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Comment by madeuptempacct | Hacker News Reader

I didn't read the article, but I feel like we might rapidly get to the point where technology is magic. As arrogant as using "even" in this context sounds - EVEN people on here generally don't understand more than a few fields. For example, when it really comes down to it, the way pain meds work might as well be magic to me, though I could probably sputter some scientific-sounding explanation that I really don't understand. Same with modern computers - I can mumble about logic gates, but the reality is that my electronics knowledge stops at vacuum tubes, just because that's what's accessible without an EE/chemistry specialization.

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To me ‘magic’ is the gap between our internal models of the external world and reality.

You stand before a magician, he is holding a card. You believe this to be true because some photons entered your eyes and your mind constructed a realistic simulation that conforms to the sensoral input.

The magician waves his hand— the card disappears — in a very real sense. The simulation that your consciousness creates and inhabits has updated and erased the card from your reality.

That it is in fact behind his hand and that he was able make your internal model of reality diverge from actual reality with some words and a gesture is what creates magic.

So how does this apply to technology — if the technology is so advanced that your mind can’t model it’s behavior — then it perpetually creates that divergence by merely existing. You’re always going to have to update your mental model to account for what it does.

But I think that sort of magic is fairly temporary, because people are nothing if not adaptable — hand an iPhone to a toddler and it’s simply another new thing to explore and understand, no more mysterious than the light sparkling from a glass of water or a leaf blowing in the wind.

we might already be there. The common trend to say, "we will solve X with technology" is pretty much the same sentiment as "we will solve X with magic". as long as technology and magic are amorphous concepts that hold a broad array of human experiences.

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