Technological Limits
- Thread starter Bowser
- Start date
sculptor
Valued Senior Member
most likely
later
or never
the technology isn't the problem the problem is the stability of our polities and infrastructure
if/as they fail
progress comes to a halt, then recedes
Based on what is saved, we form a platform for the next "great leap" forward.
..................................
Science can only measure that for which it has the instrumentation
Instrumentation is only developed to measure that which we believe exists(and sometimes, that may take decades or generations
(Jean-Baptiste Lamarck)
Xelasnave.1947
Valued Senior Member
Bowser we already know everything and everything has been done.
Its funny you ask the question as it reminds me of when I was a kid lamenting that everything had been discovered and that I was too late to come up with anything new.
We cant imagine what we can not know could be possible...
I wonder if we can fix humans to live forever.
I wonder if we can populate other places.
Imagine if we continue to progress and we are not subject to the rule of extinction.
Alex
Its funny you ask the question as it reminds me of when I was a kid lamenting that everything had been discovered and that I was too late to come up with anything new.
We cant imagine what we can not know could be possible...
I wonder if we can fix humans to live forever.
I wonder if we can populate other places.
Imagine if we continue to progress and we are not subject to the rule of extinction.
Alex
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
How do you envision such a technological plateau?
Why would we reach a point where we cannot improve?
I mean, until we literally know all there is to know in the universe, how is it possible that we would not be able to improve our methods for getting to know it?
Unless, of course, the plateau is that we stop being dependent of technology in our quest for knowledge. For example, having bodies and minds so advanced that we can literally feel the universe directly with our bodies, understand it, and communicate about it amongst ourselves.
In which case, the techno-plateau will occur simply because technology is obsolete.
I don't actually know for certain. It seems we can refine a technology only so far until we reach the limits of our resources. As an example, Air travel seems to be stagnant in that we haven't really evolved it past the jet engine. We might be limited by our limited resources--whether that be creative or physical.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
It's only been 114 years since we achieved heavier-than-air flight.
Only 79 years since we used jets.
And remember, commercial air travel is a business. We keep using it because it is cost-effective.
And cost-effectiveness of commercial flight is advancing.
As for advancing speed (the logical goal), Juno is currently exceeding 165,000mph.
Do you have a link?
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
I just googled 'world's fastest craft'.
I'm still waiting for the ''Beam me up'' transporter thing of Star Trek. I'm trying to imagine living in a time when even that is 'old hat'.
I wonder what the content of such a communication would be? Or, having said that, would 'we' still sense ourselves as individuals needing to communicate?
Kurt Vonnegut's character Kilgore Trout, the obscure science fiction writer, spent a long time perplexed why his paperbacks only ever got distributed in adult book shops. Then he finally realized that the connection between pornography and science fiction is that they both share an impossible dream of a hospitable universe.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
You probably Googled aircraft.
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2016/07/08/juno-broke-guinness-world-record-fastest-craft-ever.html
I think it's pretty obvious that technology has limits.
Technology is governed by science and science says that we can't master interstellar travel or time travel, for example.
Also according to our current understanding of science the vast majority of the technology you see in Star Trek for example will be forever remain in the realm of science fiction.
Technology is governed by science and science says that we can't master interstellar travel or time travel, for example.
Also according to our current understanding of science the vast majority of the technology you see in Star Trek for example will be forever remain in the realm of science fiction.
If you enlarge a circle to big enough proportions, you can come close to representing all of these by taking segments
sculptor
Valued Senior Member
It seems that Russia has developed a nuclear powered unlimited range cruise missile.
( when vladimir vladimirovich putin announced it, he seemed rather defensive)
(..."Now, they will listen to us"...)
alternate translation:
“No one listened to us,” Putin said. “Listen to us now.”
ok
does that sound defensive?
Or
Is it just a figure of speech?
Last edited:
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Science says neither of those things.
It sounds like the latest one-up in the ongoing project of bullying Trump, reference to the NK bigtalk.
That's how fascism rolls. Gotta establish hierarchy.
RainbowSingularity
Valued Senior Member
Seperating science from Ego is quite a thing.
The mind its self drives the function of going up, down or accross.
The Nature of the Human animal is to conserve energy while also learning new ways to expend it.
A Grumpy physacist said to me once he was upset that CERN had now declared the end to physics research and that new discoverys were now a thing of the past.