Is science slowing to a standstill ?

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:

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

How old are you, nameta9? I’m often very surprised by how much things have changed over the last two or three decades. Medical technology has advanced at a startling rate (my dad was saved by drugs & medical procedures that didn’t even exist 10 years ago).

I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss computers and cell phones, either. They’ve changed the world very radically over the last decade. We live in a world very different than that of 40 years ago, IMO.

Aviation technology has improved radically, too. The USAF will soon take deliver of a fighter with supercruise capability and passive radar, which was pure sci fi a couple decades ago. Ditto radar-evading stealth. Who’d have expected a private space program?

Is time travel impossible? Is immortality unattainable? These are by no means cut and dried, at least not according to current scientific thinking.

I think it’s amusing that a century ago, the head of the US patent office thought just as you do. He suggested to President Lincoln that the office be closed since everything useful had already been invented! :astonished:

I’d say it’s more a matter of younger people taking all this for granted than an actual lack of progress. Perhaps you expected Star Trek transporters by now? :wink:

nameta9,

Sounds to me like your fantasy wasn’t met. Talking about flying cars and time travel etc. Maybe what you have in mind isn’t the way its supposed to be.

If you want to look at the bad side of things then yes you could take out many examples. But, I could come out with equal amounts of examples on how science has done good over the last 30 years.

Also, I don’t think science will stop. At least not until man stops trying to explain and/or control the universe.

nameta9

Your post is amusing. 100 years ago there were no airplanes. When I was a small child we didn’t even have television in my country. A lot has changed.

Consider though that what you think is an end, is not an end at all but rather a pause to wait for mankind to catch up…I don’t know, let us say… in awareness, collective awareness of what we are truly capable of. I have a feeling if that were the case science would indeed cease to matter.

Even had nothing else been accomplished in the last 50 years, tracing the human genome would have been a great enough feat.

genomenewsnetwork.org/resour … p3_2.shtml

Mine is mostly an impression. But for example why don’t we have the completely automatic factories that were so hyped for so long? They simply depend on computers and motors and precise task definitions, all things completely achievable (and computers are hyped to be a million times faster and cheaper than 30 years ago) but we still have factories run by cheap labor and some are even substituting the robots with cheap labor. Japan and GM studied this problem alot and they can’t do it. So this is an example of hyped technology.

Technology is applied science. It is not science. There are a number of causes why what is technologically possible is not actual. One cause is often economic. Certain technologies, even if possible, are not economically profitable, so no one wants to do them. Another cause is the ordering of priorities. Some technologies, for example for health, are considered more important that automated factories. You cannot do everything, so you have to do what seems to you most important. And, a third reason is consumer desire and need. Maybe no one wants automated factories that will put people out of jobs.

More is involved than science-fiction fantasy in running an economy. Too much Matrix, is not good for you. (In fact any Matrix is not good for anyone. Especially the confusion of Matrix with thinking.)

200 years ago we couldn’t get around with gas - we’d barely got the hang of steam. So to call such a thing a fundamental of the world is ridiculous

We’ve compiled a lot more information from which to develop a theory (compared to 50 years ago)

Bullshit, and you are clearly pig ignorant about this topic. 30 years ago we couldn’t even have built a computer capable of the 100 teraflop/s (trillion floating point operations per second) necessary to replicate the approximate complexity of human intelligence. A computer achieved 135 teraflop/s in march of this year.

Check your information.

True, but we’ve made huge leaps in refuting the laws of thermodynamics, which is central to all motion everywhere

Don’t be silly. We’ve got reasonable evidence for the huge developments in human culture (science in particular) for the last 10,000 years. The chances of the planet still being here (or the human race still being here) in 5 million years aren’t particularly high.

The silicon chip has changed mental life forever.

Yeah, well, gravity’s a bitch, innit?

We didn’t get to the moon in 1969, the evidence doesn’t add up

Do you know the ancient Greeks described the sky as bronze?

There probably are limits to our ability to manipulate the world, but why do you really care?

I mean that in earnest

Maybe because science and scientists sell alot of “hype” to be financed with science fiction projects that will never become. Nanotechnology is another example of alot of hype. Molecular machines ? I doubt that we will see anything practical in the end, maybe alot of “prototypes” and “proof of concepts”.

Well then maybe the real limits are “mostly” politics and cultural choices and economical choices. It is often said an average worker now makes less money than in 1970 (example of going backwards) and it seems the working hours are longer (example of going backwards). There were alot more choices for car interiors and they were even nicer (just compare an oldsmobile 98 of 1970 with any luxury car today) (another example of going backwards). People are more into fundamentalist religion than science (an example of going backwards) and this list can go on and on. Why can’t we have cars that drive themselves ? There are no complicated technologies involved just sensors on roads and wireless communications and computers, all things we have “advanced” in. Because we are not able to do it. If there are economic-political reasons than science will eventually just end and mostly be “fake”. We will have loads of video games maybe…

So scientific research is often overhyped - this has nothing to do with science and has everything to do with communications culture

I’m assuming you’re talking about the US, which has been badly run (economically speaking) for 3 decades. But again, this isn’t about science, it’s about economics.

As to cars that drive themselves - people don’t want them en masse because the car is an extension of the central human image of power, the phallus. If cars drove themselves then people would buy cars for more or less purely practical purposes, which means the automotive industry would make less money.

What on earth do you mean by ‘people are more into fundamentalist religion than science’? Where? Which people? In Europe fundamentalism is rare but faith in science is nearly ubiquitous.

You seem to be making some very different points to the ones you started with. I suggest you check your information once again.

Science may even slow down to standstill, but matter may have the potential for much more than we think. We may just never be able to manipulate past a certain point. MATTER may be unlimited in the complexity and combinations it can reach, but science may be limited.

See

ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/vi … p?t=143782

In that thread I consider the possibilty that even if we humans do reach a limit in what we can do, MATTER, even through processes different from natural evolution may be able to organize into vastly more complex structures and processes.

Science, like God, is dead.

Can you see my difficulties?
Homo Mysticus

Oh no its not. You’ve never been in a black-hole, have you? I have, and things are quite different inside, sir.

Post edited for inappropriate content.

Yes, I have been in a black-hole.

Can you see my difficulties?
Homo Mysticus

This is a very interesting hypothethis you make and as with the rest of your post, I am impressed by it most of all. It is obvious that mankind has the imagination to envision the next technological leap or leaps that lie ahead of us in the coming years IF we push towards achieving them. A wonderful example would be the anime “The Ghost In The Shell,” which served as a resource to the Wachowski Bros. for “The Matrix.”

Perhaps you are indeed correct in this, that we as humans have the imagination and drive to make the next technological leap but we fail to have the mental capacity to fully understand how to achieve that leap and more importantly, have not the proper materials to create that leap…

Afterall, how can we begin to create an artificial intelligence that emulates humanity when we yet still do not even understand everything about our own brain.

The Black Hole of Calcutta doesn’t count. :wink:

We know various things the human mind is capable of, various functions it can perform or virtues it has - yes? In trying to replicate these virtues and functions we will (and have learnt) much about the mind. It’s circular - we learn, we try to recreate, in trying to recreate we learn some more

I love reading all these things and how defensive people get about their opinions, which is a very important trait that humans have. I feel that science will never slow down for the fact that two things will push it on forever.

  1. Education - passing down the knowledge and skills generation to generation.

  2. Dreams - one man can add something to the world, one race can change the world. The soul fact that every person everywhere dreams of doing something with there life, change the world, solve a problem will make science and technology last as long as we do.

I feel that in todays world, we are still trying to become Earth, united as humans, which seems that it will take a while, but if we do, imagine what a joint scientific world, economically sound and communicationally on the same page could accomplish.

Maybe we are slowing down, but only for a nano-second because the next generation, my generation is growing up fast! :wink:

She was Ethiopian.

Can you see my difficulties.

Homo Mysticus