Are we nearing the limit of technology?

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Just over ten years ago, Scientific American editor John Horgan wrote and published a book calle The End of Science.
http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=...ook_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAA

Of course he was wrong. And just as scientific progress is nowhere near ending, neither is technology. Will it plateau and stop? Simply, no-one knows. However, it seems unlikely any time soon.

 

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Skeptical: Did you read the book?

Are we talking about theoretical physics, technology or both?

Was John Horgan talking about theoretical physics, technology, or both?

Except for cosmology, there has been very little new in theoretical physics since 1950. Perhaps nothing new since about 1930.

Perhaps we are close to the limits in theoretical physics, except for cosmology. Note that any new advances must be consistent with our current theories. That leaves very little wiggle space for new theories.

Some TOE developments or a Quantum Gravity theory would be new, but how much would be added to our current understanding?

I do not expect anything as novel as Relativity & Quantum Theory both of which seemed like revolutions in the first quarter of the 20th century.

 

To dinosaur

No, I did not read the book. I knew it was nonsense even 10 years ago, and I try to avoid reading nonsense. A friend of mine had just read it and was trying to push it onto me to read, but I resisted.

As I understand it, the author was not talking about routine science - the task of 'filling in the gaps' of scientific knowledge, which clearly will go on for a long time. He was talking about breakthrough discoveries - paradigm shifts.

The latest New Scientist has an article about new discoveries that are likely to upset the basis of the standard theory of particle physics.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627622.700-matter-the-next-generation.html

Even something as simple as this disproves the central theme of Horgan's book.

 

Yes, the rate of progress is accelerating. What the acceleration factor is for 500/1,000 years is a more complicated question. I'm not sure it's important, because we may have been simply waiting for some chance things to occur before explosive exponential growth could begin. I'm not sure what the factor is, but as of now, it's definitely exponential and it's happening fast. CPU power is doubling every 18 months. The price of a gigabyte, whether RAM or hard disc space, gets cut in half less than every two years. This rapid doubling of capability is seen not just in computers, but in all parts of technology.

As for the last question, "when will it stop," when will the cost of a gigabyte be zero? As you say, we might blow ourselves before we get far. That seems somewhat probable. As change becomes more profound and rapid, it seems likely that mistakes would become more common and more deadly.

But if we don't accidentally destroy ourselves, there's practically unlimited potential. Once we alter our intelligence and alter our genetics, practically anything will be possible and also much more unpredictable. We'll have transcended biology and won't be hindered by our past, which is a bizarre notion. Ray Kurzweil suggests the Singularity will end with the every particle of the universe being part of a cosmic brain. I suppose that would be his idea of stabilization. I doubt that will happen, but it's worth considering that soon our biology and intelligence (or lack thereof), won't be a hindrance to future progress. We'll continue to find room as time goes on.

 

Skeptical: Note the following from yopu last post.

Your own understanding of Horgan’s book (which you decided to dismiss without reading), seem in line with what I have been posting.

Note the bolded part of the quote from your most recent post.

Except for cosmology, there has been nothing significant in theoretical physics since Relativity & Quantum theory were developed between about 1905 & 1925.

The article you cited is more pertinent to cosmology than particle physics. We have known about the excess of matter over anti-matter for since before 1950. The 4th generation of quarks provide an explanation for that excess, but add little else to theoretical physics.

I think that you & others posting here fail to distinguish between technology (applications of theoretical physics) & theoretical physics. For example: Lasers (technology) were developed well after 1950, but the theory behind them was Quantum Theory from 1930 or earlier.

Do any of you really expect anything as significant as the death of determinism & the end of belief in absolute space & time? Do you really comprehend the paradigm shifts of the first 25 years of the 20th century? Do you really expect paradigm shifts in theoretical physics even close to the significance of GR & QT?

Maybe we might find evidence of multiple universes or a convincing explanation of the Big Bang. Maybe we might find that the Big Bang is fundamentally flawed (inflation seems a bit ad hoc). Such developments are cosmology, not the theoretical physics of our universe.

 

Dinosaur

Could be a danger here of arguing semantics, as is : What is a paradigm shift?

The New Scientist article I quoted suggested a change of sufficient magnitude to be such.

As you suggested, cosmology is a very likely arena to see significant paradigm shifts.

Personally, I think there are too many unanswered questions in even basic physics to assume no major changes in our theoretical knowledge of that and other sciences.

Like reconciling relativity and QM.

Underlying reality - superstring or something else?

Life on other planets?

A cause for the Big Bang?

Lots of questions, and lots of opportunities for quite major paradigm shifts.

 

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.”
– Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Patent Office, 1899


On May 20, 2010, the private J. Craig Venter Institute announced that they have created the first synthetic cell, completely controlled by man-made genetic instructions, which can survive and reproduce itself.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703559004575256470152341984.html

We have barely scratched the surface on our potential. We humans haven't even gone beyond the orbit of the moon! And there's several BILLION galaxies out there(that we can see), quite a large sandbox, if you ask me.

 

Possibly. I'll leave the 'experts' to do the space exploration, though. There's no replacement bus service out in space. They said passenger-carrying trips into space would be no more risky than early commercial jet flight, which means it'll be extremely dangerous and many rich people will be killed. Then the economies of scale will kick in, and soon poor people will be able to die in the freezing radioactive wasteland of space, too.

Mechanical/electrical/electronic engineering separated us from the beasts and the flies. ("What did you do today?" "Well, I invented a steam engine and then this afternoon I developed a new way of keeping time. You?") Computers, we were told by James Cameron in "The Terminator", would one day finish mankind.

Genetic engineering is the real thing to watch now.

 

If you mean the time is near where machines will need to be place in charge or progress, sure.

 

Naw were just at the end of a particular calendar that predicted our evolution and tech advance increasing at the end of the calender, b4 it restarts again and our advances and evolution slows Dawn again...damn i wish i could think of the name of the calender, i will post a link as soon as it comes to me ...

 

LOL, yeah I wonder if we can handle our technology. The social changes will be rapid and profound. I think don't think most people have a clue what is coming down the road and maybe that is a good thing.