Posted: 1/14/2009 1:44:52 AM EDT
|
Some science fiction writer stated that "Magic" is technology so advanced that it cannot be recognized as such by the natives.
Interesting viewpoint. General Robert E. Lee and his troops could have been trained to use the AK47 (as one writer opined). Sir Walter Raleigh could understand the workings of a 1911. They would have marvelled at the technology, metallurgy and machining, but they'd understand the machinery well enough. But how about a computer? Would a Mac or PC have utterly confounded these men? How about the Space Shuttle? Open heart surgery? Heck, they were just getting the news about bacteria theory back then, and surgical anesthesia was for officers. |
|
ehhhh...I dunno man. I heard once that the internet is magical.
The internet is magical. |
|
Them commercials are magic, like the one for lessons on making money in 'real estate'... 'Course I was flipping channels on day and one of the broadcast stations had a black bar with phone numbers over her chest area and I figured out what they were just a scam advertising. |
|
Human intelligence is very different from human knowledge. I believe any of those people could understand any of the technology you mentioned...given enough time. (ie Lock Robert E Lee in a room with a computer for a while and I guarantee he could figure out how to "make it work"...what did he graduate at West Point? 1st?)
Our brains haven't evolved that much (if at all) in the past 150 years. |
|
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Arthur C. Clarke, "Profiles of The Future", 1961 (Clarke's third law) English physicist & science fiction author (1917 - ) His other two 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. |
|
Quoted:
Human intelligence is very different from human knowledge. I believe any of those people could understand any of the technology you mentioned...given enough time. (ie Lock Robert E Lee in a room with a computer for a while and I guarantee he could figure out how to "make it work"...what did he graduate at West Point? 1st?) Our brains haven't evolved that much (if at all) in the past 150 years. 
|
|
Quoted:
Human intelligence is very different from human knowledge. I believe any of those people could understand any of the technology you mentioned...given enough time. (ie Lock Robert E Lee in a room with a computer for a while and I guarantee he could figure out how to "make it work"...what did he graduate at West Point? 1st?) Our brains haven't evolved that much (if at all) in the past 150 years. Not only did Lee graduate first in his class. he was the first cadet to do so without collecting a single demerit... a feat which has not been equaled to this day! Outstanding man, outstanding soldier! |