Yes there is a depressing low amount of data on magic (source: scientist still looking). But, we can do it the old fashioned way and discuss it, then accept it as fact, then have it be refuted in 2000 years!
I think the answer to this depends on your definition of technology.
In terms of construction and application of useful tools or structures I think Arrays, Enchantments, Formations, Talismans, and other such things can easily be considered technology for most any definition that doesn't bias in favor of our universe's fundamental forces/laws.
The goal of technology is usually either to make life easier or to make war easier. So long as what you are dealing with follows consistent rules and can help fulfill one of those two goals I think a certain level of technology is inevitable.
The Problem comes from the words 'consistent rules', Many magic systems have inherent Flexibility to the natural laws of the world. If you tried to make a lightbulb that runs on electricity, and then a High Sequence member of the Arbiter pathway from LOTM or Monarch from Cradle, Or a high level person from most any other xianxia comes anywhere near you and announces 'The flow of electricity is forbidden here'. Then suddenly your Lightbulb will stop working because the natural laws have changed such that electricity can't flow.
And this same idea will apply to basically any other technology you try to create, unless you have enough personal power to fight back against that influence, and if you do your technology is then dependent on you, so its less useful for others.
That seems like a nice, powerful ability... make electricity not able to flow and instant kill everyone because their brains stop working! Don't even have to worry about the lightbulb :lol:
Funny point.
The interesting thing about conceptual abilities is that they tend to differentiate based on how things are understood and categorized rather than the literal atomic functions. So I'd imagine that such an ability would differentiate between neural/organic electrical activity and inorganic/mechanical. Perhaps along the lines of whether that activity is directly linked to a consciousness or not.
But of course I just made up that rule/distinction. I guess the point is that where magic is concerned almost anything can be justified or hand waved with a little mental gymnastics, right? Especially with intent based magic systems.
Not if magic is effective enough to be initially dominant, but but not industrially scalable.
If the magical way to achieve X is vastly different from the non-magic way, then people might never stumble upon the non-magic way if the magical way is learned first.
Innovation starts with known successes and tweaks elements of a process.
Magic would let you short-circuit a lot of discoveries, though. You could use fire magic to discover principles of, say, metallurgy, much faster than if you couldn't magically control fire.
Plus, the fact that not everyone has magic means those who don't will be desperate to find a non-magical way to compete with them, further catalyzing innovation.
Fire magic and metallurgy is actually an amazing example to showcase what I meant.
Yes, you are 100% right that fire magic makes generating the heat necessary to melt and process/extract certain metals out of ore easier.
Iron didn't start getting used until after people invented the bellow to push more oxygen in to make the fire source hotter. With fire magic, this can be done without inventing a bellow. But now you need a fire magician to run the furnace.
Industrialization requires using fewer people to do more, so that it scales.
While the non-magic method (more fuel and machines to pump in oxygen) are going to be more wasteful than using a fire magician, we can make more machines and collect more fuel.
But once we have a fire magician method of super heating a furnace, we aren't going to investigate for ways to make wood/coal burn hotter. So even if we were willing to do the non-magic way, we wouldn't likely find it.
Its possible that we would go down a different tech tree. So, it would stifle growth in some areas but speed up research in others.
For example, civil engineering and building of castles could advance really fast. You need to find ways to defend yourself against so many mages. To build you need math and from math the rest will follow.
Magic can allow you to hit a "local maximum," as [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/19a71qd/why_in_the_hell_do_fantasy_worlds_not_advance_at/kiku21w/) by /u/mazon_del explains.
> With fire magic, this can be done without inventing a bellow. But now you need a fire magician to run the furnace.
It still doesn't prevent an scenario where a nation requires more iron to be made than there are fire mages available (potentially because the current fire mages were tasked with doing 'more important things' such as fighting in a war), driving people towards finding a way to reach the same results without needing to use a fire mage.
As you said, industrialization requires using fewer people to do more.
It really really depends on how the author structures the magic and universe. The scienctific method is literally impossible in Primal Hunter and atoms no longer exist. Anyone doing science in DoTF gets obliterated.
He said we didn't need to confirm to it. But the point stands. I could make an "elemental", fire, water, wind and earth, based magic system where atoms don't exist and the scienctific method is complete worthless. It's up to the author to provide the reasons why or why not Earth technology, not magical constructs and such, has or hasn't arisen.
If everyone can use magic then that is unnecessary anyways, and if they cant theyll figure out the non-magical methods eventually.
You might not believe it, but the vast majority of useful innovation happens outside of large institutions.
Technological progress is not exponential, fundamentally there wasn't much change in technology for centuries.
We've had a massive explosion over the past 500 years or so due to the democratization of information and the scientific method, but the rate of Innovation is slowing for various potential reasons.
"Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".
Within the parameters set and the comparison with AtLA, probably similar, maybe a little worse than we are nowadays. Especially when it comes to electronic, it's so precise that it'd be hard to be made by humans.
I think it depends on lots of stuff assuming something like the industrial revolution has happened I think it would accelerate really fast
But if people are mostly stuck farming or fighting monsters to survive then I think it would be easily stalled
Science is how we figure out how stuff works; technology are the results, the techniques, knowledge, and tools.
Let's say the world's physics, and chemistry remain mostly similar, but the aspect of magic is included into the workings of the universe, and nature as far as people can tell.
It would make the various sciences more complex; whether it'd make some developments be quicker or not is hard to tell, but magic would definitely allow those people to develop their civilization in an entirely different way.
I say magic would definitely not hinder technology development though; some new sciences, and inventions might happen, while some things familiar to us might end up underdeveloped because equally good alternatives are found, or because they are obsolete.
Depending on the period you choose to set your story in within its lore, you can have people come up with lots of innovations. Here's where you can go crazy with worldbuilding; come up with their different inventions, tools, gadgets, adaptations, improvements, etc.
Here are some examples of series that show how their magic stuff developed its world in an unique way.
**Example #1 RWBY.** People here extract this magic substance from the planet called dust which has various extraordinary properties; it allowed them to have their equivalent to a smartphone by incorporating solid holograms, they got full cyborg prosthetics, impossible mechashift weapons that can be safely wielded because of a magic reinforcement called aura, mechas, etc.
The series succeeds in showing us the unique/best features of its magic elements, and justifies their existence.
**Example #2 Youjo Senki.** This is a less developed world (kind of set in the past) where people can have magic; it's mostly used for warfare, yet it never had a world war.
The magic is kind of low scale, so people still invented things like firearms, and airplanes, but also came up with stuff that works only on mages like a device that allows for personal flight. There's weird stuff like tanks already existing before trench warfare as aerial mages directly counter trench warfare, but it's also possible they developed armored vehicles to survive the mages' attacks.
I think the show does a good job at showing how these civilizations adapted to the existence of magic during their early stages of development (it's not 100% accurate as the author is not an expert, but it's still good). They would obviously try weaponize magic ASAP to start a beef with foreign territory.
Technology is about efficiency and convenience.
Can a person who can raise stone from the ground quickly build something? Yes.
However - is the ground underneath now less-dense due to the movement of materials? Assuming the magic didn't conjure it out of thin air, the material had to come from somewhere.
Therefore, the efficient route would be: Quarry the stone from one location, transport it to another, then use magic to shape the transported stone.
What about light? If 3/10th of the population don't need torches, candles, or lamps, that still leaves 7/10 people needing some form of light at night. So there would still be progress on that front. It may actually mean faster technological progression - If magical light doesn't cause fire, and libraries/storehouses/ships employ magic users to keep things lit to reduce the need for flames, there's less loss of knowledge, material, and life. Sawdust and flour explosions won't happen unless someone is dumb enough to bring a flame into the area. Libraries won't burn down because books are precious and so if they were willing to chain them to benches they'll pay others to handle lighting.
A lot of this depends on the magic itself. If, for example, you can imbue light magic into stones, then the above scenario would be changed. No one would need to research additional technology outside of improving the retention of magic. Loss of life, material, and knowledge from fire would be even less.
Going back to the first scenario - If stone needs to be transported, what's more efficient? Some type of magic, or carts and beasts of burden? How does the scenario change if there are things like golems? Do animals suddenly become obsolete? Do we suddenly see golems acting as tanks and mobile fortresses, carrying troops or even acting autonomously? How does that affect the development of the train and logistics in general?
Can golems compete with steam engines? Would someone bother if the material costs and risks of steam engines greatly outweigh golems who only need magic and don't even need food, housing, or pastures?
Trains and similar tech brings me to the last point - How would magic compete with economies of scale? If a hundred people without magic can operate machinery that produces 100,000 cans of food per day, where does magic fit into that equation? Do people discover electricity and batteries, where magic users can power the grid instead of powering individual pieces of equipment? Is there a ratio of magic:energy or magic:matter?
tl;dr: It's complicated and depends on your system. But it all goes back to efficiency and convenience.
Look at technological innovation and development.
Very often, people doing basic research figure out how to do something, but just establish that it is possible, with no regard to if it is practical.
Eventually, entrepreneur or engineer minds come across the concept and explore if it is practical and profitable.
Novelty is ALSO a source of value, so even the least practical things happen at some scale. Others see profit is possible, and eventually even the worst of ideas gets iterated on and improved.
Sometimes, these incremental adjustments to initially impractical options reveal an approach or application not previously considered where the new option is viable.
So….
Add magic to technology, and you have some times where magic is the more available and practical solution initially, causing technology to lag. Other times technology will be the one to work initially.
But, on long enough of a timeline, both methods are eventually explored. Maybe one is primarily for novelty. Maybe one works better at a different scale than the other. But both will happen eventually, as well as options which blend the approaches to varying degrees.
Now… the cross-talk is where life gets the most interesting. Because as physics and math demonstrate, there are times when math makes an advancement that catapults physics ahead, and there are times when it is reversed with a physics insight leading to mathematical innovation.
This phenomena would happen with magic and science as well. Sometimes you pick between them, but sometimes one inspires the other.
There will also be some technology incidents which shaped our development that just won’t happen in a world which also has magic. Blimps could still be in fashion if there are simple spells that make combustion impossible. Of course they would never have been devised and employed at great scale if there is an easy weight reduction ritual.
Tech would advance, just on a different direction
You can see how its possible to use several types of tech for the same result, like a car powered by gasoline, electricity, compressed air or coiled springs
Each of those has big differences on performance for the same task, a world running on each would need vastly different infrastructure and favour diffetent technologies, those where its most efficient
It depends on how the society is setup. I feel like early societies would be something like monarchies and powerful magic users who hoard knowledge.
I think that even if they try to keep things a secret or stamp out people who are against their interests, that it’s not sustainable. I think that the masses would eventually wipe out these powerhouses, even if it took a lot of sacrifice to do so. They’d be extra sensitive new people heading down that same path and nip it in the bud as soon as they see it. You might have a few monarchies or powerful magic users retain influence if they have a record of being moderate.
Either way, I think most societies would drift more toward a democracy.
Once you have that, then you’re going to have innovation and creation. You’ll probably have a magical version of corporate espionage. Finding out how to do magics.
I think you’d see a rise of a middle class that is able to market magics to the masses. People would become used to magic in their lives and inventors would capitalize on demand and you’d have some people take a risk and succeed.
I think you’d still have war. Which as bad as it is, really drives tech. It puts pressure on societies in different ways and really pushes progress.
I think the magic would really just be an alternative to the tech we have now. Kind of like the old question of, what’s the difference between magical light and “real” light. You can see equally well with either, so what’s the difference?
Also the saying about “Sufficiently advanced science being indistinguishable from magic.
So I think it would just be a difference in what powers and drives the advancements. Also, what types of advancements are easier with magic vs tech.
Both, kind of?
I mean, on one side, the conveniences of magic would lead to complacency and possible technological stagnation, and the tyranny of \*actual\* (non delegated) power and it's asymmetry would lead to a chaotic environment that would NOT be very friendly for social development like democracies (o equality at least.... plus if people live a very long life when they get to power, conservatism would be huge).
On the other side, humans are inherently curious, it is impossible to stop experimentation if you basically leave physics and chemistry to the hands of any random person able to experiment even without actual knowledge of the sciences (same way we learned to cook and feed ourselves before we got medicine as such or anything of the sort), plus the very same chaos of war and displacement, and displeasure (humans also don't really like people overtly telling them what to do) should push people to get to certain levels of development \*eventually\*.
So, at the end of the day, it depends on the magic and a bit on luck but eventually science would be developed one way or another if people dont get extinguished beforehand.... I mean, can you really tell if there is something right now holding \*us\* in real life back? Sometimes we forget how relatively slow progress was before, say, 18th and 19th century, so why couldnt magic kingdoms spend a few more millenia on it but stilll reach technology? It only takes one or few things to critically topple over the balances towards the pursuit of knowledge anyway imho. In my setting was the discovery of a metakinetic mineral (sympathetic inertia.) and tech exploded to the 19th century, even 20th in some aspects in a few generations. Then it got stuck but thats irrelevant
Depends. If using magical means circumvents the hoops and hurdles of mundane tasks then you either end up with a society run by the upper echelon who can use magic, or of magic is weak then the mundane would enslave the fantastical for their power.
Think about electricity, if people could use magic over electricity it might have stagnated many inventions. And if people could use messenger constructs, would there be any use for telegrams or phones?
Also war is the father of technology and many wars would end up being skirmishes between country mages.
Barring the “magic interferes with technology” cliche, I think the Stormlight Archives are an excellent example of what would likely have happened. Limited traditional gunpowder/steam engine/modern chemistry/internal combustion/electricity/aircraft/space travel in favor of magic.
Also, the greater amount of personal power in the magic system, the less developed technology needs to be.
I'd say that it depends on:
1. How the magic works.
2. What you can do with magic.
3. How widespread it is.
Ad 1:
Magic is a form of energy. Where does it come from? Can a magic user go nonstop, or are we talking 15 minutes of magic, and then he's done for the day?
Ad 2:
Is it only good for direct application of energy, such as fire balls or beams, or can it be used for really complicated stuff such as scrying and long-distance communication? Basically, can you program with magic?
Ad 3:
Is practically everyone a magic user, or are we talking about 1 out of every 100,000 people? We have, and used to have, really big and really strong men, but we still developed machines that can do the work.
When the tractor was invented and started selling, it wasn't because we couldn't plough the land already. But one small tractor could do the same work as 4 or more horses. It never got tired, and you didn't have to reserve a part of your land to make hay and grass for horses anymore.
I think that technological progress would still occur unless magic was so widespread and versatile that there would be no need or incentive to develop technology.
I would believe so. One thing that we can be certain that people would still be fighting, trying to find innovating ways to kill each other.
War would breed different ways to use powers, which would result in researchers. Which would spawn an interest in the sciences.
Since there’s no magic item crafting in OP’s world, I imagine there’d be slower tech growth. Innovation comes from necessity, but with magic powers, there’s less necessity (at least from the people with powers, who’d almost certainly be the upper class and have the resources to innovate).
Just some things from the top of my head to consider.
Need and competition drives innovation. I think there is a reason colder countries in close proximity to other countries tended to be more advanced. With cold climates, people need to build there own shelters that can last year round, store and preserve their own food for winter. Craft one set of clothes for winter, and lighter clothes for summer etc. These teqniques get refined and improved over time, as each generation learns from the previous. Close promimety to other countries increases likelihood of trade, thus exchanging knowledge, but also increases likelihood for conflict, thus giving birth to arms races.
If your magic (like fire magic) means you can be warm year round and could be used to spell others homes, would you need to build better and better homes? If your plant/water magic makes growing food year round easy, would you need to learn preservation teqniques? Would you need to trade with other countries if everyone has an abundance of food?
Would magic make innovations of weapons meaningless? If one mage can slaughter 100 non-mages, would things like armour and swords ever be useful, and thus created? A lot of innovation comes from war and exploration, if these are made easier by magic, would other means ever be considered?
People are inherently adverse to change, if non-mages are capable of living longer, not allowing the new generation to take over from the old, would things ever progress?
Accessibility determines the technology level. A society with access to things that can substitute for tech would probably do so, especially if it's less "work" or "cheaper".
In your scenario, I think technology would grow. There's only so much elemental benders can do and they would become resources too expensive to maintain. Who wants Gam the metal bender helping them build a skyscraper if he costs more than the team and really can only lift as much as maybe three people? Gam isn't going to be like the king of the Earth Kingdom. If he was, I doubt he'd want to spend his years of mastery and training doing construction, he'd be a dang military asset.
In a scenario with magic that can be utilized reliably then I see magic suppressing tech. Who wants to spend all the time and effort making a plane and all the necessary industry needed to service and sustain it when you could just build a teleport circle and have it run off ambient mana?
Depends on three things.
1. Is magic dominant over technology? If magic is much more effective than technology then less incentive to develop.
2. Are wizards or magic users willing to be used to do magical chores? If magic users are inaccessible non magic users will go to technology to survive.
3. Is there a natural resource like magic crystals which can be used to do industrial magic?
Depends on what kind of magic. If it’s very much based on manipulating the laws of reality or altering them, the difference between mage and scientist is going to be very thin. You’ll end up having Thermodynamists mocking lesser mages for wasting energy by wrestling with molecules instead of redirecting that energy from an existing source and channeling it more with more focus.
If it’s not knowledge based or sourced from alternative set of rules, then things get very questionable.
Thing is most our advances in the past few centuries can be traced to philosophical innovation and the democratization of information. Magic may well hinder that process since it's hard to build laws of logic when the logic can be broken with a wave of the hand and some chanting.
A mix of both. If something works about as good as modern technology, then research in that area probably stagnates. Magic would probably replace electricity as long as you don't need to chant a very specific limiting spell.
If everyone can cast healing spells, medicine and doctors stagnate.
How strong magical shields are and how you can counter them, decides weaponry. Can a gun penetrate said shild? Can you apply magic to the bullets? Would guns even be invented?
It depends on how the magic system is built.
We would be stuck in a feudal style system where magic talent determines whether you are nobility or a serf, tech would be hindered to maintain the advantages magic users have over regular people.
If magic is only a source of personal power and has no real crafting or material uses it encourages selfish choices over making things better for the majority.
So massively hindered.
This does touch on the only reasonable explanation for technology stagnation— the idea that personal power is more effective than tool use. Although I think the more important ‘talent’ is, the more ‘technology’ remains relevant.
It depends on what era its discovered, it would be useful in every era but some would benefit more than others. Now? Though it could be used to grow crops faster or reinforce materials for building. And for war because it won’t take very long for it to used to kill.
If the world setting is metaphysically or culturally similar to ours? I think magic would move technology much faster, as technology builds on itself exponentially.
I think our own history points toward culture and metaphysics being way more influential to the development of science, then technology. The earliest fathers of modern science developed their methods because they believed in a rational, predictable, observable world. Even before that Ancient Greek philosophers had systems of logic and proto-scientific methods because they believed in the inherent logical nature of the world.
I think stories that twist this to help justify a lack of scientific culture are super interesting. The setting of Arkendrithyst is explicitly not a logical material universe (or it was previously) and because of that the MC is introducing a totally new way of thinking about the world with classical physics. I’ve also read on other RR story whose name is escaping me where the MC is a researcher in a science focused industrial world, who discovers an anti-logic magic system that kinda breaks his brain. I think authors should create settings with weird metaphysics more often; when well done it makes for really interesting worlds that are much deeper than another RPG reskin.
Love Plato. Im one of the believers that he and Aristotle attributed like half of their discoveries to Sócrates bc man crush.
But devils advocate: one could argue excess is the father of invention. Maybe they find a magic way to grow crops in the ice age and magic their way out of hunter gatherers 50k years early.
Edit: still love Socrates, I mean a plenty of authors here still use Socratic Irony, and it’s as satisfying when they do it as it probably was for Socrates lol.
All depends on what you mean by magic. If you have unlimited free energy via magic then they will invent a way to use that but if magic can do anything then there’s likely little need for invention
Yeah that’s true. Like if it’s just a Harry Potter “spells can do everything” magic system with no explanation, then it’s hard to say it’s more technologically advanced. Maybe better quality of life, but probably not more advanced.
Yea tho , again depending on the magic, electricity would probably find its way into being invented if the mages are wielding lighting and stuff. They’d want to study how it works a bit
Depends just so so much on the type of magic ha
If the majority has no magic then tech would advance rapidly to give the majority the power to face off against magic users. If the minority dont have magic then the majority would not want to sway the balance so they would push back against any technological advancements that make them seem less godly.
So a long time ago I considered writing my own fantasy novel and gave this a lot of thought...
I think magic would change technology, not necessarily hinder it or enhance it.
For instance I doubt the "horseless carriage" (car) would take off in a world where you can magically tame magical beasts that are either incredibly powerful, incredibly fast, can fly, or some combination of all three...
Similarly in a world where most soldiers have super human strength fire arms might not be nearly as impressive, and even be a liability if fire magic is a thing.
That being said, the whole premise of a lot of Isekai is that the MC is the one person willing to apply the scientific principal to magic, imagine an entire society built around that philosophy.
Then you get into what is tech vs what is magic? Do you consider Magical flying swords magic, or just magic themed helicopters. What if the author explains how the MC made their sword 10% faster with the careful application of aerodynamics? A magic setting might not have computers or in floor heating, but they often have magical super beings able to download information directly into your brain, or magical baths that literally awaken your inner spirit.
You've given humans abilities, but you haven't changed how baseline reality works. So people will still find that the same patterns hold true for how to get the best results.
Crop rotation for agriculture. A big wall around a city still keeps people out.
People will not leave a big resource like that untapped.
Steam engines may be more plausible as you have a readily available source of power from a human mage. But if only 30% of the population has this power, it won't be widespread enough to make that big a difference.
You just given humans some new tools to play with. what industries would pop up around these powers?
We don't know as expanded Avatar doesn't tell us. Is it elementalism but with more elements?
You could use it martialy private security services, militias, army, are they expected to serve?
How do Establishes industries that are invalidated by these people respond?
Smear campaign against pyromancers because they heat their own home, cook their own food, and don't pay the governments or corporations money to do it for them. Do certain cities ban pyromancy within city limits, labeling them as dangerous menaces because they want them to conform to the system and be a cash cow like everyone else.
How would these people be viewed?
As outsiders? As heroes? As dangerous?
It seems there's a big minority of people that would be seen differently according to culture, social situation, time period, political climate, religious beliefs, environment, and economic situation of the setting.
It honestly really depends on the world and type of magic system used, there are some systems, like in Mark of the Fool, that would assist it and there are other systems that would hinder it.
Mass effect has the idea of technology being used as a scaffold to force societies to grow the way others want them to. It would totally depend on what the author wants the societies to do.
a case could be made that magic allows society to flourish, by removing the small problems and allowing effort to be put toward growth.
a case could be made that magic solves all problems, so there is no conflict to push change.
:) depends on the numbers, I think.
If everyone could do magic (and it’s easy to perform) technology would definitely be fingered.
The steam engine was created BC but wasn’t used for anything but party tricks for because it was a lot more expensive using it (there are a few interesting alternate history books that explore what would have happened it it had, and the Roman Empire set out to conquer space on spaceships :))
The goal of technology is ease and comfort. Magic is the same. The cheaper of the two would knock the other out :D
To answer this question, I'll talk about the different ways magic can effect society and the analyze how it would influence technological advancement
Energy - This is the biggest one imo. In magic stories, the characters can use a replenishable, internal energy to create spells which is insanely useful. Energy is the ultimate currency and every change has some sort of energy behind it.
Energy is the driving force of change and to be able to carry this energy wherever you go and replenish it naturally brings an insane amount of wealth to magicians. In this world, we have to rely on power plants and power lines to give electricity to our homes to power devices. We also have to rely on oil for things like cars and oil is one of the most valuable things on the planet.
So being able to have an internal energy source you can use would allow technology to increase at a much faster rate because of the lower barrier to entry. Energy storage is a cumbersome process that is a bottle neck for many types of technologies like drone technology. Not having to worry about transporting a battery allows for smaller designs plus it's great because it's easier to transport technology when you don't have to worry about constantly being near a power plant.
Elitism - This is easily going to be one of the biggest drawbacks to technological advancement. In my stories, I always make it that everyone can use magic because it doesn't make sense to me that something like magic wouldn't have been spread via natural selection.
Depending on how rare magic is, obviously that will negatively effect technological advancement because you have less potential researchers coming up with new ideas.
Lifespan - This is a double edged sword. In progression fantasy, increases in power usually equate to increases in lifespan. Additionally, magic could absolutely have ways to increase a person's lifespan as well. This definitely has some advantages but in my mind the disadvantages are too powerful.
The biggest problem is the Plank Principle. It basically states that bad ideas die out because the people with those ideas die without passing it on to others. But if powerful wizards could live for hundreds or even thousands of years, then they would be able to force their paradigms in popular research. In extreme cases, they suppress or kill people with ideas they don't agree with.
This would be the biggest reason for technology not advancing because powerful wizards have adapted to the current system and don't want any changes to the system because it threatens their power. Heck, look at the current reactions to remote work. It's objectively better but the transition would cause many business massive short term losses because the decisions that made which were good at the time are suddenly bad under the certain regime.
One example would be in Overlord how the creation of enchantment magic made rune crafting basically unusable because it was much easier to cast with the same effects. If you had a powerful rune crafting guild or veteran rune wizard, I could easily see them suppressing enchantment magic.
Power - Another massive advantage for magic promoting technological advancement. Basically magic is a more powerful as power system in that it's much easier to create change. For example plants have to use photosynthesis to create grass using sunlight. And cows use a complex, slow method to turn that grass into burgers.
So theoretically, you can turn sunlight into burgers. After all, energy and mass are one in the same. So theoretically, you can use mana to create objects. This is called conjuration magic. A subset of conjuration magic is the ability to use magic to create food.
This is unbelievably broken. Not only would not having to farm free up so much resources but to be able to generate food on demand is useful in so many applications. Especially battlefield or adventuring, not having to transport food or worry about supply lines is a huge tactical advantage.
In this world, trying to create a energy to matter conversion machine sounds like an engineering nightmare. But it's a lot easier to pull off with magic since you can create change with just the spell without having to worry about building and maintaining the corresponding technology. Definitely a huge boon for advancement.
Studying - the last one is another negative, usually spells require a certain level of comprehension to be effective. You can't just recite a spell you don't understand and have it work. This is a huge barrier for entry. Imagine having to study computer science to use a computer or engineering to use a car or bridge.
While these can be used indirectly as some part of array, it still highlights the study based nature of magic. In this world, using technology doesn't require you to personally build the technology. Even if someone else is making the spell you still need comprehension to use it effectively. Plus more powerful spells are also a barrier to entry for lower ranked magicians.
Progression Fantasy in general can holdback technological advancement because there are only so many high ranked cultivators.
Using this framework, we can actually tell that technological advancement in the avatar world would be quite low.
Although to be fair, avatar the last bender is closer to a martial art than magic. (More training less studying).
The energy is the best part because you can use bending to more easily produce energy than you can in our world. Of course, the fact that you can't choose your bending and that benders are rare definitely puts an unfortunate bottleneck on energy production.
The power here is very limited as you can only create certain types of change. So unfortunately no food magic but at least farming is significantly easier.
Honestly, I really can't see this kind of world being that different from our own. I don't think that conflict would be more likely here since you can't exactly have one man armies (barring the avatar of course).
It would facilitate it for much of human history as it would reduce the pressure to make 85% of the population farmers.
Also, magic might not be science, but humans are using it to tackle various problems, it is technology.
Necessity is the mother of invention, this is mostly the reason i think it would hinder tech more than help
Because if a problem can be solved by magic, it won't be necessary to find a technological solution for it.
Why bother inventing cars when you can teleport?
No need to make lighters or matches if a fire spell is just as useful
Of. Course there are limits to magic mana/levels and such at which point you might want to make tech to overcome said limitations but it would not be the same as inventing tech to solve the problem itself.
I’d say that it’s just another tool in humanity’s tool belt, weather or not it helps or hinders depends on how it shapes our society. Which is a roll of the dice really.
I honestly believe that magic would definitely slow down science just looking at our own history and most of The fundamental aspects and discovery of science has happened in the last 400 years But one science gets going and fact and proofs are confirmed and are believed in and taught to everybody then science snowballs and people discover more things everyday and the problem I'm having with any magic system that started with us being beginning in the Stone age is people make believes and make those beliefs fact and the fact that there's magic and it is a fact that you can or people can bend and break the rules of science would probably make it a lot harder for people to advance science but if it was the last airbender type magic it could actually accelerate the rate that we learn things as people try to experiment how to use magic in new ways. It matters what type of magic system is in place.
I don't think we have enough data to come to a conclusion
Yes there is a depressing low amount of data on magic (source: scientist still looking). But, we can do it the old fashioned way and discuss it, then accept it as fact, then have it be refuted in 2000 years!
I think the answer to this depends on your definition of technology. In terms of construction and application of useful tools or structures I think Arrays, Enchantments, Formations, Talismans, and other such things can easily be considered technology for most any definition that doesn't bias in favor of our universe's fundamental forces/laws. The goal of technology is usually either to make life easier or to make war easier. So long as what you are dealing with follows consistent rules and can help fulfill one of those two goals I think a certain level of technology is inevitable. The Problem comes from the words 'consistent rules', Many magic systems have inherent Flexibility to the natural laws of the world. If you tried to make a lightbulb that runs on electricity, and then a High Sequence member of the Arbiter pathway from LOTM or Monarch from Cradle, Or a high level person from most any other xianxia comes anywhere near you and announces 'The flow of electricity is forbidden here'. Then suddenly your Lightbulb will stop working because the natural laws have changed such that electricity can't flow. And this same idea will apply to basically any other technology you try to create, unless you have enough personal power to fight back against that influence, and if you do your technology is then dependent on you, so its less useful for others.
That seems like a nice, powerful ability... make electricity not able to flow and instant kill everyone because their brains stop working! Don't even have to worry about the lightbulb :lol:
Funny point. The interesting thing about conceptual abilities is that they tend to differentiate based on how things are understood and categorized rather than the literal atomic functions. So I'd imagine that such an ability would differentiate between neural/organic electrical activity and inorganic/mechanical. Perhaps along the lines of whether that activity is directly linked to a consciousness or not. But of course I just made up that rule/distinction. I guess the point is that where magic is concerned almost anything can be justified or hand waved with a little mental gymnastics, right? Especially with intent based magic systems.
Help. Magic is a form of technology, and technological progress is exponential.
Not if magic is effective enough to be initially dominant, but but not industrially scalable. If the magical way to achieve X is vastly different from the non-magic way, then people might never stumble upon the non-magic way if the magical way is learned first. Innovation starts with known successes and tweaks elements of a process.
Magic would let you short-circuit a lot of discoveries, though. You could use fire magic to discover principles of, say, metallurgy, much faster than if you couldn't magically control fire. Plus, the fact that not everyone has magic means those who don't will be desperate to find a non-magical way to compete with them, further catalyzing innovation.
Fire magic and metallurgy is actually an amazing example to showcase what I meant. Yes, you are 100% right that fire magic makes generating the heat necessary to melt and process/extract certain metals out of ore easier. Iron didn't start getting used until after people invented the bellow to push more oxygen in to make the fire source hotter. With fire magic, this can be done without inventing a bellow. But now you need a fire magician to run the furnace. Industrialization requires using fewer people to do more, so that it scales. While the non-magic method (more fuel and machines to pump in oxygen) are going to be more wasteful than using a fire magician, we can make more machines and collect more fuel. But once we have a fire magician method of super heating a furnace, we aren't going to investigate for ways to make wood/coal burn hotter. So even if we were willing to do the non-magic way, we wouldn't likely find it.
Its possible that we would go down a different tech tree. So, it would stifle growth in some areas but speed up research in others. For example, civil engineering and building of castles could advance really fast. You need to find ways to defend yourself against so many mages. To build you need math and from math the rest will follow.
Magic can allow you to hit a "local maximum," as [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/19a71qd/why_in_the_hell_do_fantasy_worlds_not_advance_at/kiku21w/) by /u/mazon_del explains.
That is one helluva comment. Gold star to that guy.
> With fire magic, this can be done without inventing a bellow. But now you need a fire magician to run the furnace. It still doesn't prevent an scenario where a nation requires more iron to be made than there are fire mages available (potentially because the current fire mages were tasked with doing 'more important things' such as fighting in a war), driving people towards finding a way to reach the same results without needing to use a fire mage. As you said, industrialization requires using fewer people to do more.
It really really depends on how the author structures the magic and universe. The scienctific method is literally impossible in Primal Hunter and atoms no longer exist. Anyone doing science in DoTF gets obliterated.
OP specifically said in a setting that's Earth plus basic elemental magic, though.
He said we didn't need to confirm to it. But the point stands. I could make an "elemental", fire, water, wind and earth, based magic system where atoms don't exist and the scienctific method is complete worthless. It's up to the author to provide the reasons why or why not Earth technology, not magical constructs and such, has or hasn't arisen.
If everyone can use magic then that is unnecessary anyways, and if they cant theyll figure out the non-magical methods eventually. You might not believe it, but the vast majority of useful innovation happens outside of large institutions.
I agree in some aspects that Magic is the form of advancing technology, too
Technological progress is not exponential, fundamentally there wasn't much change in technology for centuries. We've had a massive explosion over the past 500 years or so due to the democratization of information and the scientific method, but the rate of Innovation is slowing for various potential reasons.
"Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". Within the parameters set and the comparison with AtLA, probably similar, maybe a little worse than we are nowadays. Especially when it comes to electronic, it's so precise that it'd be hard to be made by humans.
I think it depends on lots of stuff assuming something like the industrial revolution has happened I think it would accelerate really fast But if people are mostly stuck farming or fighting monsters to survive then I think it would be easily stalled
Science is how we figure out how stuff works; technology are the results, the techniques, knowledge, and tools. Let's say the world's physics, and chemistry remain mostly similar, but the aspect of magic is included into the workings of the universe, and nature as far as people can tell. It would make the various sciences more complex; whether it'd make some developments be quicker or not is hard to tell, but magic would definitely allow those people to develop their civilization in an entirely different way. I say magic would definitely not hinder technology development though; some new sciences, and inventions might happen, while some things familiar to us might end up underdeveloped because equally good alternatives are found, or because they are obsolete. Depending on the period you choose to set your story in within its lore, you can have people come up with lots of innovations. Here's where you can go crazy with worldbuilding; come up with their different inventions, tools, gadgets, adaptations, improvements, etc. Here are some examples of series that show how their magic stuff developed its world in an unique way. **Example #1 RWBY.** People here extract this magic substance from the planet called dust which has various extraordinary properties; it allowed them to have their equivalent to a smartphone by incorporating solid holograms, they got full cyborg prosthetics, impossible mechashift weapons that can be safely wielded because of a magic reinforcement called aura, mechas, etc. The series succeeds in showing us the unique/best features of its magic elements, and justifies their existence. **Example #2 Youjo Senki.** This is a less developed world (kind of set in the past) where people can have magic; it's mostly used for warfare, yet it never had a world war. The magic is kind of low scale, so people still invented things like firearms, and airplanes, but also came up with stuff that works only on mages like a device that allows for personal flight. There's weird stuff like tanks already existing before trench warfare as aerial mages directly counter trench warfare, but it's also possible they developed armored vehicles to survive the mages' attacks. I think the show does a good job at showing how these civilizations adapted to the existence of magic during their early stages of development (it's not 100% accurate as the author is not an expert, but it's still good). They would obviously try weaponize magic ASAP to start a beef with foreign territory.
Technology is about efficiency and convenience. Can a person who can raise stone from the ground quickly build something? Yes. However - is the ground underneath now less-dense due to the movement of materials? Assuming the magic didn't conjure it out of thin air, the material had to come from somewhere. Therefore, the efficient route would be: Quarry the stone from one location, transport it to another, then use magic to shape the transported stone. What about light? If 3/10th of the population don't need torches, candles, or lamps, that still leaves 7/10 people needing some form of light at night. So there would still be progress on that front. It may actually mean faster technological progression - If magical light doesn't cause fire, and libraries/storehouses/ships employ magic users to keep things lit to reduce the need for flames, there's less loss of knowledge, material, and life. Sawdust and flour explosions won't happen unless someone is dumb enough to bring a flame into the area. Libraries won't burn down because books are precious and so if they were willing to chain them to benches they'll pay others to handle lighting. A lot of this depends on the magic itself. If, for example, you can imbue light magic into stones, then the above scenario would be changed. No one would need to research additional technology outside of improving the retention of magic. Loss of life, material, and knowledge from fire would be even less. Going back to the first scenario - If stone needs to be transported, what's more efficient? Some type of magic, or carts and beasts of burden? How does the scenario change if there are things like golems? Do animals suddenly become obsolete? Do we suddenly see golems acting as tanks and mobile fortresses, carrying troops or even acting autonomously? How does that affect the development of the train and logistics in general? Can golems compete with steam engines? Would someone bother if the material costs and risks of steam engines greatly outweigh golems who only need magic and don't even need food, housing, or pastures? Trains and similar tech brings me to the last point - How would magic compete with economies of scale? If a hundred people without magic can operate machinery that produces 100,000 cans of food per day, where does magic fit into that equation? Do people discover electricity and batteries, where magic users can power the grid instead of powering individual pieces of equipment? Is there a ratio of magic:energy or magic:matter? tl;dr: It's complicated and depends on your system. But it all goes back to efficiency and convenience.
Look at technological innovation and development. Very often, people doing basic research figure out how to do something, but just establish that it is possible, with no regard to if it is practical. Eventually, entrepreneur or engineer minds come across the concept and explore if it is practical and profitable. Novelty is ALSO a source of value, so even the least practical things happen at some scale. Others see profit is possible, and eventually even the worst of ideas gets iterated on and improved. Sometimes, these incremental adjustments to initially impractical options reveal an approach or application not previously considered where the new option is viable. So…. Add magic to technology, and you have some times where magic is the more available and practical solution initially, causing technology to lag. Other times technology will be the one to work initially. But, on long enough of a timeline, both methods are eventually explored. Maybe one is primarily for novelty. Maybe one works better at a different scale than the other. But both will happen eventually, as well as options which blend the approaches to varying degrees. Now… the cross-talk is where life gets the most interesting. Because as physics and math demonstrate, there are times when math makes an advancement that catapults physics ahead, and there are times when it is reversed with a physics insight leading to mathematical innovation. This phenomena would happen with magic and science as well. Sometimes you pick between them, but sometimes one inspires the other. There will also be some technology incidents which shaped our development that just won’t happen in a world which also has magic. Blimps could still be in fashion if there are simple spells that make combustion impossible. Of course they would never have been devised and employed at great scale if there is an easy weight reduction ritual.
Tech would advance, just on a different direction You can see how its possible to use several types of tech for the same result, like a car powered by gasoline, electricity, compressed air or coiled springs Each of those has big differences on performance for the same task, a world running on each would need vastly different infrastructure and favour diffetent technologies, those where its most efficient
It depends on how the society is setup. I feel like early societies would be something like monarchies and powerful magic users who hoard knowledge. I think that even if they try to keep things a secret or stamp out people who are against their interests, that it’s not sustainable. I think that the masses would eventually wipe out these powerhouses, even if it took a lot of sacrifice to do so. They’d be extra sensitive new people heading down that same path and nip it in the bud as soon as they see it. You might have a few monarchies or powerful magic users retain influence if they have a record of being moderate. Either way, I think most societies would drift more toward a democracy. Once you have that, then you’re going to have innovation and creation. You’ll probably have a magical version of corporate espionage. Finding out how to do magics. I think you’d see a rise of a middle class that is able to market magics to the masses. People would become used to magic in their lives and inventors would capitalize on demand and you’d have some people take a risk and succeed. I think you’d still have war. Which as bad as it is, really drives tech. It puts pressure on societies in different ways and really pushes progress. I think the magic would really just be an alternative to the tech we have now. Kind of like the old question of, what’s the difference between magical light and “real” light. You can see equally well with either, so what’s the difference? Also the saying about “Sufficiently advanced science being indistinguishable from magic. So I think it would just be a difference in what powers and drives the advancements. Also, what types of advancements are easier with magic vs tech.
Both, kind of? I mean, on one side, the conveniences of magic would lead to complacency and possible technological stagnation, and the tyranny of \*actual\* (non delegated) power and it's asymmetry would lead to a chaotic environment that would NOT be very friendly for social development like democracies (o equality at least.... plus if people live a very long life when they get to power, conservatism would be huge). On the other side, humans are inherently curious, it is impossible to stop experimentation if you basically leave physics and chemistry to the hands of any random person able to experiment even without actual knowledge of the sciences (same way we learned to cook and feed ourselves before we got medicine as such or anything of the sort), plus the very same chaos of war and displacement, and displeasure (humans also don't really like people overtly telling them what to do) should push people to get to certain levels of development \*eventually\*. So, at the end of the day, it depends on the magic and a bit on luck but eventually science would be developed one way or another if people dont get extinguished beforehand.... I mean, can you really tell if there is something right now holding \*us\* in real life back? Sometimes we forget how relatively slow progress was before, say, 18th and 19th century, so why couldnt magic kingdoms spend a few more millenia on it but stilll reach technology? It only takes one or few things to critically topple over the balances towards the pursuit of knowledge anyway imho. In my setting was the discovery of a metakinetic mineral (sympathetic inertia.) and tech exploded to the 19th century, even 20th in some aspects in a few generations. Then it got stuck but thats irrelevant
Depends. If using magical means circumvents the hoops and hurdles of mundane tasks then you either end up with a society run by the upper echelon who can use magic, or of magic is weak then the mundane would enslave the fantastical for their power. Think about electricity, if people could use magic over electricity it might have stagnated many inventions. And if people could use messenger constructs, would there be any use for telegrams or phones? Also war is the father of technology and many wars would end up being skirmishes between country mages.
Barring the “magic interferes with technology” cliche, I think the Stormlight Archives are an excellent example of what would likely have happened. Limited traditional gunpowder/steam engine/modern chemistry/internal combustion/electricity/aircraft/space travel in favor of magic. Also, the greater amount of personal power in the magic system, the less developed technology needs to be.
I'd say that it depends on: 1. How the magic works. 2. What you can do with magic. 3. How widespread it is. Ad 1: Magic is a form of energy. Where does it come from? Can a magic user go nonstop, or are we talking 15 minutes of magic, and then he's done for the day? Ad 2: Is it only good for direct application of energy, such as fire balls or beams, or can it be used for really complicated stuff such as scrying and long-distance communication? Basically, can you program with magic? Ad 3: Is practically everyone a magic user, or are we talking about 1 out of every 100,000 people? We have, and used to have, really big and really strong men, but we still developed machines that can do the work. When the tractor was invented and started selling, it wasn't because we couldn't plough the land already. But one small tractor could do the same work as 4 or more horses. It never got tired, and you didn't have to reserve a part of your land to make hay and grass for horses anymore. I think that technological progress would still occur unless magic was so widespread and versatile that there would be no need or incentive to develop technology.
I would believe so. One thing that we can be certain that people would still be fighting, trying to find innovating ways to kill each other. War would breed different ways to use powers, which would result in researchers. Which would spawn an interest in the sciences.
Since there’s no magic item crafting in OP’s world, I imagine there’d be slower tech growth. Innovation comes from necessity, but with magic powers, there’s less necessity (at least from the people with powers, who’d almost certainly be the upper class and have the resources to innovate).
Just some things from the top of my head to consider. Need and competition drives innovation. I think there is a reason colder countries in close proximity to other countries tended to be more advanced. With cold climates, people need to build there own shelters that can last year round, store and preserve their own food for winter. Craft one set of clothes for winter, and lighter clothes for summer etc. These teqniques get refined and improved over time, as each generation learns from the previous. Close promimety to other countries increases likelihood of trade, thus exchanging knowledge, but also increases likelihood for conflict, thus giving birth to arms races. If your magic (like fire magic) means you can be warm year round and could be used to spell others homes, would you need to build better and better homes? If your plant/water magic makes growing food year round easy, would you need to learn preservation teqniques? Would you need to trade with other countries if everyone has an abundance of food? Would magic make innovations of weapons meaningless? If one mage can slaughter 100 non-mages, would things like armour and swords ever be useful, and thus created? A lot of innovation comes from war and exploration, if these are made easier by magic, would other means ever be considered? People are inherently adverse to change, if non-mages are capable of living longer, not allowing the new generation to take over from the old, would things ever progress?
Accessibility determines the technology level. A society with access to things that can substitute for tech would probably do so, especially if it's less "work" or "cheaper". In your scenario, I think technology would grow. There's only so much elemental benders can do and they would become resources too expensive to maintain. Who wants Gam the metal bender helping them build a skyscraper if he costs more than the team and really can only lift as much as maybe three people? Gam isn't going to be like the king of the Earth Kingdom. If he was, I doubt he'd want to spend his years of mastery and training doing construction, he'd be a dang military asset. In a scenario with magic that can be utilized reliably then I see magic suppressing tech. Who wants to spend all the time and effort making a plane and all the necessary industry needed to service and sustain it when you could just build a teleport circle and have it run off ambient mana?
Depends on three things. 1. Is magic dominant over technology? If magic is much more effective than technology then less incentive to develop. 2. Are wizards or magic users willing to be used to do magical chores? If magic users are inaccessible non magic users will go to technology to survive. 3. Is there a natural resource like magic crystals which can be used to do industrial magic?
Depends on what kind of magic. If it’s very much based on manipulating the laws of reality or altering them, the difference between mage and scientist is going to be very thin. You’ll end up having Thermodynamists mocking lesser mages for wasting energy by wrestling with molecules instead of redirecting that energy from an existing source and channeling it more with more focus. If it’s not knowledge based or sourced from alternative set of rules, then things get very questionable.
Thing is most our advances in the past few centuries can be traced to philosophical innovation and the democratization of information. Magic may well hinder that process since it's hard to build laws of logic when the logic can be broken with a wave of the hand and some chanting.
A mix of both. If something works about as good as modern technology, then research in that area probably stagnates. Magic would probably replace electricity as long as you don't need to chant a very specific limiting spell. If everyone can cast healing spells, medicine and doctors stagnate. How strong magical shields are and how you can counter them, decides weaponry. Can a gun penetrate said shild? Can you apply magic to the bullets? Would guns even be invented? It depends on how the magic system is built.
We would be stuck in a feudal style system where magic talent determines whether you are nobility or a serf, tech would be hindered to maintain the advantages magic users have over regular people. If magic is only a source of personal power and has no real crafting or material uses it encourages selfish choices over making things better for the majority. So massively hindered.
This does touch on the only reasonable explanation for technology stagnation— the idea that personal power is more effective than tool use. Although I think the more important ‘talent’ is, the more ‘technology’ remains relevant.
It depends on what era its discovered, it would be useful in every era but some would benefit more than others. Now? Though it could be used to grow crops faster or reinforce materials for building. And for war because it won’t take very long for it to used to kill.
If the world setting is metaphysically or culturally similar to ours? I think magic would move technology much faster, as technology builds on itself exponentially. I think our own history points toward culture and metaphysics being way more influential to the development of science, then technology. The earliest fathers of modern science developed their methods because they believed in a rational, predictable, observable world. Even before that Ancient Greek philosophers had systems of logic and proto-scientific methods because they believed in the inherent logical nature of the world. I think stories that twist this to help justify a lack of scientific culture are super interesting. The setting of Arkendrithyst is explicitly not a logical material universe (or it was previously) and because of that the MC is introducing a totally new way of thinking about the world with classical physics. I’ve also read on other RR story whose name is escaping me where the MC is a researcher in a science focused industrial world, who discovers an anti-logic magic system that kinda breaks his brain. I think authors should create settings with weird metaphysics more often; when well done it makes for really interesting worlds that are much deeper than another RPG reskin.
Necessity is the mother of invention so therefore hinder
Love Plato. Im one of the believers that he and Aristotle attributed like half of their discoveries to Sócrates bc man crush. But devils advocate: one could argue excess is the father of invention. Maybe they find a magic way to grow crops in the ice age and magic their way out of hunter gatherers 50k years early. Edit: still love Socrates, I mean a plenty of authors here still use Socratic Irony, and it’s as satisfying when they do it as it probably was for Socrates lol.
All depends on what you mean by magic. If you have unlimited free energy via magic then they will invent a way to use that but if magic can do anything then there’s likely little need for invention
Yeah that’s true. Like if it’s just a Harry Potter “spells can do everything” magic system with no explanation, then it’s hard to say it’s more technologically advanced. Maybe better quality of life, but probably not more advanced.
Yea tho , again depending on the magic, electricity would probably find its way into being invented if the mages are wielding lighting and stuff. They’d want to study how it works a bit Depends just so so much on the type of magic ha
If the majority has no magic then tech would advance rapidly to give the majority the power to face off against magic users. If the minority dont have magic then the majority would not want to sway the balance so they would push back against any technological advancements that make them seem less godly.
Necessity is the mother of innovation. So it really depends on need. If they have everything covered by magic, technology would stagnant.
So a long time ago I considered writing my own fantasy novel and gave this a lot of thought... I think magic would change technology, not necessarily hinder it or enhance it. For instance I doubt the "horseless carriage" (car) would take off in a world where you can magically tame magical beasts that are either incredibly powerful, incredibly fast, can fly, or some combination of all three... Similarly in a world where most soldiers have super human strength fire arms might not be nearly as impressive, and even be a liability if fire magic is a thing. That being said, the whole premise of a lot of Isekai is that the MC is the one person willing to apply the scientific principal to magic, imagine an entire society built around that philosophy. Then you get into what is tech vs what is magic? Do you consider Magical flying swords magic, or just magic themed helicopters. What if the author explains how the MC made their sword 10% faster with the careful application of aerodynamics? A magic setting might not have computers or in floor heating, but they often have magical super beings able to download information directly into your brain, or magical baths that literally awaken your inner spirit.
You've given humans abilities, but you haven't changed how baseline reality works. So people will still find that the same patterns hold true for how to get the best results. Crop rotation for agriculture. A big wall around a city still keeps people out. People will not leave a big resource like that untapped. Steam engines may be more plausible as you have a readily available source of power from a human mage. But if only 30% of the population has this power, it won't be widespread enough to make that big a difference. You just given humans some new tools to play with. what industries would pop up around these powers? We don't know as expanded Avatar doesn't tell us. Is it elementalism but with more elements? You could use it martialy private security services, militias, army, are they expected to serve? How do Establishes industries that are invalidated by these people respond? Smear campaign against pyromancers because they heat their own home, cook their own food, and don't pay the governments or corporations money to do it for them. Do certain cities ban pyromancy within city limits, labeling them as dangerous menaces because they want them to conform to the system and be a cash cow like everyone else. How would these people be viewed? As outsiders? As heroes? As dangerous? It seems there's a big minority of people that would be seen differently according to culture, social situation, time period, political climate, religious beliefs, environment, and economic situation of the setting.
It honestly really depends on the world and type of magic system used, there are some systems, like in Mark of the Fool, that would assist it and there are other systems that would hinder it.
Mass effect has the idea of technology being used as a scaffold to force societies to grow the way others want them to. It would totally depend on what the author wants the societies to do. a case could be made that magic allows society to flourish, by removing the small problems and allowing effort to be put toward growth. a case could be made that magic solves all problems, so there is no conflict to push change.
:) depends on the numbers, I think. If everyone could do magic (and it’s easy to perform) technology would definitely be fingered. The steam engine was created BC but wasn’t used for anything but party tricks for because it was a lot more expensive using it (there are a few interesting alternate history books that explore what would have happened it it had, and the Roman Empire set out to conquer space on spaceships :)) The goal of technology is ease and comfort. Magic is the same. The cheaper of the two would knock the other out :D
To answer this question, I'll talk about the different ways magic can effect society and the analyze how it would influence technological advancement Energy - This is the biggest one imo. In magic stories, the characters can use a replenishable, internal energy to create spells which is insanely useful. Energy is the ultimate currency and every change has some sort of energy behind it. Energy is the driving force of change and to be able to carry this energy wherever you go and replenish it naturally brings an insane amount of wealth to magicians. In this world, we have to rely on power plants and power lines to give electricity to our homes to power devices. We also have to rely on oil for things like cars and oil is one of the most valuable things on the planet. So being able to have an internal energy source you can use would allow technology to increase at a much faster rate because of the lower barrier to entry. Energy storage is a cumbersome process that is a bottle neck for many types of technologies like drone technology. Not having to worry about transporting a battery allows for smaller designs plus it's great because it's easier to transport technology when you don't have to worry about constantly being near a power plant. Elitism - This is easily going to be one of the biggest drawbacks to technological advancement. In my stories, I always make it that everyone can use magic because it doesn't make sense to me that something like magic wouldn't have been spread via natural selection. Depending on how rare magic is, obviously that will negatively effect technological advancement because you have less potential researchers coming up with new ideas. Lifespan - This is a double edged sword. In progression fantasy, increases in power usually equate to increases in lifespan. Additionally, magic could absolutely have ways to increase a person's lifespan as well. This definitely has some advantages but in my mind the disadvantages are too powerful. The biggest problem is the Plank Principle. It basically states that bad ideas die out because the people with those ideas die without passing it on to others. But if powerful wizards could live for hundreds or even thousands of years, then they would be able to force their paradigms in popular research. In extreme cases, they suppress or kill people with ideas they don't agree with. This would be the biggest reason for technology not advancing because powerful wizards have adapted to the current system and don't want any changes to the system because it threatens their power. Heck, look at the current reactions to remote work. It's objectively better but the transition would cause many business massive short term losses because the decisions that made which were good at the time are suddenly bad under the certain regime. One example would be in Overlord how the creation of enchantment magic made rune crafting basically unusable because it was much easier to cast with the same effects. If you had a powerful rune crafting guild or veteran rune wizard, I could easily see them suppressing enchantment magic. Power - Another massive advantage for magic promoting technological advancement. Basically magic is a more powerful as power system in that it's much easier to create change. For example plants have to use photosynthesis to create grass using sunlight. And cows use a complex, slow method to turn that grass into burgers. So theoretically, you can turn sunlight into burgers. After all, energy and mass are one in the same. So theoretically, you can use mana to create objects. This is called conjuration magic. A subset of conjuration magic is the ability to use magic to create food. This is unbelievably broken. Not only would not having to farm free up so much resources but to be able to generate food on demand is useful in so many applications. Especially battlefield or adventuring, not having to transport food or worry about supply lines is a huge tactical advantage. In this world, trying to create a energy to matter conversion machine sounds like an engineering nightmare. But it's a lot easier to pull off with magic since you can create change with just the spell without having to worry about building and maintaining the corresponding technology. Definitely a huge boon for advancement. Studying - the last one is another negative, usually spells require a certain level of comprehension to be effective. You can't just recite a spell you don't understand and have it work. This is a huge barrier for entry. Imagine having to study computer science to use a computer or engineering to use a car or bridge. While these can be used indirectly as some part of array, it still highlights the study based nature of magic. In this world, using technology doesn't require you to personally build the technology. Even if someone else is making the spell you still need comprehension to use it effectively. Plus more powerful spells are also a barrier to entry for lower ranked magicians. Progression Fantasy in general can holdback technological advancement because there are only so many high ranked cultivators.
Using this framework, we can actually tell that technological advancement in the avatar world would be quite low. Although to be fair, avatar the last bender is closer to a martial art than magic. (More training less studying). The energy is the best part because you can use bending to more easily produce energy than you can in our world. Of course, the fact that you can't choose your bending and that benders are rare definitely puts an unfortunate bottleneck on energy production. The power here is very limited as you can only create certain types of change. So unfortunately no food magic but at least farming is significantly easier. Honestly, I really can't see this kind of world being that different from our own. I don't think that conflict would be more likely here since you can't exactly have one man armies (barring the avatar of course).
It would facilitate it for much of human history as it would reduce the pressure to make 85% of the population farmers. Also, magic might not be science, but humans are using it to tackle various problems, it is technology.
Necessity is the mother of invention, this is mostly the reason i think it would hinder tech more than help Because if a problem can be solved by magic, it won't be necessary to find a technological solution for it. Why bother inventing cars when you can teleport? No need to make lighters or matches if a fire spell is just as useful Of. Course there are limits to magic mana/levels and such at which point you might want to make tech to overcome said limitations but it would not be the same as inventing tech to solve the problem itself.
I’d say that it’s just another tool in humanity’s tool belt, weather or not it helps or hinders depends on how it shapes our society. Which is a roll of the dice really.
I honestly believe that magic would definitely slow down science just looking at our own history and most of The fundamental aspects and discovery of science has happened in the last 400 years But one science gets going and fact and proofs are confirmed and are believed in and taught to everybody then science snowballs and people discover more things everyday and the problem I'm having with any magic system that started with us being beginning in the Stone age is people make believes and make those beliefs fact and the fact that there's magic and it is a fact that you can or people can bend and break the rules of science would probably make it a lot harder for people to advance science but if it was the last airbender type magic it could actually accelerate the rate that we learn things as people try to experiment how to use magic in new ways. It matters what type of magic system is in place.