Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Hanslanda]

See, now if Magic was the absence of rules and applied whim, attempts to explain it with science would be like explaining science as magic.

The point is, Clarke is wrong, our  society has advanced to a point where there is nothing that can happen that will be thought of as magic, even if magic was real it would still be called science we don't understand yet.

Clarke didn't mean that the culture that created the tech would consider the magic, he meant that if an outside observer was to see the tech, he would consider it magic. Like if a medieval peasant saw a computer, he'd be like, "Fucking magic rock thing. What the fuck?"
Or if he saw a cellphone, and heard voices from it.

[Fenrir]

I thought it meant there is no significant difference between the two, regardless of the observer. The difference between computing and sorcery is that they have different sets of rules, but they are both an exploitation of the way the world works for a particular effect.

Magic seems to be to physics what Python is to C. In magic, it is relatively easy for beginners to do some cool things, but with physics it takes much longer to get equivalent results. Physics is also always there whenever magic is, even if the magicians get to ignore it frequently.

[Flying Dice]

As I understand it, the implication could be explained like this:

Show a medieval peasant a smartphone and a magical communication spell linked to a mirror. They would be equally mysterious to someone with no understanding of the mechanics (or even the general concepts) behind one (or both) of them.

[Kogan Loloklam]

I think what Clarke meant was clear. Us showing a 16th centuary peasant a cell phone or a year 2600 tourist showing us a interdimensional wigitizer, the lesser tech group considers it "magic".

This just isn't true. It requires science to be viewed like we view superstition in the future, replaced by something else, otherwise it doesn't work. Once a society has established the concept that anything under the sun can be explained in a rational sense once you understand the rules, viewing anything that doesn't make sense still applies in that framework, so it isn't about the person, but the technology. We'd want the secret, not worship them as gods.

You all proved my point earlier, as you argued to explain Magic. This is not something a 16th centuary peasant would do, as the base of rationality doesn't exist there.

So Clarke was wrong.

[MaximumZero]

You know, as someone who peddles technology, I get accused of witchcraft frequently, and this is by people from my own era.

To the uninitiated and computer illiterate, we may as well be doing magic right this very second.

[Flying Dice]

I think what Clarke meant was clear. Us showing a 16th centuary peasant a cell phone or a year 2600 tourist showing us a interdimensional wigitizer, the lesser tech group considers it "magic".

This just isn't true. It requires science to be viewed like we view superstition in the future, replaced by something else, otherwise it doesn't work. Once a society has established the concept that anything under the sun can be explained in a rational sense once you understand the rules, viewing anything that doesn't make sense still applies in that framework, so it isn't about the person, but the technology. We'd want the secret, not worship them as gods.

You all proved my point earlier, as you argued to explain Magic. This is not something a 16th centuary peasant would do, as the base of rationality doesn't exist there.

So Clarke was wrong.

You're completely missing the point. Clarke was saying that someone without a basic understanding of a given level of either technology or magic wouldn't be able to distinguish between the two. Just because we can look for explanations doesn't invalidate the point. Suppose we were contacted by an alien civilization capable of instantaneous teleportation and telepathy across any distance, accomplished through purely technological means. Just because it isn't magic and we can try to explain it doesn't mean that is isn't functionally magic to us, given that it violates everything we "know" and expect about how the universe is supposed to work.

Also, consider the generally stated corollary: "Any sufficiently well-understood magic is indistinguishable from technology."

In other words, the only thing that creates a distinction between magic and technology is the rational understanding of it. Attempting to explain something is irrelevant if one is incapable of doing so.

[Fenrir]

Kogan, you still have this weird dichotomy between science and magic, but I think it is probably because nearly everyone has this weird dichotomy between science and magic.

When the ignorant person says “This is magic,” what does he mean when he says that?

“This is [following a set of rules humanity can not grasp]”?
Then the universe is rather likely to be magic, as our understanding is going to stop somewhere.

“This is [inexplicable to myself]”?
Then my brain is magic, because I’m not a neuroscientist.

“This is [can not be explained in a rational sense]”?
You said this in your post. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make any sense. Rationality isn’t an explanation; rationality is explaining. The world isn’t “rational” or “non-rational”, it just is. Explanations are rational and non-rational, because they can either be consistent with the reality, or inconsistent with the reality.

So, if lightning strikes “because Zeus” and diseases strike “because witches”, then “Zeus” and “witches” are rational explanations. The reason that those were not rational explanations is because it just so happens that they were not true, and they probably came to those conclusions because they were not using thinking that was consistent with the way the world works.

I can’t tell if Clarke is making the same mistake, but, if we’re taking a vote on this, I vote we should take it to mean “You can talk to people on the other side of the world, throw light with a wand, and travel across the Atlantic in only a few hours. What was special about wizards again?”

[10ebbor10]

I was just trying to make a joke.

Not trigger a 2 page discussion about Clarcke's third law.

[Flying Dice]

You can't make a joke about anything without it turning into a discussion. Bonus points because this was actually fairly on-topic. 

[alway]

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121010-sink-or-swim-for-biohybrid-robot

[Kogan Loloklam]

Clarke's third law was supposed to be a literary guide that stopped science fiction writers from pretending to be scientists.
It isn't supposed to be used to explain the thought process of humans.

There is a vast difference between people who use science to explain something and people who explain it with "magic".
I will freely admit there are plenty of people in todays world that would call sufficient technological advancement magic, but there are also plenty of people who still think the world is flat. Defining a society by the mentally damaged is not the way to go. The vast majority do not do this.
To really understand, you have to consider an illness. Once, it was the devil possessing someone, and prayer was the answer. If it didn't work, you didn't pray hard enough. Now, if something doesn't seem to work, everything right down to how what was eaten is evaluated. Even prayer is included in the evaluation. What has the most success is repeated, and if it has an effect it becomes studied more to understand why it worked. It's not the whim of some deity, or random chance of something unseen and beyond the ken of lesser mortals. It's part of the world and the secrets of why are there for any to discover.

The real difference between magic and science is self empowerment. With science, you can. With magic, it happens. With science you don't have to, with magic you can't avoid it.

[Khorne]

Already there are androids being constructed, A.I.'s being perfected and being built better, I foresee a robotic revolt in the near future.

[Swiftling]

Sire, the peasants robots are revolting!

[Guardian G.I.]

Sire, the peasants robots are revolting!

Baron Rothschild XVII of Washington has ordered to crush the metal scum!

[Darvi]

Sir,does that include handicapped people with prosthetic limbs?