases of reaction are there? none? just a wish?

[IanPolaris]

In our world, interpreting dreams is difficult to do scientifically (but it has been attempted), but in Thedas, the Fade is a real place (or probably more accurately a different reflection/quantum-level of our actual world).  What's more the Fade follows certain physical principles and has certain laws both inherently and how it interacts with our world.  The point being is that the Fade is an objective natural phenemena that (clearly) can be studied.  That means it's not beyond (at least in principle) the scope of the scientific method.

[leaguer of one]

Details...... B)


To me the term magic is a technique that aims to influence events and to dominate the physical phenomena and the human being with the will; to this end, the "magic" may use gestures, acts and verbal formulas, or appropriate rituals.
The complexity of a concept is not the issue,since you mentioned gravity
(From Newton to Einstein to Higgs ecc..) i was merely arguing about the chains of cause and effect,which is always missed with magic.
Wanna heal this sick girl?
Just call Wynne and she will do that with the act of magic,meaning shape the reality with her will.
Create lighting bolts,fire ore ice from your hands with the will and injury the enemies while at the same time these elemental forces do not provoke any injury to the hands of the mage who at the end of the act seem distressed because they lost "mana" which is a concept that i would find too contrived to even analyze it.
I mean stamina of warriors it's determined by physical resistance of the body,but what it is mana? What rules are behind that?
Why a mage look tired after having used some spells if the primary component of such magic it was will?

Mana in da terms is just the connection to the fade or how much one has. All magic in one way or another source is the fade. Mages are just people who have a stronger connection and absorbtion of the fade then normal people of thesis. If you want to understand magic inthwdus you need to look at the world in it's natural state and that is before the veil was put up. Beings we born with the fade naturally passing through them. Any mage of now is just a trait of that.

[Aren]

 

Oh dagna a black hole is all clear now i don't have doubts anymore

[leaguer of one]

Science is not magic and magic is not science, simple. Both are incompatible, this is easily understood in other universe, but sadly Dragon Age have too much inconsistency, maybe intentional due to writers own scepticism.
 
Example, the writers did give a doubt regarding the Sacred Ashes by Oghren dialogue, that is scepticism. The writers don't want us the players simply take the Ash as magic/miracle, they need to put in doubt. It is because the writers are liberals
 
Scepticism will destroy imagination, making it not fun anymore. Magic only need to explained the core on how it work, doesn't need to be explained scientifically. You cannot give a doubt such as Oghren dialogue at the temple. just leave it to be a magic/miracle
 
In the world of magic, science have no place, or else it is not fun
 
The same happen in Star Wars, when they put in midichlorian, it pissed off many fans because The Force is no longer magic, no longer mysterious, no longer mystic, it is now science and biological...

You don't know what science is. Science is about understanding the world around you. It's not a set of rules it about finding what the rules are and why they are the rules in the first place,then manipulating then to get an effect. Magic is just manipulating thing to get an effect with out knowing the rule. And nothing about magic is stopping anyone from learning the rules. Da already has people in it story and lore studying magic like a science.

[Aren]

Man's in da terms is just the connection to the fade or how much one has. All magic in one way or another source is the fade. Mages are just people who have a stronger connection and absorbtion of the fade then normal people of thesis. If you want to understand magic inthwdus you need to look at the world in it's natural state and that is before the veil was put up. Beings we born with the fade naturally passing through them. Any mage of now is just a trait of that.

Magic in Dragon age is also religion and mysticism,can't you see what Flemeth did to Keiran?

It wasn't something akin to a rational methodology it was involved symbolism.

She used the so called symbol of the king serpent to do that, the Ouroboros,which is a representation of a concept,but in no way a tool  for an experiment.

In DA there is animism in magic,not all this rational knowledge that can be understood  with the scientific process.

All those panels in the temple? a religious-magical process

the prayers to the old gods were both religion and magic at the same time.

[leaguer of one]

The distinction is between the world of the intrinsically mysterious and the mundane in people's perception. Magic in Thedas, however, isn't a mystery, a thing of wonder, it is a tool. Creating a fireball on Thedas isn't an artistic expression of your imagination, it works as reliably as a gun. The wondrous isn't predictable, else it wouldn't be wondrous.
 
Magic isn't science, it's more akin to technology, only that it uses a magical conceptualization of the world. As a story element, it often doesn't need to be understood, but you can bet that in-world there will be a drive to understand it as completely as possible, and science is a tool for understanding. Eventually, people will want to know what makes people mageborn, they'll want to know what exactly a mage is doing, and what happens physically, when a spell is cast. Nothing of that would lessen the usefulness of magic or its identity as an innate set of tools controlled by mental discipline.
 
The element that opposes science isn't magic, it's religion. Here, your hopes and dreams are invested into something intrinsically mysterious, and here it is actually important that it can't be understood in order to serve its function. The Force isn't just magic, it's an intrinsically mysterious element of the universe, and the ideologies of its users have often been described as a religion. Those and similar ideologies conceptualize the universe in terms of the social psychology of the human species, that's why, for instance, there is often some built-in morality.
 
If you understand magic in low-fantasy settings like Thedas as something intrinsically mysterious, you are mistaking it for religion. Thedas isn't like Middle Earth. Middle Earth is a high fantasy setting, and its magic is intrinsically interwoven with its mythology. Your arguments would be valid there.

I agree with everything be one thing. The oppisete of science is willful ignorance. Religion is not cripple science it`s dogma that resists questioning the world as it is. Any group, religious or not can do that.

[leaguer of one]

Magic in Dragon age is also religion and mysticism,can't you see what Flemeth did to Keiran?
It wasn't something akin to a rational methodology it was involved symbolism.
She used the so called symbol of the king serpent to do that, the Ouroboros,which is a representation of a concept,but in no way a tool  for an experiment.
In DA there is animism in magic,not all this rational knowledge that can be understanded with the scientific process.
All those panels in the temple? a religious-magical process
the prayers to the old gods were both religion and magic at the same time.

What flemeth did to Keiren had nothing to do with religion. Flemeth is a host of a being who has forgotten more about magic then what all of modern thesis has ever known. Those symble is not an effect of religion but of knowledge. Magic in thesis has nothing to do with religion.

[AlanC9]

Produce a lighting bolt with your will thus creating new energy that was absent from the physical world is instead something beyond the scientific method the shapeshifter are even worse.

That isn't an actual argument. Why does it matter which world the energy comes from?

You wish an ice cream and you have it from the dream world
you wish a fire storm and you have it from the dream world

This has nothing to do with how magic works in Thedas.