“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” - still true?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Well, yes and no. Suppose that we found an SCP object, say, a sphere the size of a baseball that continually emits prodigious amounts of energy. We have no idea how it works, or where the energy comes from, and all of our attempts to find out just result in broken instruments. We have no idea where the object itself came from, either: It might, for all we know, have been manufactured by some civilization with technology far beyond our own, or it might be a natural phenomenon, and the universe just happens to contain these energy-balls scattered here and there. But we figure out that we can dump the thing in a really big tank of water and make a whole lot of steam that then drives some sort of enormous vehicle, that would be utterly impractical using any sort of energy source we do understand.

We understand the boiler. We understand the vehicle based on it. We made it. But we don’t understand the energy source that makes it possible. If it’s technology, then its maker presumably does understand it, but we don’t know if it’s technology. We don’t even know if it’s possible for anyone to understand it, so for all we know, it might be magic.

And people who disbelieve their own senses in favor of “science” don’t actually accept science at all.

42

That’s contrary to the way the word was defined for most of human history, though.

magic (n.)

late 14c., magike, “art of influencing or predicting events and producing marvels using hidden natural forces,” also “supernatural art,” especially the art of controlling the actions of spiritual or superhuman beings; from Old French magique “magic; magical,” from Late Latin magice “sorcery, magic,” from Greek magike (presumably with tekhnē “art”), fem. of magikos “magical,” from magos “one of the members of the learned and priestly class,” from Old Persian magush, which is possibly from PIE root *magh- “to be able, have power.”

Magic was a skill that was studied and passed down through generations by learned experts. They could be knowledgeable about the entire art, like shamen or witches, or have picked up just enough to throw a curse. Magic is as varied as technology. It could be verbal, like a spell; gestural, with or without a wand like the evil eye; or dream-driven. It may use artifacts, like an amulet or a lock of hair. It may call upon the literal gods, or supernatural beings, or the spirits of the dead, or the living spirits of animals or plants. It can also not work if it is plugged in wrong, to use the analogy from technology.

One thing they all have in common is that they defy the known laws of physics. Magic users presume that magic can work at a distance; that it can work instantaneously or can continue its effects over time; that it doesn’t require power in our sense, although using magic may take a toll on the user; that it can work on all living beings and bring the dead back, temporarily or permanently; that it can defeat technology and the Second Law. Nor is belief necessarily involved: magic can sicken and kill animals who have no beliefs or understanding and also on non-living objects, like water.

Clarke’s Third Law is predicated on this definition of magic; that it is outside technology. If what you see violates your current understanding of the laws of science and is being called magic, your insistence that it is not magic is a belief. You may very well be right in this belief - Clarke is speaking of advanced technology, after all - but you have no more authority to say so than the person who insists that it is true magic. Neither can be explained at all, to the satisfaction of the other side. That it might be explained sometime in a distant future holds true for both science and magic at that point; it is not a distinguishing feature.

43

Could you explain what you mean by that?

44

Third Law
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
From the Wiki and my 65 years of reading science fiction.

Apparently there are various versions, but the one above is the only one I’ve ever seen in his novels.

45

Clarke: distinguishable from Asimov?

46

Opps!

47

Don’t forget Heinlein’s Second Law of Robotics, which says that when an elderly but distinguished scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but when he states that something is impossible, he is almost certainly wrong.

48

To the question posed in the OP: Yes, it’s still true, and it always will be. While much attention has been given to the word “indistinguishable,” it’s the word “sufficiently” which assures its timeless accuracy.

If a technology is not indistinguishable from magic, then ipso facto it is not sufficiently advanced to be indistinguishable from magic.

We now return you to the thread, which is already in progress …

49

Thanks for that. I have the April 1967 Bantam Science and Math edition, and it does not appear there. I first read an edition from 1964 or so and while the first two laws were there, I think, the third was not. (They might be in Challenge of the Spaceship.)

50

At least half of my extensive Clarke collection is non-fiction. In fact when I was in 9th grade, back in 1965, I wrote a ridiculously long paper for English connecting concepts in his science books with those in his science fiction books.
As for the quote, I agree that “indistinguishable” was chosen for a reason. If you have zero idea of how something works, it looks like magic, even if it isn’t. After all, there are explanations for the magic in magic shows, but that doesn’t mean that the tricks are not magic, since they give the impression of being accomplished by real magic.
The end of 2001 is an excellent example of this. In the movie, what happens to Bowman is unexplained and might well be magic. The “trick” is shown in the book. Clarke obviously always comes down on the advanced technology side, not the magic side.

51

I think it very much still holds. We cannot presume what amazing stuff some civilization might have developed that we currently can’t conceive of. While once-in-a-while SF or futurists got stuff right, it’s surprising how “primitive” some predictions from just a few decades ago are. E.g., Blade Runner had flying cars and replicants but Deckard still used a pay video phone.

To think otherwise are like those people in the 1800s who thought everything useful had been invented.

One variation I came up with based on hanging around some phenomenally smart people:
“Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from psychic powers.”

52

IMHO the difference is that we’ve advanced enough in our understanding of the laws of the universe that there isn’t any technology that can be invented that we couldn’t explain using some slight updating to our current understanding of those laws. Aliens from another star system could potentially get here, but if they did we know it would be in a ship that took many years (possibly thousands or millions depending on how far away they started) to get here at sublight speed. We know that this hypothetical ship can’t have arrived by Star Trek style warp speed. We know that they won’t have any kind of technology that enables them to travel backwards in time. We know that no matter how advanced their technology, they won’t have anything that can create energy out of nothing, or decrease the total entropy of the universe.

Whether I or any one of us personally understand the explanation of those things is irrelevant. What’s important is that the experts in the relevant fields and their collective knowledge are able to provide an explanation. Their explanation is never that Gandalf, Harry Potter, Zeus, Yahweh, or whatever other deity or wizard of your choice did it by speaking some magical words / waving their magical wand around. Instead of a book of spells which is useful only in the hands of someone with special mystical abilities, these experts produce scholarly articles with explanations arrived at by the scientific method. That method relies on reproducibly of results by anyone, no Jedi Force powers or any other such thing needed.

53

I saw what you did there.

54

There is a great episode of an internet comic strip on that topic. I think it was on SMBC, but damned if I can find it there, so I must be misremembering that part. I know it was cited on the 'Dope by somebody, which is how I learned of it, but that was a few years ago.

Distinguished elder statesman scientist refuses to countenance novel theory that new generation of PhDs has created after decades of painstaking research. Elder stateman dies and new theory takes its rightful place as THE correct understanding, despite its mind-stretching complexities. A generation later a schoolteacher is lambasting the kids for Just. Not. Getting. It. after they’d spent 3 whole days(!) teaching this stuff.

It was a great comic. Ring anyone’s bell?

55

I don’t know about the comic, but the quote itself is a famous observation by Arthur C Clarke. I was just doing a bit of nerd-sniping by calling it Heinlein’s Second Law of Robotics.

56

Understood. Clarke, Heinlein, Asimov, they all sorta run together after a while. NOT!! Great nerd-snipe. Speaking of fine comic episodes.

57

I can out-nerd all of you. I found an earlier three laws of robotics than Asimov’s.

“You must be industrious, you must be efficient, you must be useful. Those are the three laws that are to govern your behavior.”

58

Was it this?

59

This was my thinking that prompted this thread. I admit when I first heard this law, I was blown away - yeah, that’s deep. But on reflection, in this day and age, I don’t think it still holds. As mentioned upthread, it depends on the definition of magic he intended. But I still see no reason to assume he meant anything but ‘things happening outside the realm of science or explainable technology’, the common meaning. This wasn’t some offhand remark at a dinner party, he wrote and included it in a published book.

Not quite Gaudere’s Law, but is nudging up against it! :wink:

60

Yes it was. Thank you.

I did correctly remember it was SMBC though I blew some of the details. Now to figure out why my searches for it came up empty. Probably misremembered the few key words of dialog that aren’t ordinary everyday English.