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diff --git a/posts/20221031-ubiquitous-mundane-magic.md b/posts/20221031-ubiquitous-mundane-magic.md index 55d341a..cef4058 100644 --- a/posts/20221031-ubiquitous-mundane-magic.md +++ b/posts/20221031-ubiquitous-mundane-magic.md @@ -1,6 +1,10 @@ --- date: 2022-10-31 title: Ubiquitous, Mundane Magic +heroImg: /img/20221031-hero-laura-ockel-nIEHqGSymRU-unsplash.jpg +heroImgAlt: "A macro shot of a silicon wafer with dozens of uncut ICs visible. Credit: Laura Ockel on Unsplash." +tags: +- magic --- I've been thinking again lately about how we live in a world with ubiquitous, @@ -8,22 +12,44 @@ mundane magic. <!--more--> -We harness lightning in intricate tiny structures made of sand and metal to -make them think, keeping their own internal time using perfectly beating hearts -made of crystals, sustaining themselves with energy sacs made of solid metallic -acid, communicating to other thinking structures using meshes of invisible -light all around us. - -We learn how to harness and direct the thoughts of these structures in -school-how to make them think more quickly, or more creatively, or more -aesthetically and approachably for those not familiar with the arcane, -inscrutable languages used to form those thought-directing spells. - -We carry opaque slabs of inorganic materials in our pockets, capable of near -instantaneous communication across the entire world, able to tell us our -precise positions on the planet with the aid of artificial stars we've placed -up in the sky with precisely manufactured atomic hearts that we've calibrated -to accommodate for the measurable difference in the speed of time between what -we experience on the ground and what they experience from their places in the -sky, not to mention any of the other hundreds, thousands, millions of things -the slabs can do. +We feed lightning into tiny, intricate structures made of sand and metal to +compel them towards thought, keeping their own internal time using perfectly +beating hearts made of crystal, sustaining themselves with energy from blocks +of solid metallic acid, communicating with other thinking structures using +meshes of invisible light all around us. + +We have opportunities to learn how to harness and direct the thoughts of these +structures in school---how to make them think more quickly, or more creatively, +or more aesthetically and approachably for those not familiar with the arcane, +inscrutable languages used to form those thought-directing spells. We routinely +collaborate in the creation of these spells with people from distant cities +with whom we have not, and likely will never meet face to face. We refer to +spellcrafting techniques by the names of their original codifiers ("Kruskal's +Algorithm for Minimum Spanning Forests"). + +We carry opaque slabs of inorganic materials in our pockets, skeletons of glass +and resin, veins of copper and gold, capable of near instantaneous +communication across the entire world via metal obelisks placed in strategic +geographic locations, able to divine for us our precise positions around the +Earth with the aid of constellations of artificial stars that we've placed up +in the sky and their precisely manufactured atomic hearts, calibrated to +accommodate for the measurable difference in the *speed of time* that they +experience from their homes in the sky. + +We have an incredible wealth of knowledge at our fingertips---literally, even +setting the Internet aside, thanks to readily available thumbnail-sized flakes +with memories capacious enough for entire books, entire shelves, entire +*libraries.* This cannot be overstated: do you actually *know* how big a +terabyte is? The human mind did not *evolve* to realistically comprehend +numbers at that scale. + +And yet that's all just... normal? Even though there's a whole, real, +fantastical world all around us? I find that blasé attitude fascinating. +Clarke's third law---any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable +from magic (and the designer's corollary: any technology distinguishable from +magic is insufficiently advanced)---seems to have... forgotten, or perhaps +ignored, human neuroplasticity's capacity for forcing even the wildest reality +into routine familiarity, and I feel like that loss of wonder is a shame. + +That's why today, for Halloween, even though I'm not wearing anything different +from what I usually wear, I'm dressed as a wizard. :mage_woman: |