Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew H.
Yeah, I've always hated these laws.
Maybe in fiction, but not in the real world (where I'm not sure you can find many scientists saying that something is impossible, as far as that goes). There are countless examples of distinguished but elderly scientists quite correctly saying that something is impossible and being quite right. FTL travel, for example. Or cold fusion. Intelligent design. Perpetual motion machines. Etc.
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I think you're missing the point. Those things
may be considered impossible now, but the future isn't over yet. ("Perpetual motion machine" may indeed be considered impossible almost by definition, unless it is discovered that the Universe will either expand forever or repeat its cycles, in which case the Universe
is a perpetual motion machine - whatever the case, it serves as sufficiently perpetual to be going on with
.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew H.
...So maybe it should be rewritten as "People who are inclined to explain things that they don't understand as magic will explain tech that they don't understand as magic." Not as exciting a quote, of course.
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Just as your comments on the rule could be rewritten as "perverse observations that refuse to accept the author's intention". Of course Clarke was speaking from the perspective of those who do not understand the technology - this, by the way, includes a significant proportion of the current population, which probably explains the ready acceptance of fiction containing magic, or science fiction that may as well be magic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew H.
I suppose I don't have a particular issue with "The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible." Although I think it's also much less known than the other rules.
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Isn't it strange, this is the one that I think you'd have some justification as claiming it to be either a tautology or a contradiction in terms. As a philosophical exercise, defining a limit or border implies something with two sides, possible on one side and impossible on the other, hence possibly a tautology. As a physical exercise the impossible is by definition impossible and so cannot be ventured into, hence a contradiction in terms.