In mine, there's several points that distinguish it from what WE generally call technology:
1) You can't teach it to everyone. Or rather, you can teach and teach all you like, but if you haven't got the talent, you won't get past the most basic of magical effects. Technology, you can teach to anyone with the intellect to build/use it, and that's a pretty basic thing.
2) It's limited to living beings to perform. This means you CANNOT DO MASS PRODUCTION except with some very peculiar and limited approaches. While you can in fact go out and buy a Wand of Cleaning Cantrips for your house use, and get it recharged every few months, you can't crank out Flying Cars for All; each car needs either a single wizard of very high power to spend months and months working on, or a bunch of middle-power wizards doing gruntwork with high-power wizard coming in to lock things down.
3) It's very personal. A wizard develops his power throughout his life, putting his own "stamp" on it. Moreover, unlike technology, a SINGLE wizard can in a reasonable lifetime go through the ENTIRE progression of magic, from the very weakest spells to ones that can shake the fabric of reality itself. A single human being CANNOT go through that progression; he cannot start with chipping flint and go to building jet aircraft by himself. He can't carry the gadgetry, the manufacturing and mining plants, etc., that would be needed, and doing anything at the higher ranges of technology (that we know) takes a LOT of time. He also cannot BYPASS certain things to get to what he wants; you can't decide to ignore learning that boring metallurgy and chemistry and construction stuff and go straight to making portable .50 caliber machine guns, because you need to KNOW that stuff to build a .50 cal. A wizard, by contrast, can choose not to bother with spells to make materials and build things and go straight to shooting fireballs.
4) Magic is not generally transferrable. While a magician CAN make items others can use, that's a specialized act, a difficult one, and for any reasonably powerful item one that costs the wizard some of his own power for a while. Technology is infinitely transferrable. Anyone can use any gadget as long as they don't lack the physical capabilities.
5) Magic is subject to belief. A gun doesn't CARE if you believe in it; there's no protection for you in that. Disbelief can damage a spell, focused will can blunt or unravel one directed at you.
There are some other differences, but in my universe these are probably the most important.
no subject
In mine, there's several points that distinguish it from what WE generally call technology:
1) You can't teach it to everyone. Or rather, you can teach and teach all you like, but if you haven't got the talent, you won't get past the most basic of magical effects. Technology, you can teach to anyone with the intellect to build/use it, and that's a pretty basic thing.
2) It's limited to living beings to perform. This means you CANNOT DO MASS PRODUCTION except with some very peculiar and limited approaches. While you can in fact go out and buy a Wand of Cleaning Cantrips for your house use, and get it recharged every few months, you can't crank out Flying Cars for All; each car needs either a single wizard of very high power to spend months and months working on, or a bunch of middle-power wizards doing gruntwork with high-power wizard coming in to lock things down.
3) It's very personal. A wizard develops his power throughout his life, putting his own "stamp" on it. Moreover, unlike technology, a SINGLE wizard can in a reasonable lifetime go through the ENTIRE progression of magic, from the very weakest spells to ones that can shake the fabric of reality itself. A single human being CANNOT go through that progression; he cannot start with chipping flint and go to building jet aircraft by himself. He can't carry the gadgetry, the manufacturing and mining plants, etc., that would be needed, and doing anything at the higher ranges of technology (that we know) takes a LOT of time. He also cannot BYPASS certain things to get to what he wants; you can't decide to ignore learning that boring metallurgy and chemistry and construction stuff and go straight to making portable .50 caliber machine guns, because you need to KNOW that stuff to build a .50 cal. A wizard, by contrast, can choose not to bother with spells to make materials and build things and go straight to shooting fireballs.
4) Magic is not generally transferrable. While a magician CAN make items others can use, that's a specialized act, a difficult one, and for any reasonably powerful item one that costs the wizard some of his own power for a while. Technology is infinitely transferrable. Anyone can use any gadget as long as they don't lack the physical capabilities.
5) Magic is subject to belief. A gun doesn't CARE if you believe in it; there's no protection for you in that. Disbelief can damage a spell, focused will can blunt or unravel one directed at you.
There are some other differences, but in my universe these are probably the most important.