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Worldbuilding

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  • $\begingroup$ So, black box hence indistinguishable? Btw, as soon as I read the question I did a search on this page for that Clarke's law, and I'm happy that someone included that =D $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 29, 2015 at 14:36
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    $\begingroup$ @trichoplax - point taken. New policy: finish morning coffee before writing anything on Stack Exchange. $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 29, 2015 at 14:49
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    $\begingroup$ @AndreiROM also make sure to finish the noon coffee, afternoon tea, evening energy drink, and the shot of 5-hour after dinner, depending on the hour. I've made a few bung posts at "reasonable" hours just because my mind was burned out from one thing or another. One answer at least was "I'm too weary from my own jQuery struggles to write any code, but here's the step-by-step." $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 29, 2015 at 16:07
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    $\begingroup$ If there really is a demon in the box, and someone concludes that there is a demon in the box, than they are not confusing technology with magic, but correctly recognizing magic when they see it! You do bring up an interesting point: In a culture where the idea of magic is dismissed, any non-understood device would presumably be assumed to be technological and not magical, by definition. I don't think there's ever been a culture that believed in magic but said technology was a myth. Even the most primitive human cultures use SOME tools. Could we point to a culture that believes in magic ... $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 31, 2015 at 5:52
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    $\begingroup$ Except that if every mobile phone contained a trained demon, it wouldn't be magic - demons would simply be an accepted part of science. The big problem is that, nowadays, "not real" is part of the definition of magic. So any real phenomena is not magic, by definition; magic does not exist, therefore nothing can be magic, and anything that looks like magic must be some technology we are not aware of. $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 5, 2018 at 10:36