"Any technology sufficiently advanced would be indistinguishable from Magic"

[therival58]

"Any technology sufficiently advanced would be indistinguishable from Magic"

One of science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke's 3 laws. Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

This argument has been gaining traction in supporting the belief that we would not be able to understand ET technology because its so far advanced that it would be like magic.

However, the only way this argument works is if there are no scientific methods to study the phenomenon.

For example, let's say someone from the 21st century traveled back in time to medieval europe and brought some current technology to introduce to the time. The argument is that the medieval folk would treat the technology as magic because its so far advanced and they don't understand it. But they also didn't have any way of measuring the new 21st century technology.

Now of course if we ever did come into contact with super advanced technology from ETs, then the argument is WE don't have any way of measuring the tech. I disagree with this premise but I'm interested to hear more thoughts on it.

 

[Akhenaten]

Planet X, I think.

I'm sure that it might be possible to encounter technology so advanced that we'd be clueless about its workings, but I don't equate that with magic.

In other words, inexplicable ≠ supernatural.

 

[AdMan]

Planet X, I think.

In other words, inexplicable ≠ supernatural.

Of course, but Arthur C. Clarke wasn't claiming the opposite--he was saying the technology would be indistinguishable (to us) from magic; i.e., we would have no idea at all how it worked, at least at first.

I can certainly imagine that there could be technologies that we haven't even come close to considering, which we wouldn't even know how to start measuring if we came upon them.

That doesn't mean that after a long enough time thinking about it and studying the advanced technology we wouldn't at least start to understand some of it, or at the very least start hypothesizing how it could work.

 

[Nursedan]

Technology is gradual, so if we invented it then it would build on something already existing, so it wouldn't be much of a shock. If ET intelligence invented it and showed it to us, then we'd still be able to explain it using the laws of nature.

 

[The Kilted Yaksman]

Technology is gradual, so if we invented it then it would build on something already existing, so it wouldn't be much of a shock. If ET intelligence invented it and showed it to us, then we'd still be able to explain it using the laws of nature.

And we could destroy it by loading a virus from a Macbook...

 

[Akhenaten]

Of course, but Arthur C. Clarke wasn't claiming the opposite--he was saying the technology would be indistinguishable (to us) from magic; i.e., we would have no idea at all how it worked, at least at first.

Perhaps I'm too much of a sceptic, or just about right for a cynic, but having no idea how something works doesn't, to me at least, make it indistinguishable from magic.

Stuff that I don't understand is absolutely everywhere, and one more example would be no big deal, whereas I regard magic as unpossible.


Having written that and read it back to myself, I'm sure I'm missing something, but I'll leave it as it is.


ETA: I think what I might have been missing was that I was starting to sound a lot like the second choice, so now I've voted accordingly.

 

[Akhenaten]

And we could destroy it by loading a virus from a Macbook...

Or by removing that little screw with the "Warranty void if removed" sticker covering it.

 

[AdMan]

And we could destroy it by loading a virus from a Macbook...

One of the worst examples of deus ex machina in modern cinema.

 

[Deneb]

I can see this working in hypothetical cases where, say, ET or time travellers from the future showed us technology so far beyond us that it does things we thought impossible based on our understanding of the laws of physics. Of course, given the opportunity to study said technology, I concur with the above posters that our knowledge may advance to the point where we may begin to understand its workings, thus making the tech lose its mysticism.

Well, assuming that any one of us is actually smart enough to figure it out.

 

[Alareth]

One of the worst examples of deus ex machina in modern cinema.

There were deleted scenes with Goldblum reverse engineering the code for the alien systems and writing an interpreter.

A shame it was cut out, launching a million iMac jokes.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Clarke's "Laws" were something of a wry joke, never meant to be taken 100% seriously.
The original law was "When a distinguished, but elderly scientist says something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

In the 1962 edition of "profiles of the Future, he wrote " The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."

This was rendered in the French translation as "Clarke's Second Law".
In the 1973 edition, Clarke commented "I accept the label and have also formulated a third: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

It seems from context that he was trying to make the point that trying to predict the future is hard and that minds become increasingly resistant to new ideas as their worldviews grow more complex and intolerant of change.
So there will always exist , for each individual, a level of technology he will consider impossible and will dismiss as impossible.

I don't think he meant that scientific rationalists would deny such technology if they saw it working. They would deny it until they saw it working. Then they would admit they could not explain how it worked in terms of any science they understood.

If , for example, someone displayed the abilities of the "Q" character in Star Trek, I would be stumped to explain it in rational terms. I see no reason not to describe it as magic, if it clearly violated every principle I thought I understood.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

"Any technology sufficiently advanced would be indistinguishable from Magic"

He doesn't say it would BE magic, just that we would be able to tell the difference. Your cell phone would get you hung in Salem in the 1700s.

 

[MG1962]

One of science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke's 3 laws. Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

..

What was his other 2 laws?

 

[AdMan]

What was his other 2 laws?

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

"Magic" is an ignorant explanation for observed phenomena. If one is not ignorant, one would know that one was observing technology and not magic.

 

[dropzone]

From a life on the periphery of engineering I have learned that the question is, "How did he do that?" and the answer is never, "With Magick." I assume stage magicians would respond the same way and would never be satisfied until they had reverse-engineered the trick.

I love how Teller both duplicates the mechanism but also works out other ones.

 

[tsig]

One of science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke's 3 laws. Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

This argument has been gaining traction in supporting the belief that we would not be able to understand ET technology because its so far advanced that it would be like magic.

However, the only way this argument works is if there are no scientific methods to study the phenomenon.

For example, let's say someone from the 21st century traveled back in time to medieval europe and brought some current technology to introduce to the time. The argument is that the medieval folk would treat the technology as magic because its so far advanced and they don't understand it. But they also didn't have any way of measuring the new 21st century technology.

Now of course if we ever did come into contact with super advanced technology from ETs, then the argument is WE don't have any way of measuring the tech. I disagree with this premise but I'm interested to hear more thoughts on it.

Technology works all the time magic never works so the fact that the artifact/tool did something is proof it isn't magic.

 

[Rasmus]

Okay, now that we have all reassured each other that magic isn't real, I still have to agree with the law:

If a piece of technology was sufficiently advanced, I would not be able to tell the difference to magic.

In other words: If I was given, say, a magic carpet, I would spend the rest of my life in frustration, trying to find out the technology that makes it work.

 

[dropzone]

If a piece of technology was sufficiently advanced, I would not be able to tell the difference to magic.

In other words: If I was given, say, a magic carpet, I would spend the rest of my life in frustration, trying to find out the technology that makes it work.

It is still not magic. Frustration does not = magic. Yeah, you may not get the Nobel for figuring it out, but one of your students might, which is still a win.

"This seems to require a supernatural component. You grad students need to figure out why it doesn't."

"Ja wohl, Herr Doctor!"

"And if you succeed I might mention you when I get the Nobel."

"Anything more would be more than we deserve, Herr Doktor!"

 

[Aepervius]

I do not think the analogy of bringing a cell phone in salem is valid. For one TODAY, we certainly have much more scientist and engineer in the population than we DID have in 17th century. Secondly even the population at large now recognize the benefit of technology, and would be more akin to assign stuff to trickery/technology or even "ESP" than magic. Sure there is the woo, believing in magic, but how many of them in proportion ?

Secondly I question that there could be *ANY* technology which we would not be able to dissect and be dumb founded. I can see something *so* complex that we could not be able to reproduce it or say in detail how it works (think of the brain), but I don't see WHY we would not be able to say which general principle it uses.

No, the reason people keep saying that, is because they are dunked in a bath of science fiction / Fantasy cultural book, film and cartoon, where essentially everybody is making up their own magic, and pretending it is based on science. The reality is almost certainly much more prosaic.