Clarke's Law and the power of ideas.
DIRECTOR
Do you believe in magic, Mr Phillips?
ALEX
“Real” magic, you mean? No, of course not.
DIRECTOR
I think you should consider it. Are you familiar with Clarke's Law? “Any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic.” Ideas can be so advanced as to appear as magic...ideas are the basis of technology, after all. Allow me to persuade you...may I see your phone, please?
The Yellow Sign, Act I Scene 5.
Changing Our Universes
In his 1985 BBC documentary and subsequent book, The Day the Universe Changed (Little, Brown and Co), historian James Burke describes in entertaining detail an understanding of the evolution of ideas, and how humanity has leveraged them through invention to change the world that we live in. The universe is changed, he explains, from a hostile place with unseen terrors just beyond the firelight to an understandable machine, with cogs and levers visible and waiting to be manipulated by us. While it is true that our technology has made our lives easier and more comfortable, human survival has also become more dependent upon our technology, to the point that many, perhaps most of the current world population would not survive long were our current technological systems to collapse.
Arthur C. Clarke, in his 1962 essay, Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination, famously stated that, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." A bit of thought quickly shows the truth of this. If someone had predicted 40 years ago that people across the world would carry in their pockets a device that allows instant communication with anyone on the planet, could pinpoint their position on the earth to within 2 meters, purchase virtually anything they desire and permit them to watch any movie or television show ever made, it would have been viewed as science fiction. The Final Encyclopedia, by Gordon Dickson (Tor books, 1985) had just such a device in the far future -as a gigantic structure orbiting the earth. To readers in 1985 this was hard science fiction, and extreme optimism - due to other, less optimistic futurists in the 70s and 80s predicting that the human race faced extinction, either from starvation, a new ice age or nuclear winter. Thankfully, a better future was conceived, and has arrived; a more optimistic universe was created.
Practical Magic
Magic can be thought of as an attempt to change reality to suit our desires by harnessing powers inaccessible to other people. Viewed in the context of the history of science, it all becomes magic. We have our magical devices, our words of power, the gestures, postures and hand motions of conjuration, and we produce daily that which would be inconceivable to our ancestors. Just imagine the effect on someone from the 17th century viewing a device as simple as a flashlight. You would be in danger of accusations of witchcraft, of practicing magic. And there is no stopping this tide of innovation. As the Director later says (p.54), "Just imagine what magical artifacts your progeny will wield in another half-century!" But do we really understand or control the powers that we wield? There is not one person on earth who could build a computer, or a cell phone, or even a pencil from scratch. We are so interdependent upon each other that even our magic requires the whole community to function properly, and most now alive are in some way dependent upon it for survival.
That which we do not understand, we are driven to study, to control, to explain. That which we cannot explain, we fear. That which we fear, we worship. Ultimately, it is the safest response. The unknown, that which still lies beyond the feeble light of our fires, has been beneficent at times, and the loss of a few lives to further our knowledge has long been accepted as the cost of doing science. Experimentation to predict the next pandemic may actually launch the very pandemic we are trying to avoid, but what can we do? We are driven to explore the darkness and bring back treasures. A worldwide platform for speech may allow us to understand each other more clearly, or bring out the fear and hatred that lies just beneath our civilized surface. It is unfortunate but true that treasures are guarded by dragons. Hopefully, we are creating the magic that will save us, summoning angels for our future generations to live with and not demons to serve.
If conversations and thoughts on these topics are of interest to you, we invite you to come and join us for the world premier of The Yellow Sign, an original horror play (and perhaps more) at Playhouse in the Park, Murray Kentucky, on November 11-13, 2022.
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