Home › Daily Prompt › ONE LAW TO RULE THEM ALL

ONE LAW TO RULE THEM ALL

By on • ( 23 )

It’s a matter of definition. I say, magic is nowhere — or magic is everywhere. 

I prefer to believe it is everywhere. When I click the lights and a room is illuminated; when I flip the switch and the coffee begins to brew; when Amazon delivers and packages appear neatly piled by my back door. That’s magic.

Magic circleWhen the winter snow melts and the earth wakes up, bringing green leaves and flowers, nothing else can explain it. It is magic. I count on it.

Ultimately, when I turn on my computer and connect. I write, you write. I read you and you read me. That is magic. How is it possible for you, on the other side of this spinning globe, get my messages in real time?

circle of life teepee door

Just because we don’t stand in a circle and chant, we might as well be doing that. I understand about as much of how my computer uses all its written code to do what it does.

Chrysanthemum autumn

Why should all that “code” (read “magic”) make it work? I know how to write code — not well, but enough to understand its intent. That said, why do computers obey such writing? These codes?

British author Arthur C. Clarke formulated three laws:

  1. When a distinguished, but elderly, scientist states something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
  2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
  3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

My Corollary to Clarke’s Law: Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.

Life is magic to me. All of it.

‹
›

Categories: Daily Prompt, Literature, Quotation, Sci Fi - Fantasy - Time Travel, Supernatural, Technology

Tags: , , , , , , ,

23 replies

  1. Bantering Ram
    10/20/2015 • 23:27

    As has often be said, “Yesterday’s magic is today’s science”.

    Like

  2. lghoelson
    10/20/2015 • 14:04

    The magic computer will program us.

    Like

  3. jcalberta
    10/19/2015 • 17:58

    Some wise chap once said: “A miracle is a changed consciousness.”

    So some people never have a miracle. Others have them non-stop.

    Like

  4. Bette A. Stevens
    10/19/2015 • 16:24

    Magical! Will keep following the magic as it appears moment by moment… 🙂

    Like

  5. Mir Fleur
    10/19/2015 • 16:05

    I’m an engineer – done a lot of studying over the years, and I know most of the ‘theory’ of how stuff works. But no matter what the text books say, it’s still all magic to me. I fly quite often, but I still watch planes take off with my jaw dropped – how can that great metal monster get into the sky? That is definitely magic. Magnets? Magic.

    And I am totally fascinated by the idea that I am writing this now, in my study, (sat here in some bright pink pyjamas) and now you are reading it, maybe many miles and minutes away. So my thoughts are about to travel in time and space. Magic 🙂

    Happy to meet others who see magic everywhere :).

    Like

    • Marilyn Armstrong
      10/19/2015 • 18:30

      I have programmed computers … but the magic is that the computer does what its told. Why does it obey those instructions? How does it interpret everything? It’s magic that the big 747 gets in the air, that electricity doesn’t spill out of the sockets … it really IS all magic 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

  6. angloswiss
    10/19/2015 • 12:16

    I don’t do magic, but I don’t really do anything. Today I went for a walk, and it is autumn. The leaves are falling yellow and brown. Oh I am a misery, for me it is just the course of nature. Although I am just loving the book you recommended, Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch, that is magic and very very amusing and of course I grew up where it all takes place.

    Like

  7. Olga
    10/19/2015 • 11:50

    I totally agree with you, Marilyn. Magic is everywhere. It’s all in the eyes of the beholder. When I pick up my camera, I’m photographing moments of magic. When I walk in nature, I can feel the magic. Serendipity moments are magic. Enjoy your magic.

    Like