Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. --Arthur C. Clarke
What is "sufficiently advanced", though? At least one measure, commonly practical if not absolute, would be "more advanced than the questioner". This would mean, then, that periods of progress would be marked by science, while periods of regress would be marked by magic.
When knowledge is progressing, we understand our artefacts, because we have either surpassed them, or are attempting to do so. Their principles are science to us.
When knowledge is regressing, our understanding of our own artefacts is fading, perhaps we are no longer capable of building them. Their principles are magic to us.
In LotR, for instance, by the time of the story the Rings of the title are magic - they were forged in some earlier golden age. None understand them fully, and few can even wield them. Yet at the time of their forging, they would've been technology - the smiths would have known how to make them, how to repair them when they're damaged, how to wield them, how to limit whatever downsides to their use.
Science fiction, on the other hand, tends to be marked by exploration of the unknown - literal, physical unknown in some cases, but often also unknown technologies, techniques, societies and worlds. That is the mark of a progressing world; it is the regressing world that researches by exegesis, whether it's Gandalf's search through ancient manuscripts, or Giles's in Buffy, or for that matter the same comment made in Asimov's Foundation about the science of the slowly-crumbling galactic empire.
Speaking of Asimov, last night I came across an earlier blog entry of mine, where I talk about another work of fiction where this may be pertinent: Asimov's "US Robots" series. That was brought about by Cory Doctorow's observation that in those stories, there's only one company making robots, and there are no non-robotic applications of the positronic technology. Why? Cory's Hugo-nominated novelette explores one possibility as an allegory for today's world. Another, dramatically much less fruitful but perhaps more realistic, would be that robots were invented just on the cusp between ascent and descent; on the cusp between science and magic. Indeed, some of the stories are certainly consistent with that, particularly later in the time-line where Earth is regressing into essentially a rural utopia.
Obviously, this would mean that the distinction between Science Fiction and Fantasy is similarly based on whether the society in question is progressing or regressing; though the situation there is complicated in that one may distinguish two observers - the characters, and the reader - who may have different understandings of events and therefore different views of what's technology and what's magic.
Comments
Dave: You might be interested in Bold As Love, by British SF/F author Gwyneth Jones, which she describes as "near future high fantasy". It sits exactly on the cusp between magic and technology.
Jiri: Cool, I'll have to look for that - I have Gwyneth Jones on my to-read list
for the Aleutian Trilogy, but last time I was in a bookshop I think they
didn't have anything of hers at all, so anyway...
Added to my to-read list - thanks.
⇦ Surreal Backlinks | ⇨ We will be elves |
