sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Corollary: Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
This is just one of Clarke's three laws. See the ArthurCeeClarke page for others.
Ooh. ThankYou. Someone linked this in from JesusMiracle (which in retrospect should have been called BethesdaMiracle?), and when I read this familiar line again, something in my head popped.
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- I linked this page from JesusMiracle hours after visiting my ophthalmologist and a "one hour or less" eyeglass shop. Sitting in front of my computer, I immediately noticed how much sharper everything looked. I found all this ironic considering my own ocular history. Early in life I was told I would be blind in my right eye but years later thanks to medical science's everyday miracles, I can see well enough with it to read JesusMiracle. -- JohnPassaniti
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- Beauty and miracle in the eye of the beholder. Thank you for telling us this beautiful story John. (Is gratitude not the real evidence that we've seen it right?)
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- Although you offer a good pun, the reason for my linking JesusMiracle here is more mundane. These days, we have the very real sufficiently advanced technology needed to repair vision and do other miracles that would boggle the minds of people 2000 years ago. Back then, they only had magic and metaphors presented as miracles.
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- As well as the pun (it's either a gift or a disease) I was suggesting one point of continuity with previous generations of humanity and even perhaps between ourselves today. Whether our "miracles" are medical or magical we can and should be grateful for them.
Miracles and magic (like everything else) require the right context. A miracle now would have to be much more impressive than one two thousand years ago. After all, the dead are now raised daily in hospitals...
In fact, this has been recognized by the RomanCatholicChurch which now only requires two miracles for candidacy to sainthood whereas previously three were required, since the definition of what is miraculous has become much more restrictive.
Equivalence of two things is not a necessary condition for the inability to distinguish between them. It is interesting to note though, that "technology" is derived from the Greek tekne - art or skill, whereas "magic" is derived from the Persian magus - wise man or magician.
Rigorous definitions of technology and magic (and/or miracle) would be helpful.
If "sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," what does one do with a phenomenon that clearly happens, seems to have no technological basis, and science can't explain?
- One questions one's idea of 'clearly'. At various times and places, the world was 'clearly' flat.
- One looks into extending one's science to improve its explanatory power, a job which is never finished anyway, or it's not really science.
- One relaxes and concludes that the phenomenon may be either technology or magic. The law doesn't promise you anything else.
Clarkes Law