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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47651
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47651
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Your question makes me think first and foremost of Asimov's robots. We know how they work, right? There are the Three Laws. And they have a positronic brain.

Wait, what? What on earth is a "positronic brain"? How is that even possible? What does that mean?

When asked "why positrons", Asimov freely admitted that positrons were the buzzword at the time, and that had he written the first robot stories a few years before or a few years later, the brains could have been made from some other phlebotinum. The _important_ bit about the robots was not how the functioned physically, but how they functioned logically - the Three Laws. (Which connects to @CortAmmon's answer - what's important to the plot is what we need to understand well.)

@scohe001 is right: we do not actually understand how our technology works. A USBdrive works by inserting it into the correct slot in the computer, and then copying things to/from it. How that actually works apparently involves quantum physics, tunnelling, and is for all intents and purposes indistinguishable from magic.

What makes our technology "technology" is that we know _someone_ understands it, someone, manufactures it, someone can take it apart and fiddle with it. Basically, it is "coded" technology.

So that's what you do: **you code something as technology by the way it is treated** : it is manufactured, bought, sold, tinkered with, used by laymen. @Amadeus gives examples, like the technology breaking and being repaired - that's still coding something as 'tech'. The readers only need information about how something works if it's relevant to the story, and the information only needs to go as deep as is relevant to the story. One can, for example, understand the software (e.g. the Three Laws) while the hardware is a black box (e.g. positronic brain).

As a thought experiment, compare a magical device that uses knobs and buttons. A camera with a tiny imp inside that, when you push a button, quickly draws what's in front of it. (Terry Pratchett reference.) Such magic would feel "too technological", right? That's because, even though we're told "it's magic", the way it's treated is the way technology is treated, not the way magic is treated. We have different expectations from magic than we have from technology. Which is what lets you invent something that's "sufficiently advanced science", and thus theoretically "indistinguishable from magic", and then distinguish it from magic by the way it is treated.

Original score: 1