Recent studies in quantum physics suggest to me that science itself can be pretty magical. Back when I was in elementary and high school, I always hated math and science because it was taught in such a dry, decontextualized way. However, I find that, as I get older and start to flesh out some of the philosophical implications of certain scientific theories, the more a lot of it fascinates me and I wish I understood it better.
For instance, I'm really interested in the whole idea of "wave/particle duality" and how it seems to fly in the face of the "law of the excluded middle." If you aren't familiar with the "double-slit experiment," here's a video that explains it in a pretty accessible way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKdoE1vX7k4
As for the law of the excluded middle, this is a principle of classical logic which states that a proposition cannot simultaneously be both true and false, just as an object cannot simultaneously be both itself and its opposite. However, in the case of an electron, it seems we have an example of something that can be both itself and its opposite - i.e. both a particle and a wave.
Another aspect of quantum physics that strikes me as pretty magical is the theory of "loop quantum cosmology," which replaces the idea of the "big bang" with that of a "big bounce." According to this theory, Time and Space did not begin with the big bang. In stead, the emergence of our current universe and everything in it resulted from the collapse (or "big crunch") of a previous universe. If true, this theory would fundamentally undermine so-called "common sense" understandings of time as a linear succession of moments, not to mention the nature of causality itself. Loop quantum cosmology makes it possible to conceive of an infinite number of universes infinitely contracting and expanding, without beginning and without end.
Anyway, this is the best effort of my layperson's brain to understand and explain something that does not come naturally to me. I've obviously not even begun to scratch the surface and could be completely out to lunch in my speculations. With that said, it appears to me that "Science" (in the sense of institutionalized scientific research) is currently experiencing a crisis in which the "Scientific Method" itself is being forced to confront its own limits. Science does not require "magic" as an independent concept to bring it into conflict with the unexplainable. Old discourses about deterministic causality and the linearity of time are rapidly becoming antiquated and untenable. If anarchism doesn't adapt to these changing times, it too will be left in the dust of collapsed universes.
