I have made plans for my fantasy world to eventually turn into a sci-fi world over a large amount of time as technology progresses similarly to our world. However, I have been wondering, would the presence of magical cobha accelerate or retard technological development in your opinion?
My vote is still out on the idea... hence the thread

I'm thinking I'll do this, too, though I may not write many stories in the sci-fi part of it's time.

I think it depends on a lot of things...what sort of magic/cobha? Is it the kind that could be used in developing new things? Or does it provide everything people want with no effort (well, I'm sure it doesn't do that exactly, but you know what I mean...hopefully).

In The Name of the Wind there is a magic system made of runes that can be used in inventions and stuff, I imagine that would help develop technology.
If you feel that your magic system is counter-intuitive for technological development, you could devise a way for it to be forgotten (and then maybe have it be re-discovered later on!), sort of be thought by a lot of people to be evil, or obsolete or something. And then have technology go on unhindered.

I hope I've been helpful, I'm very tired and should probably go to bed before I break something here...*turns to go and trips on an end-table knocking down a delicate lamp* Crssshhhh!!! *hurries out and to bed*

It could slow technological development due to people looking for magical solutions to problems instead of technological ones, but if it can be used along with technology, it could speed up the development. It could also have very little effect on it, particularly if most people aren't very directly impacted by it.

This was a tricky one to decide on, but I've moved it to the Technology room.

I'm going to do this with my world, too.

Like Arien said, it all depends on how you decide magic/cobha will interact with the technology. Magic could make tech development faster, or be an alternative to technology (so slowing development down).

In my world, it will probably slow tech development. In the beginning, almost everyone can use magic, but over time, magic users become less frequent. They are persecuted and seen as backwards, which helps usher in lots of tech development to replace magic.

I think it also depends on what the restrictions on your magic/cobha are. Can everyone use it, or only a special few? Can the magic's source be "used up", making people turn to tech instead? How do people feel about magic and tech, and does this change over time?

That's my two cents

I think it would most likely slow the progress of technology since people wouldn't really bother trying to improve on something that they could already do with the use of magic.

"It depends."
In the world I'm developing, there's a system of what I call "applied metaphysics." But this if anything accelerates technological development, since it's a well-established principle that for nearly all problems, the best "applied metaphysics" solution will be at the least more expensive, and probably worse in other respects, than the best "mundane" solution. (If you want to carry a heavy rock across the country for five hundred miles ... sure, you could levitate it beside you all that way, but it's cheaper, easier, and safer to load it into your saddlebags or wagon instead. )

Right now my basic theory for causing the degeneration of magic in my worlds is metaphysical in nature.
In our world, we have scientific laws on which we rest all our technological development. In my world, those same laws exist, but are underwritten by the "law of craft" (read cobha for "craft"). So, if you visualize it as a pyramid, as society does develop, even if slowly, into higher technology, they are growing farther away from "the law of craft" which automatically causes the efficacy of cobhaic magic to decrease. The main cause is that an increasing number of people never even think about magic, and everyone thinks about it less, greatly decreasing the number of magic wielders.
This leads to a more advanced society technologically that is immature magically.... which naturally only leads to the ostraicization of the magic-wielders, increasingly causing the world to be tech-centered. Thus, at the end, in the sci-fi era, there will be very few who are so in tune with the law of craft.
Does this sound like a reasonable progression?

I think it does, it sounds allegorical to how people in real life have gone to technology and forgotten (or rather never learned) how to live off the land, make things on their own, etc. and sometimes those that still do such things (to a great extent anyway, like living out in the woods by themselves like Tom Brown has done) are sometimes ridiculed.

I agree, it makes sense. It also reflects how society has turned away from God's law and wants to rely on its own might, which is what I want my fantasy-to-sci-fi (or cobha-to-tech) transition to show.