I feel the same way. It's like discovering for the first time that magicians aren't doing "real" magic, just sleight of hand and psychological tricks. From that point on, it's impossible to be convinced that a future trick is real magic, no matter how impressive it seems. You know it's fake even if you don't know how it works.
I'm in the second camp but find it kind of sad and often envy the people who can stay entertained even though they know better.
I look at optical illusions like The Dress™ and am impressed that I cannot force my brain to see it correctly even though I logically know what color it is supposed to be.
Finding new ways that our brains can be fooled despite knowing better is kind of a fun exercise in itself.
In my view, the trick as it is intended to appear to the audience and the explanation of how the trick is performed are equal and inseparable aspects of my interest as a viewer. Either one without the other is less interesting than the pair.
As a long-time close-up magician and magical inventor who's spent a lot of time studying magic theory (which has been a serious field of magical research since the 1960s), it depends on which way we interpret "how the trick works." Frankly, for most magic tricks the method isn't very interesting, although there are some notable exceptions where the method is fascinating, sometimes to the extent it can be far more interesting than the effect it creates.
However, in general, most magic theorists and inventors agree that the method, for example, "palm a second coin in the other hand", isn't usually especially interesting. Often the actual immediate 'secret' of the method is so simple and, in hindsight, obvious that many non-magicians feel rather let down if the method is revealed. This is the main reason magicians usually don't reveal secret methods to non-magicians. It's not because of some code of honor, it's simply because the vast majority of people think they'll be happy if they know the secret but are instead disappointed.
Where studying close-up magic gets really fascinating is understanding why that simple, obvious thing works to mislead and then surprise audiences in the context of this trick. Very often changing subtle things seemingly unrelated to the direct method will cause the trick to stop fooling people or to be much less effective. Comparing a master magician to even a competent, well-practiced novice performing the exact same effect with the same method can be a night and day difference. Typically, both performances will fool and entertain audiences but the master's performance can have an intensely more powerful impact. Like leaving most audience members in stunned shock vs just pleasantly surprised and fooled. While neither the master nor novice's audiences have any idea of the secret method, this dramatic difference in impact is fascinating because careful deconstruction reveals it often has little to do with mechanical proficiency in executing the direct method. In other words, it's rarely driven by being able to do the sleight of hand faster or more dexterously. I've seen legendary close-up masters like a Dai Vernon or Albert Goshman when in their 80s and 90s perform sleight of hand with shriveled, arthritic hands incapable of even cleanly executing a basic palm, absolutely blow away a roomful of experienced magicians with a trick all the magicians already knew. How? It turns out there's something deep and incredibly interesting about the subtle timing, pacing, body language, posture, and psychology surrounding the "secret method" that elevates the impact to almost transcendence compared to a good, competent but uninspired performance of the same method and effect.
Highly skilled, experienced magicians refer to the complex set of these non-method aspects, which can so powerfully elevate an effect to another level, as "the real work" of the trick. At the top levels, most magicians don't really care about the direct methods which some audience members get so obsessed about. They aren't even interesting. And, contrary to what most non-magicians think, these non-methods are the "secrets" master magicians tend to guard from widespread exposure. And it's pretty easy to keep this crucially important "real work" secret because it's so seemingly boring and entirely unlike what people expect a magic secret to be. You have to really "get it" on a deeper level to even understand that what elevated the effect was intentionally establishing a completely natural-seeming, apparently random three-beat pattern of motion and then carefully injecting a subtle pause and slight shift in posture to the left six seconds before doing "the move". Audiences mistakenly think that "the hidden move" is the secret to the trick when it's just the proximate first-order secret. Knowing that secret won't get you very far toward recreating the absolute gob-smacking impact resulting from a master's years of experimentation figuring out and deeply understanding which elements beyond the "secret method" really elevate the visceral impact of the effect to another level.
> However, in general, most magic theorists and inventors agree that the method, for example, "palm a second coin in the other hand", isn't usually especially interesting.
Fair enough. It sounds like I simply fundamentally disagree, because I think nearly any explanation of method is very interesting. For close-up maginc, the only exceptions for me would be if the explanation is "the video you were watching contains visual effects" or "the entire in-person audience was in on it."
Palming is awesome. Misdirection is awesome. I fully expect these sorts of things to be used in most magic tricks, but I still want to know precisely how. The fact that I'm aware of most close-up magic techniques but am still often fooled by magic tricks should make it pretty clear that the methods are interesting!
Since studying magic has been a lifelong passion since I was a kid, I clearly couldn't agree more. However, experience has shown that despite claiming otherwise, most people aren't actually interested in the answer to "How did you do that?" beyond the first 30 seconds. So... you're unusual - and that's great!
> but I still want to know precisely how.
Well, you're extremely fortunate to be interested in learning how magic is really done at the best time in history for doing so. I was incredibly lucky to be accepted into the Magic Castle as a teenager and mentored by Dai Vernon (widely thought to be the greatest close-up magician of the 20th century) who was in his late 80s at the time. I also had access the Castle's library of magic books, the largest in the world at the time. 99% of other kids on Earth interested in magic at the time only had a handful of local public library books and mail-order tricks.
Today there's an incredible amount of insanely high-quality magic instruction available in streaming videos, books and online forums. There are even master magicians who teach those willing to learn via Zoom. While most people think magicians want to hoard their secrets, the reality couldn't be more different. Magicians love teaching how to actually do magic to anyone who really wants to learn. However, most magicians aren't interested in wasting time satisfying the extremely fleeting curiosity of those who only want to know "how it works" in the surface sense of that first 30 seconds of only revealing the proximate 'secret method'.
Yet many magicians will happily devote hours to teaching anyone who really wants to actually learn how to do magic themselves and is willing put in the time and effort to develop the skills, even if those people have no intention of ever performing magic for others - and even if the student isn't particularly good at it. It just requires the interest to go really deep on understanding the underlying principles and developing the skills, even if for no other purpose than just having the knowledge and skills. Personally, I haven't performed magic for non-magicians in over a decade but I still spend hours learning and mastering new high-level skills because it's fun, super intellectually interesting and extremely satisfying. If you're really interested, I encourage you to dive in. There's quite literally never been a better time to learn magic.
The point is the analogy to LLMs. A lot of people are very optimistic about their capabilities, while other people who have "seen behind the curtain" are skeptical, and feel that the fundamental flaws are still there even if they're better-hidden.