Magic by Isaac Asimov

Author:Isaac Asimov [Asimov, Isaac]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2023-10-03T17:00:00+00:00

PART TWO

ON FANTASY

MAGIC

ARTHUR CLARKE, IN ONE OF HIS NOTABLE oft-quoted comments, said that technology, sufficiently advanced, was indistinguishable from magic.

That’s clear enough. If a medieval peasant, or even a reasonably educated medieval merchant, were presented with the sight of a super-jet streaking through the sky, or with a working television set, or with a pocket computer, he would be quite convinced that he was witnessing sorcery of the most potent sort. He might also be pretty certain that the sorcery was the devil’s work. Consequently if a person from the present (his future) were to go back in time with a pocket computer, for instance, and were to demonstrate its workings, the result might well be exorcism, and perhaps even the torture chamber.

The question in my mind, though, is whether the proposition can be reversed. Is magic necessarily indistinguishable from sufficiently advanced technology? If so, you see, all the tricks of the trade of fantasy could be transferred to science fiction. After all, you don’t have to describe the advanced technology in detail (if you could, you would build a working model, patent it, and become very rich, perhaps).

For instance, as a child, I found Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves fascinating. Imagine coming up to a blank mountain wall, saying “Open sesame,” having the wall split in two, and having the halves move apart to reveal the entrance to a cave. Now that’s magic!

My wonder and bemusement at such a thing continued undiminished even after I had grown accustomed to approaching doors and having them open automatically at my approach. That wasn’t magic; that was just a photo cell and therefore no cause for wonder at all (even though I would agree that a medieval merchant, presented with such an automatically opening door, would surely consider it magic).

Perhaps it is the “Open sesame” that is the real wonder of it. After all, a door that opens at the mere approach of anyone at any time shows no discretion. If there is a code word that only you know then you control the door; you have power.

But then, it is easy to imagine a computer which will only allow the door to open at some appropriate code word punched onto its keyboard. Indeed, the time may well come when such a computer may be designed to respond to the spoken command. In that case, it is inevitable that some jokester will have the computer open the door at the command “Open sesame!”

We might go even further and outdo the story. After all, in the tale the door opens to anyone’s command of “Open sesame!” and because Ali Baba overhears it, he gains entrance to the cave and grows rich. A computer may be designed to respond only to the typical sound pattern of a particular voice and then only you may open the door, even if the whole world knows the code word.

Next, how about Snow White’s stepmother, the wicked queen, who asks her mirror who is the fairest of them all and has the mirror assure her that she is.

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