After decades of hype regarding how fast and how revolutionary scientific research was supposed to be, here we are in a world that is indeed almost identical to the one of 30 or 40 years ago. Yes we may have more “gadgets” but aside from the internet and only a few really new technologies or discoveries, all the hype surrounding science is revealing that it was only hype. Companies and governments spend less and less on basic scientific research, they prefer to create combination products ony to sell more like cell phones with cameras etc.
All the revolutionary applications of computers haven’t changed none of the fundamentals of the world, we still need gas to go around etc.
It may be in general that the human mind is actually very limited in how much it can really manipulate matter. Maybe the mind sees reality through a false grid that can rarely let it really manipulate past a certain complexity or set of interactions matter in general. We still cannot even create a simple protein from scratch even though the first experiments were started in the early 50s,
We have no idea how even 2 or 3 chemical reactions in the cells interact etc
Progress is getting slower and slower. Artificial intelligence is just about where it was 30 years ago, and the chemical reactions circuits even in the simplest cells are barely understood.
It may be that this is the most we will ever get; passenger jet planes at 800km/h, (concorde failed economically). Windows PCs with lots of pretty pictures and mpeg films, cars that will never fly etc. Maybe in the year 5,000,000 the world will look just like it is now without ever having progressed much more.
It could very well be that our mind doesn’t have the instruments to go any further, that maybe our use of logic and/or mathematics is flawed past a certain point. Who knows… maybe there are other instruments and science shouldn’t use math…
Bottom line: science can invent the theory of everything with all the formulas, particles, experiments and know everything, but the possibility to “manipulate” matter (applied science ) may just remain limited even though we may end up knowing everything. Knowledge without the possibility of manipulation may just end up being an elegant philosophy.
I also think there are very strong ECONOMICAL - SOCIAL - CULTURAL - POLITICAL forces that greatly limit how and what we manipulate, alongside with the fact that we may never be able to reach any greater degree of manipulation. We went to the moon in 1969 and are still having a hard time getting back for example. In the same time spand it is hyped that our computers are a million times better.
The question is very simple. I have a feeling that science is slowing down and can eventually just stop. Here I mean especially applied science / technology since as I said science as knowledge can expand forever but its practical applications may not. Knowledge is not the question, it is how much we can manipulate matter to our desires. There are 2 cases:
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we can’t manipulate past a certain point: time travel is not possible, eternal life is not possible, visiting other stars is not possible, infinite pleasure is not possible etc.
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we can manipulate matter to any extent. All the above and more is possible.
If the case is 1 then this means there are some fundamental limits in our mind as to how we understand and manipulate matter, if the case is 2 the sky is the limit.
From the past decades everything is pointing to the case 1: we can’t manipulate past a certain point.
I would say that the fundamental physical limits are probably not important because before reaching those limits we could create perfect simulated and virtual realities hooked up to our brains capable of simulating everything conceivable, robots that are capable of carrying out all the work there is to do, 100 % control over all our biology, cell chemistry, mind circuits, and hundreds of other extremely perfected technologies to achieve anything etc. I don’t think we will run into “physical” limits but into conceptual-logic-scientific limits in our understanding and capability to manipulate matter.