This isn't a Muggle vs Wizards discussion. It's just a closer look at what really defined if something is muggle technology or not. This sort of thing often comes up in stories. For example, in canon (iirc), we see Arthur Weasley refer to Police Men as "please men" and firearms as "firelegs". Now, the first is more of a concept than a technology (which I will get to later) but the firearms thing is interesting, though like most topics, it's been beaten to death.

I think the first step is to define what the question is. I guess it would be along the lines of, if you asked a wizard how something Muggle-y worked, would they think it was magic? It's a bit broad, as if you asked me how (insert high-tech medical equipment) worked, I wouldn't know. Some people do just know more than others.

So, I redefine the question - if you asked Lucius Malfoy what an (item) is, is it conceivable that he might know what it is?

It's kind of interesting, when you think about it. Most people never think about this in depth, or they'll handwave it off like JKR. In canon, we have wizards getting stymied by the London underground, yet the concept of a car isn't a new thing (though they might not know how one actually works. Most muggles don't either). They ride a train to school. They have plumbing at Hogwarts. The have pocket watches. They live in houses, have clothing, have books. What is and what isn't muggle tech?

I guess the first thing to point out is that's there isn't just two category. Something isn't just Muggle tech, or not. It's not either or. It's not just the slow idea of technological appropriation either. Like, stairs aren't a muggle technology for example. Or windows, or shoes. Those are general human concepts.

So where is the line drawn? It's easy enough to just say electricity. Electricity itself isn't a muggle thing, as it's naturally occurring, and it has been studied for thousands of years. Perhaps then, it would be the harnessing and use, and controlled creation of electricity, such as in microchips. That's fair enough. Nearly everyone would say that electronics are a strictly Muggle technology, and I would agree. To wizards, they might think something using electricity would be magic. What is unsaid is that they would probably replicate a lot of simple electronic devices using magic, but that's not what this thread is about.

Microprocessors are a fairly recent invention, but I don't think that's where the line is drawn. Not everything invented in the 1900s is electronic. And, many devices were mechanical before they became digital. You can't really take two items, both invented in say 1980, one of them electronic, one not, and say one is a Muggle item and the other isn't, because there's more to it than that. Electronics are a muggle invention obviously, but that's not where the line is drawn.

So, is the line drawn back further? How about the industrial revolution? Is mechanization a concept that Wizards can understand? On the surface, I'm not sure. Wizards don't really have the need for mechanization - they are a small population that gets by fine with specialized craftsmen, and they have magic. However, I think as a concept, they would be able to understand it. Being able to create 10 potions at the same time using some clever tools isn't so farfetched. Interchangeable parts makes sense in retrospect, but would clearly be an AHA moment, as in the wizarding word, we have an immense sense of whimsy and asymmetrical. It's one of the tools used to make it feel different and less robotic.

I don't have an answer one way or another, and those do seem like the most logical cutoff points. But there's still a lot of confusion. Wizards can understand electricity, but not that it's used in electronics. Is that concept beyond them? Perhaps, if only for the reason that they've never had to use is. Will it only be a matter of time before it blends into a wizards everyday life? One merely needs to walk down a street to marvel at streetights and televisions.

What I'm getting at it that I'm not so sure that there's a cutoff point, rather than something initiated by necessity. I don't think you can just go, "oh, everything before 1830's is fair game, and everything after is Muggle tech and wizards won't understand it."

I do want to just look at some concepts though. Take a pistol for example. Arthur Weasley, the most informed non-muggleborn wizard we know of, doesn't really understand them. Perhaps he understands what they're used for - to kill. That's a simple idea. But is it?

Something like a knife is straightforward. It has a sharp edge that can be used to cut things. Wizards use them to cut food. They had swords too. A Bow is more complex, but still straightforward enough. Hagrid has a crossbow.

The concept of simple machines is not so difficult to understand, and they date back millenia. Screws, inclined planes, a pulley. When it all comes down to it, it's just math. That's really what it all comes down to. And the issue is that most wizards just never had a need to learn a lot of that kind of stuff. Hell, most muggles don't have to learn that kind of stuff either. Someone invented it, and it took years for them to find use, but if wizards don't have that use at all, then doesn't it really catch on?

A lot of it really does come down to mathematics. Common sense says a wizard can learn the math for many of the simple concepts, even if there isn't an actual need.

So, back to the pistol. The concept of a projectile isn't new. You can't claim that throwing a rock is a muggle concept. Well, you could, and I'm sure someone will. Sure, wizards have a wand, but they don't have telekinesis. The projectile is different, but it's merely gone through trial and error to find the most useful form. What about the pistol itself. Metallurgy isn't a muggle concept. Sure, most wizards probably know nothing of it, but alchemy dates back to antiquity. Combining two metals into one new one isn't that hard to wrap your brain around on the surface. The idea of a mold isn't a muggle one either, dating back to the bronze age. The idea of a spring is interesting, since the concept is simple, but the actual making and usage of might not be intuitive. Again, it's bath to mathematics, and the idea that a spring stores "energy" would be a tough concept for someone like Lucius Malfoy to understand, but there's nothing inheritance muggle about it. It's not so different than a crossbow using tension to shoot a bolt.

Then, there's all the gearing. There's nothing inherently Muggle about gears, either. We've seen wizards with pocketwatches. Perhaps they're all magical, but for a wizard to have even gotten the idea of a magical pocketwatch, they've had to have seen a mechanical one at some point. But again, gears date back millenia, though pocketwatches themselves only a few centuries. Complex gearing systems are not something wizards have ever needed, but that doesn't mean it's beyond their understanding.

The same thing can be said of plumbing. Hogwarts has plumbing. It's not something you can put together and just expect it to work. We know there's piping, they have toilets. It's not just magic at work. Plumbing dates back millenia as well, so again we see that it's possible for wizards to use concepts like this.

So far, we've had a whole bunch of mathematical concepts. Physics is something we just aren't sure how much the Wizards know about in canon. Do they understand gravity? They fly around on brooms, but they can also teleport. What we think of as "laws" might not mean anything to wizards. But, if you ask Lucius Malfoy what gravity is, I feel like he'd be able to answer. Perhaps he knows what it is, but probably not why or how. That's enough for most people, even muggles. But even the most staunch pureblood like Lucius will have seen something fall to the ground before. As for ballistics, again, it's a lot of math, which wizards could probably learn, but would likely never have a reason for. Hunters get good at using a bow out of necessity, not from reading a textbook.

Lastly is the chemistry. That might be the stickler. Chemistry as a whole isn't a technology, it's science. And like everything else, it seems like wizards can understand a simple science, but not complex ones. It's hard to just blanket it all as alchemy, and I'm not so sure how easy it would be to claim to a wizard that a chemical process of changing two compounds into a single one didn't use magic. Anyways, something like gunpowder has existed for a millennium, so I don't think the concept of a nonmagical compound is hard to understand. But, trying to explain something like electrons and the periodic table and how some elements are synthesized in a lab without magic. Regardless, I don't think it's a stretch to say what Lucius Malfoy would know what gunpowder is. He might even know that applied heat to it makes it explode. But, how to create it, and it's uses, might be beyond him though I think the concept is teachable based on the sort of things wizards are already doing. The only hangup is trying to explain something as a natural reaction rather than a magical one. And that might be the key distinction, as something being natural doesn't inherently mean it's a muggle one.

There's a lot of other sciences that seem like wizards just have a first grade understanding of. And again, I think a lot of it comes down to necessity. Lucius Malfoy probably doesn't know what plastic is, but he probably knows what oil is. He probably knows that you can burn oil for heat, but probably not how that energy can be harnessed for other means. The concept of energy itself is probably a hard one to quantify for them, without using the world magic.

But what of biology, astronomy, geology? Do they know what germs are, bacteria? Sanitation? When did they learn the earth was round, and that we orbit the sun and not the other way around? Do they know the earth is several billion years old?

Is a telescope muggle technology or not? A metal tube with a series of lenses in it. We've seen no evidence at all of magic being used to enhance someones vision, but we've seen wizards wearing glasses. We know they use telescopes in astronomy as well. But, the telescope is an actual invention, but it predates the industrial revolution. It's not so different than a pocketwatch then, in that it is clearly a decently complicated piece of technology, but one that wizards use.

Anyways, I don't really have any real purpose to this post, other than I get annoyed when authors handwave something off as being "muggle technology" without really thinking about what that truly means. And the truth is, that I don't think that means anything specific. I don't think it's as easy as something massproduced in a muggle factory, or something made after the industrial revolution, or something electronic, made from plastic and uses batteries.

So, I guess I ask the question - where do you drawn the line in determining what is muggle technology, and what isn't? Is it how multiple simple technologies interact to form something more complex? Is it physical concepts that have been proven ad have broadened our personal knowledge of the universe? Or, is it as simple as just tools we have created to make our life easier where wizards have done the same thing, except with magic? Or is it something else all together?

 

I think that what it really comes down to is the concept that wizards don't use electrically-based technology. The common trope is that this is because magic does interact well with electricity, but JKR is inconsistent with this at best. For one thing, when wizards enter muggle structures, the electric gizmos don't immediately stop working. Harry grows up in a house with Dudley, and even through his teenage years, the television and dishwasher and Dudley's computers and gaming systems, and the house's electric lights don't all immediately stop working. Nor does the tech in muggleborn homes seem remotely adversely affected (take Hermione, for example, we never hear anything about her television exploding).

Wizards can also use muggle technology if they want to. The Underground in London is driven by electrics, and they can use it without fearing that it will break down. Ron successfully used a telephone without it shorting out, and Harry can as well (Harry is also quite capable of using the television, etc.). The concept of electric lighting seems to not be strange to them, as it appears around them with regularity and no one says anything about it, and nor do bulbs shatter whenever they're nearby. Dumbledore at the very least seems to have some sort of familiarity with it, given that he invents a gizmo whose sole purpose for most of the books (until new functionality is invented in book 7) appears to be to capture the energy from streetlamps.

The remaining theory is perhaps then that electrically-based technology doesn't interact well with magic when that technology is brought into an environment that is highly saturated with magical effluences, and it is assumed that most purely magical environments of long history are so saturated that muggle tech ceases to function. But again, this seems not to work on a daily basis. The area around Diagon Alley, for example, abuts muggle London seamlessly, but there isn't a zone of crappy technology around it; people just go about their daily lives. You'd think that if it was a question of magical emanations, a sort of liminal or border zone around it would gradually fade into or out of effect, but it doesn't. Privet Drive, we are told, is extensively magically monitored, and also warded, but this doesn't seem to affect muggle technology in the slightest.

The same can be said of other heavily magical properties hidden within otherwise muggle environs. 12 Grimmauld Place, for example, is protected, according to Sirius, with every possible magical ward and protection that wizarding acumen can provide. Dumbledore added the Fidelius to the property, one of the most powerful magical wards in existence. And yet the residents of Number 11 and Number 13 don't seem remotely inconvenienced by it in terms of the technology that will operate inside their homes; all they ever do is think how amusing it is that the street's houses were numbered strangely. [Note: This also implies that Number 12 was a muggle-built residence that was later acquired and altered by wizards. The house is described in a way that implies late Victorian.]

And yet, the assumption is made that wizards are incapable of interacting with "muggle technology". For the most part, this seems to hold more or less true, but the border between when a muggle technology breaks into the wizarding space seems purely arbitrary. Most wizarding household items seem to be stuck somewhere in the late 18th century, or perhaps early 19th. They can, for example, use oil lamps. They have stoves, at least the woodburning type. They posses printing presses, we have seen them in the films. Basic mechanical things seem to exist, even if they're automated by magic. Clockwork, as Anarchy says, and modern plumbing.

And yet they also appear to have startlingly advanced muggle technology, and yet no knowledge at all of others, in wildly inconsistent ways. They have steam engines, but don't know anything about telegraphs. Automobiles were invented around the same time telephones and electric lights were, and yet they don't know what a telephone is or how to use it, even though anyone could clearly see they're better than owls. Refrigeration is not mentioned at all, but boilers are, not only for the steam engine, but also because Kreacher sleeps in an airing cupboard, the room which is naturally warm where the boiler is where you can put clothes to dry, among other uses.

And yet, no mention, use, or understanding of a gun. Clearly they were around when other technologies were that have been incorporated into the wizarding world. They're entirely analog, and yet, no mention. This could be because wizards found them redundant, or easily blocked, or maybe just unsporting, but it doesn't explain why they don't even seem to know about them. Especially considering the segment of the population that is muggleborn or at least muggle-aware, and that wizards do seem to know about oddly specific things that are highly advanced--airplanes, for example--and mention them in casual conversation.

SO basically, they perhaps choose not to use electric things, or perhaps they can't use the complex ones, but they do seem to know about a lot of them, but oddly not others. They seem to be able to use analog technology, but either don't or won't use some of it, for unknown reasons. Their population is riddled with people who would naturally know plenty about these things, and yet they remain stunningly ignorant of them.

It is, then, pretty much entirely arbitrary. JKR seems to have decided more or less on a case-by-case basis what wizards use or don't use, what they know about or don't know about, and how magic interacts or doesn't interact with "muggle technology", whatever that means.

Case in point: In book 5, Mr. Weasley experiments with "muggle stitches". Mrs. Weasley blows a gasket and sarcastically yells that it sounds like he was trying to sew his skin together, as if this were ridiculous. And yet, this "technology", if you can even call it that, has been around since antiquity. Roman armies had medical technicians who could perform surgeries, and sewed up people afterward. Wizards can perform medical miracles, but they surely didn't have all of their spells sorted out two thousand years ago, so they have no excuse not to know what the concept of stitches is.


TL;DR: JKR made it the fuck up, so you can too.

 

My assumption has always been that Wizards and Muggles are just near-completely non-intersecting civilizations that just happen to have some population flow between them and mostly occupy the same borders. Wizards adopt some aspects of muggle society but not others for the same reason we in the Western Hemisphere will occasionally decide to appropriate some aspect of another culture while ignoring the rest, which is to say, it's random and arbitrary and entirely based on what caught on and what didn't. Christmas caught on but Easter didn't. Trains caught on but not guns or phones. Toilets made it big but electric lighting never did.

We do the exact same thing all the time, from integral and somewhat-sacred parts of a culture - Buddhism, or at least the 'trendy' form you can find here, comes to mind - to foods - pizza, anyone? Wizards do the same, and so bits and pieces of Muggle civilization are lifted wholesale, changed significantly to better fit the way Wizards live, and no one really thinks about it.

It's not a matter of magic fucking up electronics as much as it is electricity as a whole never catching on. According to tertiary canon, the Wizarding Wireless Radio is actually broadcast from an actual radio station. Pottermore mentions that there was a small movement in the 80s to set up a Wizarding TV network, but the ministry shut it down as unnecessarily risky and it was never especially popular. It's all a roll of the dice, same as it is for us.

Sure, if they wanted to, I'm sure Wizards could probably start using all sorts of Muggle technology. They could probably alter it to the same extent they have photography and what I have to assume is a radio that runs on perpetual motion since their houses aren't hooked to the power grid and I doubt they buy batteries. They just, as a whole, don't. They don't see a need for electric lighting the same way most of us don't feel the need to sleep on a japanese-style futon.

As for the sciences, well, I think it's mostly a matter of our muggle sciences being empirically, categorically wrong at their most basic levels. For all we know, Wizards have an entirely different and entirely accurate understanding of how the world actually works, it just never comes up. The average Wizard probably knows more about astronomy than the average muggle - Harry's OWL involved labelling a blank star chart and naming various moons, I sincerely question how many muggle sixteen year olds can do the same - but beyond that, the rest of the sciences are complete bunk and wizards lacking our understanding of them isn't really a mark against them. At least, no more than your (presumable) lack of knowledge about the wonders of Lysenkoism or Phlogiston theory are against you.

It definitely doesn't hold them back, considering how they're - as mentioned above - more than capable of looking at something we invented, deciding it's cool, and turning it on its head. Some wizard saw print photography one day, worked out a potion to make the images move, and proceeded to roll with it. Another decided that Radio was neat and set up an actual radio station that broadcasts actual radio waves, except it probably has absolutely no connection to any power grid and the person who did it definitely had no education on the subjects of physics or electrical engineering past the age of ten. Seems like that they can do everything we can, if they feel like it, except they can also trivially do more.

That's just my headcanon, though.

 

The way I see it is that technology is all about making life easy. Muggle technology makes the life of muggles easy and similarly wizards have their own technology. The distinction between the two should depend on the user and not on the inventor. The canon doesn't attribute any of the technological advancements to the wizards (many fanfics do, some even make Jesus a wizard) and is silent about how some of the things like the printing press, the camera, or the wireless entered wizardry.
Therefore the distinction should be based on the user of the technology. If wizards have an alternative, don't need it, or don't adapt it to their use, then it is essentially muggle technology.

 

The way I see things is that things like steam engines are muggle technology. I normally in fan fictions drop that they know nothing about muggle technology. Mostly because to fit in with the muggles they would need to learn about muggle tech and fashion. As such the wizards learn that they could infuse both magic and tech into an item.

 

I don't have the time to sit down and write out a whole thoughtful response.

I'm just posting to say this is a perfect example of a great thread with a concise, well thought out OP that actually benefits the forum.

Just thought that needs to be said. Good job.

 

As a related question, why must Wizards have copied muggles? I mean in the modern world it's a logical conclusion: Large, innovative population with the aid of computer driven design vs. a small stagnant population actively trying to return to the past.

But why has it always been this way? Wizards can innovate - new potions are invented such as Wolfsbane and Dumbledore worked as a researcher in his youth with Dragon's blood.

I would also suggest that most muggle devices could have been invented by wizards earlier. Heavier than air flight is an obvious example, but what about the Kwikquotes quill? Muggles first invented the speech to text dictaphone in the last 20 years or so because that was when computers became sufficiently advanced to cope. But when could wizards have first produced the equivalent with magic? There is no evidence to confirm it either way, but I suspect the charms required were around hundreds of years earlier. Could the quill have come first and then been copied by a muggle relative of a muggleborn for instance? It doesn't seem unreasonable, especially as in the past muggles had more exposure to wizards, especially prior to the Statute.

I would propose that in many cases muggles may have copied wizards as opposed to the other way around. A muggle sees a wizard enchant his kettle to heat water without fire, replicates it with electricity. A muggle sees a lazy wizard enchant his brush to clean autonomously - invents the concept of robotics. A young muggle born mentions face to face conversations through the floo to her parents and they invent video-conferencing.

It seems perfectly reasonable that muggles have historically tried to replicate magic through mundane means - effective medicine, automation, a rudimentary printing press, horseless transport, smokeless lighting, a cheap, effective postal system all would, or at least could have been around in the wizarding world far earlier than the muggle world.

Just food for thought...

 

This would make sense as a reciprocal argument to the OP, but it only makes sense up to a point. After the International Statute of Secrecy came into force in 1692, such casual observation would presumably be followed by a quick obliviation. The only discrepancy would be the families of muggleborns, who seem to be allowed to know things, but only up to a point. Harry was prosecuted for performing magic in front of Dudley, for example, and as Harry's cousin, he's allowed to know of the existence of magic...but perhaps nothing substantially more than that.

 

I sometimes wonder if part of the seeming ignorance of wizards about muggle life is an affectation. After all, it probably isn't the "in" thing for a pureblood to admit to understanding muggle technology or fashions. Some of them probably act more ignorant than they really are just to fit in.

That doesn't explain Arthur Weasley of course...

 

I want to point out that it's interesting that Transfiguration and Alchemy are separate subjects within the magical community, even though they're essentially the same thing (if we define alchemy as essentially transmutation of one substance to another) and wonder if JKR was trying to play with the "alchemists" of the Middle Ages and be like "hey those were Muggle assistants or some shit working alongside wizards".

I think this means, though, that what's magical and what's not is actually impossible to define even by field of study sometimes. Whether or not someone like Lucius Malfoy can tell you what an object does would probably depend on the object. I'd imagine that anything super recent he wouldn't know about, but I think it's stupid to assume he knows nothing about even Muggle inventions of the 20th Century. As much as he dislikes Muggleborns they do filter into the Magical world, and there's also no way the Wizarding community just ignores their Muggle counterparts, especially with the death and destruction of 20th Century wars.

I agree that there isn't a cutoff point, but that's on the basis that Wizarding society does actually "keep up" with its Muggle counterparts.

Also, I just want to mention that I'm amused by the fact that Sesc actually used Galilei just because he probably wanted consistency and didn't want to say "Isaac".