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soreff comments on Rationality Quotes: July 2010 - Less Wrong
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Some technology is for replacing things ascribed to magic. But most technology is fulfilling needs that a wizard doesn't know he has, or is there to solve a need or problem that wouldn't except for some other bit of technology.
Look at a few thousand (out of the millions of existing) patents. How many of them have a direct analogue in magic such that their utility really is something 'previously relegated to magic'? - not vaguely falling in a general class of functionality which you once saw a spell kinda-sorta like.
For example. Recent news about an environmentally friendly rocket fuel made out of just nitrogen and oxygen. This is a very modern invention. It's very useful. What magic does it replace?
'Oh, rocket fuel replaces flying on a broomstick!' Ah, but I wasn't talking about rocket fuel in general and certainly not rockets+rocket-fuel, because this invention was not of 'rocket fuel in general'. This invention was of a particular kind of rocket fuel. What magic does this particular kind of rocket fuel replace? The answer is none. Flying magic is conceived of as intrinsically environmentally friendly. Harry Potter never asks himself how he will pay for the bioremediation of the hydrochloric acid left in the wake of his broomstick.
Take a look at Kevin Kelly's discussion of sparkcatchers. What magic is this technology replacing? This isn't even particularly esoteric stuff like I could start pulling out from biology or chemistry. (What wizard - or author - ever had the imagination to think of bacteria glowing green like fireflies?)
This kind of statement reminds me of an upvoted quote here somewhere which went 'since when has the majority ever been right about anything?' This irritates me, because the majority is right. Of the infinite class of propositions the majority holds, most are right, and the ones the majority has been wrong about, like geocentrism, have approximately measure 0. It's right about everything else. The majority in the room I am in think I have 2 hands; think I have 2 feet; think I have 2 lungs; think I am there; think.... etc.
For a group that's supposed to be so awfully wrong, the majority seems to get things awfully right.
Very much agreed. By the way, this one one of the points W. Brian Arthur makes in The Nature of Technology which I recommend as a well written exposition of quite a number of the dynamics in technology development.
One very broad range of technology which has no analog to magic is high precision instrumentation. There are very few situations in daily life when I need to know a measurement to within 0.1%, and they are many technological and scientific situations where that knowledge is necessary.
Actually, Arthur is already on my reading list. ;) I think I must have seen him recommended before by Kevin Kelly or perhaps Don Ihde.
I was going to point out that another good example is all the sensory modalities that science knows of, like electromagnetism in all its forms and frequencies, or gravity itself, but I thought that they were too arguably close to magical 'second sight' or chi skills like sensing someone nearby.