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[Neruz]

In the straight literal definitions, Magic is merely unknown Technology.

[RAM]

That is only one definition, there are several, I would rather use one which doesn't render the whole discussion moot...

But if we need a moot then lets look at it, unknown technology versus known technology. Lets look at the "War of the Worlds", alien death rays versus human ballistics. In this case it is obvious, the humans can't get alien technology and the aliens don't want human technology. What about "Star Wars" The Empire had lots of little ships that made pretty explosions and the Rebels had lots of shields to protect their named characters. The Death Star was presumably an avenue of technological advancement that the Rebels were not interested in reproducing. So technology A opposes Technology B because Team A and Team B made the technology that they wanted and find the other technology to be the product of philosophically opposed entity and suited to an unworthy method...

[PTTG??]

The only way you could have magic clearly defined as something that isn't possibly technology is if you describe it as something that is utterly apart from natural laws. For instance:

Magic is a way of working with the world, not as forces and physics, not as matter and energy, but as concepts. Concepts have no physical representation at all, but exist in a different way. An apple has weight; it has composition, relitive velocity, and mass. it even has shape, arrangement, and form. But it also has a certain "appleness" to it. If you have an apple, then take away all these natural properties, eventually you will be left with an empty space and a memory- and this memory, the concept of the apple in you mind, is what magic, presumably, works with.

In our world, when we work with concepts, they can only interact with each other. We can only think about them.

Presumably, in a less orderly but perhaps more interesting universe, we might find that concepts might somehow be more "real", and that if you imagine an apple just right, and perhaps you use some skill we ourselves are unaware of, the physical world will find itself with an apple suddenly there.

A conflict between the magical and the technological is still unlikely, or at least, no more likely than any other conflict between people. Magic doesn't have to answer to any physical laws, and physics just ignores magic since, according to physics, magic doesn't exist.

They might even work together, especially if a machine was made that could handle concepts on a sophisticated level. A book stores them, as does a phonograph or a camera. A watch calculates the specific concept of what we laughingly think of as "absolute time". A computer might even be able to cogitate spells on it's own...

[Flaede]

THere's  this author: Zelazny, he wrote a series called the Guns of Avalon, which tried to hash out this stuff. It was a multiverse, and to make explanations short: physics worked differently in different worlds. Not that tech was explicitly ignored, just that "wizards" had to pick and choose how they combined them where.  The aforementioned "guns" showed up when some dude figured out that just because GUNPOWDER didn't work in some wizard world didn't mean that there wasn't some other chemical combination that would have the same effect.

They might even work together, especially if a machine was made that could handle concepts on a sophisticated level. A book stores them, as does a phonograph or a camera. A watch calculates the specific concept of what we laughingly think of as "absolute time". A computer might even be able to cogitate spells on it's own...

...and in a diff. series, same multiverse, someone tries that very thing.
IT DOES NOT TURN OUT WELL. (Picture 2001, but the computer is a magical multiverse monstrosity.)

[deadlycairn]

I like the idea of a conceptual, or figurative, magic. In that kind of world, a fire mage doesn't just throw fireballs - the concept of fire covers destruction, as well as passion and energy, as well as just heat.

[Omegastick]

^{Incoming wall of text}

OK, the topic "Magic Versus Tech Is Dumb" is an impossible topic to resolve, as magic doesn't exist. In my opinion (and the way I create magic in stories/rps etc.) Magic versus tech is there. Any one person (with a few exceptions) can either specialise in tech or magic. Usually because magic needs a life of study and practice to use reliably, and tech people tend to be more brutish (and thus not being able to comprehend the vast amount of knoledge needed to use magic).

In my "realm" magic is very hard and unreliabe to all but the scholars and alchemists/enchanters etc. It takes about a month of studying and practice to learn a fireball spell, and even longer for bigger spells. The exeption to this is very simple manipulative techniques (and for the telepathicly inclined mental control techniques, but that is a different topic). This encompases things such as merging two stones together or making an object weaker and more prone to snapping.

The tech side of things varies, if the "realm" is set in the medievil era then swords and shields tend to be the weapons of the day (being simple to use). However with practice those that don't want to learn magic could specialise in a weapon such as an axe or spear. Of course, a more interesting setting would be one in a steampunk era, where technology rules over magic. The way I fit in magic here is the magicians are either rebels that have access to ancient artifacts/books or they are restricted to steam and technology magic. The magicians that serve the civilization are usually builders, using their magic to lift a beam into the air, or powering a steam engine.

Exept in a steam/cyberpunk setting magicians aren't usually prsecuted though, so the system works pretty well at keeping a balance of magicians to soldiers. So in a short answer, I think it isn't magic versus tech that's "dumb", I think the quesiton is.

[Sergius]

Well, a simplistic and mostly efficient definition of magic to me is as follows:

Magic is whatever in (some) world comes from either a single specific or several different "power sources". The effects on magic can either be totally different from technology, or they in many cases can do the same as technology (a magic "lightning bolt" is no different from an arc gun thingy, and both can be countered by the same methods).

So, what makes Magic special? Mostly, if any human can access this power source(s) without devices ("channeling" or casting or whatever) it's magic. Now, devices CAN be used to access this power source more efficiently, doesn't matter if it's a mage with a "phoenix feather wand" (ugh) or some crazy mad scientist device made from Tesla coils that casts spells, but the fact that someone (several people, preferably) can cast magic naked and barehanded and without cybernetic implants or whatever makes it magic.

I wouldn't mind if magic breaks the laws of physics and thus conflicts with complex technology (keyword: complex) or if they're one at the same and can be combined or if a robot can cast spells or shoot "mystical" rays.

In literature, or games, or role playing games, most of the time I'd say the definition of magic mostly matches this. The "unknown technology is magic" is nice, but that's mostly what people that don't know the technology think it is. If we have an universe and this universe has "magic" like our universe has "momentum" or whatever, then so be it. If we can explain this "power source" using science, you may want to stop calling it magic, and call it The Force or Psionics or whatever, but to me, the whole "I can invoke monsters" or "shoot fireballs unaided" makes it magic, from a "gameplay" or "narrative" point of view.

EDIT: and yeah, I know you can push a rock and use "physics" without a lever or wossname, but well, I was thinking about more flashy "electricy" stuff, with glowing bits and something that goes Ting! and stuff. Or something like cursing a person, I don't know. Anything that WE "earthlings" can't do unaided without machines, but that in-universe-magicky-people can, but only if they "know" magic.

[rickvoid]

Here's a fun one.

In the DnD books, specifically the Forgotten Realms, magic exists in the form of the Weave, a net of magical energy the mages tap into in order to cast spells.

Sounds like a computer program to me. The incantations and hand gestures act as triggers to access the program. Wizards are programers (they can add new programs to the net), Sorcerers are hackers (gave themselves, or were somehow given, admin functions that exempt them from selecting programs ahead of time).

Bwahahahaha!

[Org]

Warhammer 40k.

Magic+Guns=Win

[PTTG??]

Warhammer 40k.

Magic+Guns=Win

Ah, Cain's Law.

[Innominate]

Here's a fun one.

In the DnD books, specifically the Forgotten Realms, magic exists in the form of the Weave, a net of magical energy the mages tap into in order to cast spells.

Sounds like a computer program to me. The incantations and hand gestures act as triggers to access the program. Wizards are programers (they can add new programs to the net), Sorcerers are hackers (gave themselves, or were somehow given, admin functions that exempt them from selecting programs ahead of time).

Bwahahahaha!

I thought that wizards in DnD stored their spells ahead of time in complex mnemonic processes that would trigger flurries of mental activity to perform the spell at a given time, whereas sorcerors had some unknown connection to magic itself that allowed them to develop an affinity for certain spells and cast them without the rigmarole?

[Muz]

Heheh, the original AD&D magic was not really that magical. It had an annoying heap of material requirements, and if you pay attention to the components, a lot of them were more like "magic tricks". Color spray used colorful sand, fireball needed a ball of sulfur, so it was basically like gunpowder explosives.

Although the DM's guide specifically mentioned that they needed to be used to maintain balance, nobody really adhered to them AD&D magic was truly "unknown technology", but I don't think people liked the concept that much.

[Neruz]

Here's a fun one.

In the DnD books, specifically the Forgotten Realms, magic exists in the form of the Weave, a net of magical energy the mages tap into in order to cast spells.

Sounds like a computer program to me. The incantations and hand gestures act as triggers to access the program. Wizards are programers (they can add new programs to the net), Sorcerers are hackers (gave themselves, or were somehow given, admin functions that exempt them from selecting programs ahead of time).

Bwahahahaha!

I thought that wizards in DnD stored their spells ahead of time in complex mnemonic processes that would trigger flurries of mental activity to perform the spell at a given time, whereas sorcerors had some unknown connection to magic itself that allowed them to develop an affinity for certain spells and cast them without the rigmarole?

That's the default setting, in the old Realms magic worked differently.

In the new Realms, the Weave got all exploded, so magic is now kind of hit and miss.

[Innominate]

Here's a fun one.

In the DnD books, specifically the Forgotten Realms, magic exists in the form of the Weave, a net of magical energy the mages tap into in order to cast spells.

Sounds like a computer program to me. The incantations and hand gestures act as triggers to access the program. Wizards are programers (they can add new programs to the net), Sorcerers are hackers (gave themselves, or were somehow given, admin functions that exempt them from selecting programs ahead of time).

Bwahahahaha!

I thought that wizards in DnD stored their spells ahead of time in complex mnemonic processes that would trigger flurries of mental activity to perform the spell at a given time, whereas sorcerors had some unknown connection to magic itself that allowed them to develop an affinity for certain spells and cast them without the rigmarole?

That's the default setting, in the old Realms magic worked differently.

In the new Realms, the Weave got all exploded, so magic is now kind of hit and miss.

Which is how, in my opinion, magic should be: unpredictable as all hell. If it's predictable it's essentially just physics. If you don't know whether a spell will summon a fireball or a carp, that's magic.

[Neruz]

Here's a fun one.

In the DnD books, specifically the Forgotten Realms, magic exists in the form of the Weave, a net of magical energy the mages tap into in order to cast spells.

Sounds like a computer program to me. The incantations and hand gestures act as triggers to access the program. Wizards are programers (they can add new programs to the net), Sorcerers are hackers (gave themselves, or were somehow given, admin functions that exempt them from selecting programs ahead of time).

Bwahahahaha!

I thought that wizards in DnD stored their spells ahead of time in complex mnemonic processes that would trigger flurries of mental activity to perform the spell at a given time, whereas sorcerors had some unknown connection to magic itself that allowed them to develop an affinity for certain spells and cast them without the rigmarole?

That's the default setting, in the old Realms magic worked differently.

In the new Realms, the Weave got all exploded, so magic is now kind of hit and miss.

Which is how, in my opinion, magic should be: unpredictable as all hell. If it's predictable it's essentially just physics. If you don't know whether a spell will summon a fireball or a carp, that's magic.

It's also not so good from a gameplay point of view.