Technology Indistinguishable From Magic

[Ranchoth]

@Jman

I also think that Mozart and Beethoven would probably think that an iPod Nano was about the most amazing (not magical, these were brilliant people) thing they could imagine.

If you could make it so that Beethoven could hear the iPod, he’d probably think it was the most amazing thing in the world even if you could only play Mrs. Miller’s Greatest Hits.

And—it’s not exactly my field of expertise, but…are there any bioengineered organisms from recent years that are really obviously “unnatural,” even without looking at their DNA? (The only things I can think of are that glowing tobacco plant and rabbit, but as I remember, you needed a chemical catalyst and a blacklight, respectively, to make 'em look anything but ordinary.)

[Dunderman]

@CalMeacham

Something astonishliingly like the Internet as we have it appeared several times in science fiction before computers.

And Ender’s Game predicted the Straight Dope Message Board.

[Jman]

@Ranchoth

If you could make it so that Beethoven could hear the iPod, he’d probably think it was the most amazing thing in the world even if you could only play Mrs. Miller’s Greatest Hits.

Well to be fair, Beethoven didn’t begin to go deaf until his late 20s. I would, of course, show it to, say, a 25 year old Beethoven.

[tdn]

@Sam Stone

The thing is, the best CGI looks absolutely real. WE know it’s not, because we’ve come to understand that real-looking things may not be so any more.

Ah, OK. When you say CGI, you mean Jurassic Park and LotR. I was thinking more in terms of Toy Story and Finding Nemo.

[Catalyst]

@Tuckerfan

I remember reading a piece written in the mid-1980s which speculated that if you took a PC back in time and showed it to the brightest minds of the 1930s/40s (Einstein, Bohr, etc., etc.) wouldn’t be able to guess when it was made, because it so far outstripped anything they had of that era.

I started a thread about nearly the same scenario about a year. I find speculating about using time travel to spook the natives way too amusing.

[Catalyst]

@Catalyst

I started a thread about nearly the same scenario about a year ago. I find speculating about using time travel to spook the natives way too amusing.

:smack: