"If you could have any superpower, what superpower would you choose?" Remember that question, mostly from childhood? It seems to still pop up from time to time. By 'superpower', we tend to simply mean 'you can do anything'. If we try harder to hone in on a definition, we might say that a 'superpower' is some ability to break or twist the laws of nature. The same goes for 'magic': What is magic, except some ability to operate outside of natural law?
But for every superhero comic, there is a scifi novel. For every superpower we daydream -- the ability to fly, to time travel, to teleport, to be invisible, to read minds -- we hypothesize some natural counterpart, some feat of engineering centuries ahead of our time. In scifi, we find time-travelling intergalactic civilizations, invisibility shields which conceal entire spaceships, and brain-computer interfaces which allow people to read each other's minds. Famously put by one of the world's most legendary scifi authors, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke.
The technology of today was once inconceivable. The world we live in, then, in some sense is a magical one, and we are all magicians as we wander through the here and now. Every bridge we step on, every word we type, every light we turn on, is a marvel.
Our examination of technology cannot stop there. More astounding, even, than the feats of engineering that surround us, is that we ourselves -- these bodies, these jumbled collections of molecules -- can think and learn and observe the world. We ourselves are a technological wonder that is centuries ahead of the engineering of our time. Every thought that rattles around our conscious minds is indistinguishable from magic. Just look at the simple complexity of our existence. We are all superheroes.
I feel an immense thrill to have this opportunity to explore this technological wonder of existence. What a marvel it is to exist, let alone think, let alone sense, let alone understand. The most rewarding thing in life, to me, is to wander this wilderness of ideas (e.g. what do people claim to know, and why do they claim to know it?) and innovations (e.g. how satisfying it is to learn how to use a microcontroller, considering all of the effort and ingenuity that went into building it!) that surrounds me. It is my utmost privilege in life to be an intellectual vagabond, deriving most of the joy of my wanderings from the action of learning itself.
If I could have any superpower, what superpower would I choose? This magical ability we have to observe the world and, at least in part, to understand it far surpasses any other superpower I can imagine.
© 2021-2024 Megan Cowie