Arthur C. Clarke: Advanced Tehcnology is indistinguishable from magic

Clarke’s Three Laws

The context of Arthur C. Clarke’s third law can best be analysed in the context of his first and second and then to look at the impact of his words in a popular context.

To take a cynic’s approach, maybe Arthur C. Clarke should have written his third law as follows; "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic to those unfamiliar with that technology", as Dewdney has said . Especially with his argument of there are many examples, throughout history, of “technologically advanced civilisations encountering more primitive ones — airplanes and radios seemed like magic to those who first saw them.”

In the book ‘Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible’ he states his three Laws and says he will stop at that because both Isaacs (Newton and Asimov) only created three. Then he goes on to actually producing another 60-odd. Though he continued to write laws, as we ...