That is not what I meant. Those are examples of technology imbued with a magical effect; entirely different than being able to utilize magic in the way I meant. How I meant it is technology is unable to cast magic, and while it can be imbued with a magical effect, that effect cast on it cannot be cast by other technology.
I'll use the example of the One Ring again. Sauron didn't just make a ring and cast a spell on it. Magic (although in Tolkien's world 'lore' would probably be a more appropriate word) was an integral part of the creation process. And the result of it all was a ring with a will of its own. It intentionally affected the people around it in very specific ways. It intentionally changed its own weight and size to achieve its own purposes. That sounds to me like a device capable of casting its own magic. So therefore, magic in the Tolkien universe is technology? (Tolkien himself would be very unhappy with that considering his association of technology with evil, specifically Sarumanm, in LoTR).
Regardless, even in a system where magic can be well-understood, there is nothing preventing that system to have rules that prevent mundane technology from casting magic on its own. We have complete freedom when defining systems of magic; if two people agree that if technology can cast magic it's not really magic, then you created a fictional science instead.
Yes, anything we do not understand could be considered magic. The only reason it is not thought of as magic is we have left the medeval peasant view of the world and entered into a thought process created in the Enlightenment period.
And my whole point is that what we think and what really is can and usually are two very different things. We can think something is magic when its really just really cool technology; therefore it's really not magic. Iff I woke up tomorrow with the ability to shoot fireballs from my fingers, teleport, conjur up objects from nothing and scry distant locations all just with my mind, I would be inclined to think it's magic. That said, if some scientist came up to me and then showed me convincing evidence that nanobots were implanted into me during my sleep and that they are responsible for my newfound abilities, then the conclusion would be that those abilities aren't magic, and never were magic, despite what I may have believed.
We now think more rationally about the world, and use reason to see through the veil of the unknown, and guess that what is hiding behind it is predictable and can be accurately modeled, even if it takes another 200 years to figure it out. With our knowledge that nature can be broken down, described, predicted, and modeled, we then make the conclusion that any property which is unknown will eventually become known to us, or at least future generations of us. Thus we no longer see the unknown as 'magic' but as the unknown, which we then strive to turn into the known. For it to be understood as magic, it must be widely understood that it cannot be described, predicted, or modeled.
But most scientists agree that we will never have a perfect understanding of anything in the world. It's not unreasonable to assume that we will come ever closer to understanding everything, but not even the fastest increasing functions can reach infinity in a finite number of steps. We can describe, predict and model the rules of the world, but we might never be exactly right (and there is no way of ever knowing if we are exactly right, anyway). So then technology is magic. Plain and simple.
If something is only magic if it cannot be described, predicted, or modeled, then it's just a completely random, chaotic force (even that is a bad description, because chaos can be described, predicted and modeled, too). Nobody could effectively use magic because they'd never have a clue what they're about to do with it, of if they'll even manage to do anything at all. Wizards of fiction are obviously capable of describing and predicting the effects of magic and magic use. If they weren't, then they wouldn't be capable of doing the things that grant them the title 'wizard.' You can't intentionally shoot a ball of fire from your hand without being able to predict that your actions will result in a fireball. And you could never teach someone else to shoot a fireball from their hand if you can't describe how to do it.
I still think that the 'magic' should be left for a system inherently separate from or greater than physical laws. It doesn't mean that magic can't be understood or studied, it just means that it's fundamentally different than the mundane laws of the universe.
