On Materialist Rhetoric

I’m reeling a little from GK’s January 20 post, Arthur C. Clarke on magic. Where in the world did this topic come from? He’s debunking that famous quote, “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” as if Mr. Clarke just said it yesterday and not, like, 50 years ago. Perhaps it came up in his comments somewhere.

Magic usually involves some sort of incantation, a charm, a spell or a ritual.

That’s mostly true. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and most computer role-playing games definitely require an incantation of some kind. Otherwise magic-wielding characters would be way too powerful. However, I’m sure everyone remembers that in Diablo, there were no incantations at all. You just clicked the left button and, bam-o, you were shooting fireballs.

As for real-life magic, the incantations are also optional. For example, you can do card tricks without having to invoke, “abra cad abra!” David Copperfield doesn’t use any incantations that I can remember, and I’ve seen a lot of his television specials, so I consider myself an authority on the subject. Remember that one where he walked through the Great Wall of China? He didn’t say anything, he just walked right on through. I guess you could say there was a “ritual” though, because I think it took him the whole 1-hour show to get around to doing it.

I don’t recall the Star Trek transporter using an incantation. (”Energize” is a command to the operator, not a magical incantation.)

What about punching the buttons on the panel? (Or, for the classic Trekkers out there, sliding those goofy sliders.) A less technologically-advanced person might consider that a “ritual.”

But what if I can distinguish “real” magic (whatever that is) from technology?

That’s a pretty big “what if.” Especially since magic has such a vague definition. I would think the only person who could do that would be, like, God.

The real intent of Clarke’s statement is not to tell us anything about technology or magic, but to create an assumption that anybody who believes in magic is being gullible.

Your assumption about Clarke’s statement is also creating an assumption. Clarke’s a writer. Don’t you think if he meant to say something else, he would have just written it that way?

…but the statement doesn’t inform … and it’s not meant to. It’s materialist rhetoric.

WTF is “materialist rhetoric?” Seriously, that’s so obscure I can’t even find a definition of it with Google or Wikipedia. And if it ain’t in Google, it can’t possibly be real!

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