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"Intelligent Chemistry"?
- Thread starter sbvera13
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Agonaces of Susa
Evolution is not science: legalize creationism.
- Nov 18, 2009
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Mr. Clarke was 100% correct and inspired several variations.
"Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced." -- Barry Gehm, biochemist, 1973
"What we can say is that magic anticipated modern science and technology." -- Georg Luck, historian, 1985
"If technology is distinguishable from magic, it is insufficiently advanced." -- Gregory Benford, author, 1997
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RealityCheck
Senior Veteran
Yes, they do, actually, because if they didn't, there would be any images or sound on your HDTV.
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RealityCheck
Senior Veteran
Except both of these (and the guy repeating the first) misunderstood Clarke's statement. What Clarke meant was that sufficiently advanced technology will appear to be magic to people who do not have any concept about how such technology works or could possibly work.
The example usually given is the hypothetical of bringing a television backwards in time to, say, AD 1200. For practical reasons, suppose you ALSO bring a DVD player and a battery to power things. Show them the movie on the disc, and it'll look like magic to them. That's because they have no idea what electricity is, what plasma technology is, how you can put moving images and sound onto a piece of plastic (and what is plastic???)...
But none of that is magic to us. We understand plastics and electromagnetism very well. We understand how you can encode digital information onto a piece of plastic and have that decoded by laser technology and the decoded information translated into sound and light displayed through the television. It's not magic. It's science being applied.
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Assyrian
Basically pulling an Obama (Thanks Calminian!)
That was my reaction, probably with the acidity affecting surface tension and pushing the droplet along. Looks odd though. If you look at the droplet's route through the maze, it seems to head down one path and then double back, it tracks along one set of path three times. Should have followed the keep left rule.
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tansy
Senior Member
Hope this doesnt send this thread off-topic, but the question comes to mind..what actually IS intelligence? They seem to recognise different types of intelligence nowadays. I can't remember the categories exactly, but something like numerical intelligence, manual intelligence etc etc. Which is why, so Iunderstand, IQ tests only measure a certain type.
Do you think intelligence is 'pre-programmed', static, can be developed, or what?
Is intelligence when it comes down to it, instinct? What is already there? (As in birds building nests). Is the difference between birds and us, that they appear to instinctively know how to build nests, but we can observe that, and then copy them?
Do you think intelligence is 'pre-programmed', static, can be developed, or what?
Is intelligence when it comes down to it, instinct? What is already there? (As in birds building nests). Is the difference between birds and us, that they appear to instinctively know how to build nests, but we can observe that, and then copy them?
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Smidlee
Veteran
As anyone who ever seen Harry Potter knows that even magic runs on laws/rules. Some parts of quantum physics is stranger than any magic.
Thus science is just the magic that we become familiar with. If Harry Potter world was real there is no doubt man would come up with some kind of explanation why the world is the way it is then slap on the word "science" on it.
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Naraoia
Apprentice Biologist
To those who don't understand how it works.
That.
It doesn't have to.
People who invent magic systems for fantasy stories invent rules for them because a magic system without rules wouldn't make for a good story. "Anything is possible 'cause it's magic, except when I don't want it to" is a ham-handed way of plugging plot holes, and easily seems contrived.
What rules govern God's magic? ("Magic" here including all manner of supernatural acts/abilities - PLEASE don't get hung up on the word like some people do...)
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Smidlee
Veteran
This makes no different to the quote because it's not necessary what we know or don't know but rather a matter of prospective or how we see things.
Even if we today find an unknown device like Stargate which opens up a wormhole and have no idea how it works, people today would still see it as science while those in the past may see it as magic.
Today a lot of people has a belief everything in the universe can be explain by human understanding ; everything can be explain away mechanical.( no doubt a lot of things can be explain mechanical) Even if we don't have the answer now someone in the future will find it. This including human behavior as John Cleese clip makes note of: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M-vnmejwXo
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