Bryan Wandel has a good blog post here . Short, insightful, and well worth the read. One quibble however:
Without accounting for the relationship between these two, Weber’s demystification (and ours) only regards the logical explanation of things, and not the participation and commitment that creates any “moment” or thought worth having.
The way I would put it is: “demystification results from confusing a logical explanation of things with the logical explanation of things.” I think Bryan gives up too much ground to Weber.
More broadly, and aware that I’m stepping away from Bryan’s point, I marvel at our ability to be demystified by explanations. If anything, gaining a rudimentary understanding of cellular biology has made me more mystified about the wonders of the human body rather than less. Coming to understand evolution has made me more mystified by the diversity of life, while gaining a grasp on the connection between particle physics and mathematics has made me more mystified about the nature of creation.
