> To me, "magic" is merely a shorthand term describing something that happens that you cannot explain.

I think this is a slightly unfair definition of "magic." Unless you mean the sort of "magic" practiced by illusionists (most of whom are quite clear that what they're doing are tricks), magic to me implies some sort of supernatural phenomenon. When I use the term magic, anyway, it is quite distinguished from "currently unexplainable phenomenon."

How planets are formed, for instance, is not something astronomers have completely figured out. Yet it is clear planets do exist, though we may not understand the exact mechanisms that allow them to do so. Would you call the existence of planets magical?

[snip]

Kaz! makes some compelling arguments for his claim that much of our current (well understood) technology would be indistinguishable from magic to people of the past. I have no doubt this is so. The old saying, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," does not imply that magic and sufficiently advanced technology are equivalent, though, only that they're indistinguishable from each other. To me, then, almost by definition magic can't exist unless you assume the existence of a supernatural world that is some way influencing the natural world (and which can be in turn exploited by us).

> If that was done, I'd say that would be creating a flame through mental ability alone. Is it likely? Hell no. The chance of it happening by chance in any given day is probably less than 9x10^99999... but *possible*.

The combination of quantum mechanics and a potentially infinitely large universe pretty much makes anything you can conceive of possible. I'm confused as to what this proves with regard to our discussion. I hope I would never be so close-minded as to say it's beyond all realm of possibility that astrology or magic or telepathy could possibly work; I'm only saying that it never has, does not currently and *probably* never will. (Or at least that there's no good, empirical evidence for its ever having worked beyond what we might expect from guessing.)

> Now, as for the idea of telepathy... I think that it's something possible of a future society, though not something that I'll see in my lifetime.

Well sure. But such technology as described by Kaz! would likely be understood by scientists and work correctly on a regular basis. In other words, it would have verifiable, repeatable results. Not to mention an understanding of the principles involved. It would not be superstition or magic at this point.

> But anyway, I'm getting a little off topic -- after all, my whole point here is that humans tend to rely on the concept of magic or superstition to explain that which is just completely unexplainable at the time.

Except... hrm. Precisely what does a belief in modern telepathy explain? What does a belief in astrology explain? Consider, also, that these explanations should be superior to anything currently offered by the latest scientific advances. It seems to me a clinging to provably untrue superstitions implies a deeper human need to believe in them than just an attempt to explain the natural world (especially when scientists have explained so much).

Stephen