All science is materialistic

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

You’re response has nothing to do with Clarke’s Third Law. For one thing, he was speaking about technology, not science. For another, he did not say anything about ‘impossible’ (although he used the term in the First and Second Laws).

Thirds and lastly, it’s important to remember that ‘sufficiently advanced’ is a culturally relative term. A cell phone, a handheld torch, or a power saw would certainly seem like magic to a culture that had never experienced them.

Boru

What is technology, but applied science?

It is exactly that - the application of science. That’s what Clarke was talking about - the impact the one level of technology would have in a less technologically advanced culture. He wasn’t referring to spin forbidden chemical reactions. Imagine trying to explain - in a single afternoon - wireless technology to a society still gathering their food with throw-sticks and stone clubs. It isn’t that they would be too stupid to understand electromagnetic waves, it’s that they would have no cultural referent for it. To them, it would be ‘magic’.

While science and technology are deeply interrelated, they are not the same thing. Who would you rather have perform your heart surgery - an anatomical theorist or a cardiac surgeon?

Boru