The rate and the consequences of technological advance

Philosophy Forums Science, Technology, and Math
1

Will technological advancement be beneficial to the human species in the long run?

  • Yes
  • No
0 voters

Folks, I’m new here. I do not pretend to be knowledgeable about anything. I also don’t pretend to have it “right”. I just like to think. I’d like to share some of my ponderings in threads like these. In this one, I’d like to say a few things about the rate of technological advancement in relation to the rate of human evolution.

A brief web search indicates that the first use of stone tools can be traced back to Homo habilis around 2,2 million years ago. I choose to ignore human evolution before this point; Homo habilis is my starting point in time when evaluating technological advancement and human evolution.

Since that time, human evolution went somewhat like this:

100.0% -2,200,000 years: Homo habilis
82.0% -1,800,000 years: Homo erectus
22.7% -500,000 years: Homo sapiens (archaic), a.k.a. Homo heidelbergensis
10.5% -230,000 years: Homo sapiens neanderthalensis
5.5% -120,000 years: Homo sapiens (modern), a.k.a. Homo sapiens sapiens

The percentages indicate that Homo sapiens sapiens has been around for 5.5% of the time that technology-using humans have been around (obviously, our previous incarnations have become extinct but I choose not to include the times of their demise).

Technological advancement went somewhat like this:

100.000% -2,200,000 years: first use of stone tools
82.000% -1,800,000 years: first use of fire
3.000% -60,000 years: use of bone, antler, wood, ivory; production of art
0.364% -8,000 years (6000 BC): first recognition that the Earth is a sphere (Pythagoras);
0.250% -5,500 years (3500 BC): first use of metals, first use of wheel and axle (Bronze Age)
0.152% -3,350 years (1350 BC): first use of iron (Iron Age)
0.105% -2,300 years (300 AD): writing of Euclid’s “Elements” (a landmark mathematics text)
0.045% -1,000 years (1000 AD): first use of mechanical navigational tools (the astrolabe)
0.036% -800 years (1200 AD): first windmills
0.015% -333 years (1671 AD): Newton deducts theory of calculus
0.014% -317 years (1687 AD): Newton publishes his “Principia”, a milestone in mathematics and physics
0.100% -221 years (1783 AD): first rotary steam egine made by James Watt
0.009% -204 years (1800 AD): Volta, Ampere and Faraday discover fundamentals of electricity
0.009% -197 years (1807 AD): first internal combustion engine
0.008% -175 years (1829 AD): Stephenson builds the “Rocket”, the first steam rail locomotive
0.007% -145 years (1859 AD): Darwin publishes “On The Origin Of Species”
0.007% -141 years (1863 AD): Gregor Mendel deduces basic laws of genetics
0.006% -123 years (1881 AD): first public electricity supply
0.005% -119 years (1885 AD): first practical automobile
0.005% -118 years (1886 AD): Pasteur publishes world’s first vaccination results
0.005% -107 years (1897 AD): discovery of the electron
0.005% -106 years (1898 AD): first diesel engine
0.005% -100 years (1904 AD): first vacuum tube diode built
0.005% -99 years (1905 AD): Einstein deducts special relativity
0.004% -89 years (1915 AD): Einstein deducts general relativity
0.004% -78 years (1926 AD): theory of quantum mechanics shapes up
0.003% -61 years (1943 AD): Alan Turing completes Colossus, the first programmable electronic computer
0.002% -52 years (1953 AD): Watson and Crick deduce the structure of DNA
0.002% -48 years (1956 AD): Calder Hall opens (world’s first nuclear power plant)
0.002% -39 years (1965 AD): Penzias’ and Wilson’s discovery of background radiation supports Big Bang theory
0.002% -35 years (1969 AD): Neil Armstrong sets foot on the Moon
0.001% -32 years (1972 AD): introduction of Arpanet and email software, the precursor of the internet
0.001% -26 years (1978 AD): Edwards and Steptoe perform first succesful human in vitro fertilization
0.000% -10 years (1994 AD): first publicly announced human cloning experiments performed by Stillman
0.000% -1 year (2003 AD): Human Genome Project completed

These figures speak for themselves: the world as we know it is pretty much unmeasurably young. The rate of technological advancement is increasing over time, not just advancement itself. For computers, this is expressed in Moore’s Law (which states that computing power quadruples every 24 months).

Comparing the two lists, it has become my personal opinion that human evolution as a species has become completely out of sync with technological advancement. As a biological species, we pretty much are the same entity as we were 40,000 years ago. There have been no detectable biological alterations within the species. However, due to our mental prowess, we have created a lifestyle that I feel does not match our current stage in evolution. It is my opinion that this makes us biologically more vulnerable, not stronger.

Just a few of my worries:

#1. The structure of DNA was unraveled a mere 50 years ago. Since then, whe have mapped the human genome, made succesful attempts at cloning mammals (sheep, cows) and several attemps at cloning ourselves (attempts which are undoubtedly continuing). I choose to compare this to giving a gun to a 10-year old boy: the nature of the gift does not match the individual’s degree of readiness to make proper use of it. This applies not only to biological advances, but also to several technological advances (think nuclear power).

#2. An extrapolation of the previous point: advancements may be beneficial to us NOW, (i.e., they are beneficial to just a few generations), but I do not believe they will be beneficial to the human species in the long run; see #1.

#3. Advancements are currently accessible only to a portion of the world’s population, thereby increasing the gap between “rich” (the West) and “poor” (the 3rd world). In my opinion, this significantly increases the chances of armed conflict. China is an interesting example: they’re struggling incredibly hard to close the economic gap. They’re also doing that in the arms department and just entered space. They have 1,300,000,000 people to feed (!) and are led by ideologists. You can do the math.

#4. Medical advancements have overpopulation as a side-effect. Overpopulation leads to a greater vulnerability to disease (more people means more antibiotics means less time before a resistant strain pops up). In addition, advancements seem to lead to a way of life which does bot match our current evolutionary stage. Example: repetetive strain injury (RSI); thrombosis. We weren’t meant to use our bodies just to sit or lie down all the time. Mentally, we have adapted (or so it seems). Biologically, we haven’t.

I’ll stop now.

2

People said the same thing about machine guns after world war one. I’m not saying machine guns are a good thing, but we understand their effects now. It is the nature of human beings to burn our fingers a few times on each new thing we invent - this is how we learn. Arguably if we don’t burn our fingers a few times, we will never be “ready to make the proper use of it.”

I have two links for you to read concerning this. We have the physical and technological capability to feed every person on the planet, now.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/12/05/opinion/edfried.html
http://www.guerrillanews.com/users/user.php?bid=2251 - this is primarily valuable for the link it has, but puts this stuff in the context I think it needs to have.

Problem:
-Overpopulation

Solutions:
-Cheap fast space travel
-Contraceptives (and education concerning them)
-Alleviation of poverty

All of these technological and sociological problems have technological and sociological solutions which we could begin to implement this very day if we just had the balls to commit the resources. There is no reason why these problems have to be problems at all. The “sin” is not new technology or even the irresponsible use of new technology, but rather the refusal to see what our current technology would do for us if only we would let it - willful ignorance again.

3

I agree with the refusal part. Our behaviour seems to be dictated by the individual’s short-time needs, instead of the needs of the collective. I’m not advocating communism or Borg-like social structures (if you can call it that), but with the ants it’s the other way around. The needs of the individual are insignificant compared to those of the collective. That, combined with the strict hierarchy, makes ants so successful as a species. The problem seems to be that ants are at one end of the scale while us humans are at the other end. We shouldn’t regard individual lives as “expendable”, but it would be nice if we could adopt some aspects of “collective behaviour” on a global scale (international poltics being the most significant example).

Our tendency to go for our own short-term needs seems to be embedded deep into our genes. We seem to act like the average predator on the hunt, regardless of the fact that we have sentience and intelligence. Those qualities have not superseded or replaced our deepest instincts, which don’t seem to have changed over the last couple of thousand years. This reflects the slow rate of biological evolution. At the same time, our intelligence spawns an exponentional rate of scientific and technological development, totally out of balance with our willingness (or capabilities) to make proper use of them. I honestly believe that we might instigate a dinosaur-like tragedy upon ourselves before we learn what we really need to learn in order to survive.

4

towander to further your point about the rate of technical advances, i think thomas kuhn has a good chapter on it in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. there are tons of research done on the subject, and i think you in fact underestimate the impact. if i correctly remember, as much as 80% of all the stuff a college student will learn in his life has not been discovered yet.

however the worries you express seem to me very much mislead.

  1. there is no serious reason to suspect that one can find the poison but not the cure. if man made it, man can break it has been the credo of lockpicks and computer engineers as long as either has been around. why should we belive that is about to drastically change ?

  2. why do you not belive whats good for us today will be bad for us tomorrow ? will we be dramatically different then ? why do you belive that but not belive that the sun or the trees might be good for us today, but maybe not for future generations ? that cant be an argument to cut all the trees can it ?

3.it is entirely false to belive people that gain from technological advances are miraculously enclosed in the us or western europe. the world is too globalised for that to work. in fact, the poor of cairo live alot better lives than the poor of ny.

  1. overpopulation is a relative concept. rome was overpopulated back in 500ad. ny is not really overpopulated now. so overpopulation in itself is nonsense. considering the history of mankind, it is unlikely that severe cases of overpopulations will ever occur again. the great migrations that brought waves of invaders in europe are a prime example of overpopulation back in that time, and the phenomenon seem to be declining sharply.
5

I agree with Zen Swashbucker

Technological advances serve as a tool for humankind. And the future comes to us via technology. As technology advances, so does our economy. As technology advances, so does the environment becomes cleaner (alternative energy, for ex:). As technology advances, the more scientific discoveries/benefits unfold. Technology is the evolutionary engine that drives successive economic waves of change and benefiting society as a whole.

Today, conversations between the young are about music players, mobile phones, Bluetooth technology, digital cameras, robots, plasma screens and laptops. From the exchange of information from computers to alternative energy cars in Japan.

We become more knowledgeable about the world around us and human potential with more technology. We are able to be more innovative and creative. Technology is considered to be the system by which a society provides its members with those things needed or desired. Our economy was practically built on technology. Does technology help, or does it bring down mankind? Technology, I believe, helps in many different ways. It especially helps us in discovery, safety, and it makes our lives much easier. I don’t even want to try to imagine where our society would be today without many of our modern marvels. Through discovery, we have learned about the atmosphere, pollution, the possibility of life on other planets, and more. We have even saved millions of lives through better medicine. There have been discoveries for new cures of diseases. There is now a treatment for polio, hepatitis, and even the common cold. We can now have better hospitals with state-of-the-art equipment. People live a lot longer than they used to due to better technology.

Overpop is a problem, but as Zen presented, education is the solution.

Then again does it not depend on how we use technology consciously? It can be used for war reasons, or beneficiaries for all people on earth.

6

Reading your replies, I realize that I should have made it more clear what I mean with “technology”. Sorry I didn’t do that right away. I do not mean Bluetooth headsets. What I do mean, for example, are developments in cutting-edge particle physics. So far, an atomic weapon has only been used twice. Atomic weapon detonations and accidents in nuclear facilities are very serious incidents costing many lives, but (given the low frequency in which they occur) do not threaten the Earth and/or the survival of Man. It takes an all-out nuclear war to do that. However, (and this is merely an example) with the continuous building of more powerful particle accelators, we dive deeper and deeper into a realm of which we understand very little. Doing this kind of research would seem to be very fruitful and harmless by all scientific arguments available to us today. That said, ín my opinion there is a pitfall here that too few people seem to acknowledge:

You can teach a dog to guide a blind man through Manhattan safely. You can teach him to ignore his instincts. You cannot teach a dog what the Moon is. A dog seems biologically incapable of understanding concepts like that, concepts which for us are part of everyday life. The universe might well be too complex for us to understand, even with the use of instruments and computers. We are biologically limited - we may not be capable (at a fundamental level) of understanding it.

(I copied this text from another thread where I posted it earlier).

The more we learn about the sub-atomic level, the weirder things get. At age 37, I’m still an avid student of the latest insights, but the amount of effort required by me to understand those concepts is increasing rapidly (still, I manage - but it sorta takes 3 hours of serious math in order to grasp 15 minutes worth of physics). String theory is fascinating, but its description of the world is seems so utterly detached from what we know, that I can’t help thinking about the above quote with the dog. In our quest for understanding, we might stumble unto something that we do not even begin to comprehend. Given the enourmous energy levels involved in current and future collision experiments, combined with the utterly “alien” phenomena encountered, this worries me.

People feared the world would end when the first trains emerged. People have always feared scientific advance. Feel free to lump my concerns on the big heap of doomsday-sayers that preceded me. But we have never, ever “messed” with energy levels this high or phenomena this deep.

Quite literally, we’re bashing particles into one another at light speed “just to see what happens”.

Particle physics has given us much and I don’t want to take anything away from that. But the keyphrase should be “Proceed with caution!” and I, for one, sense that we have understood the “Proceed!” part but not the “with caution!!” part.

7

We do not know what we do not know.

We naturally fear the unknown and the unknowable.

But until we are there we wont know.

We may be dead then but how else can we know?

Once people feared sailing over the edge of the earth until Columbus sailed West and didnt fall over.

And even so there are yet things that are constant and unchanging.

What hurts hurts, what kills kills, be it the stone, the knife, the machine gun or the nuclear bomb.

What is human remains human be it created naturally or by artificial assisted means like IVF and cloning.

So while we race apparently inexorably like Moore’s law with technology, all the more we need to seek and reaffirm what our foundations are, like what is it to be human and humane, and what are morals and what is immorality, and so on. Only upon a such a firm foundation I think can humans use and guide the tremendous growth of knowledge and its application in technology.

Only the human hand can determine whether it will be for good or evil, for better or for worst, for celebration or for disaster.

8

I agree 100% - hence my concern… :confused:

9

as you have refined your statement, namely that while quantics are so utterly counterintuitive we keep bashing things into one another just to see what happens i can easily understand your worries.

for comparation, we are about like a five year old in a fully equiped chemistry laboratory… look at all the pretty colors… pouring acids on metal sheets etc etc… then one day we accidentaly make nytroglicerin and drop in on the floor… wham

that line of reasoning is entirely legitimate… yet, what would you have us do ?

10

Chanbengchin said it:

Sadly, I don’t see this happening in the near future. Not only are we like children in a chem lab, but we act like children too - and spoiled ones, at that.

A very basic, first step would be an international committee that judges this kind of research not just on its merits, but also on its risks. I’m longing for the Theory of Everything as much as anyone, but not at all costs.

11

alas there can not be such a comitee. any group of people can not be better at judging matters scientific than the scientists themselves.

12

A thought, a question: why is it that we can make such tremenduous progress in technology but are dismally primitive in they way we know ourselves and our conduct? We can understand the interior of stars millions of light years away, but we can’t understand what’s inside the person sitting beside us in the office, or even within ourselves. We can look back even to the beginning of time in the Big Bang, and yet we disagree, even violently, whether a particular even occured 2000 years ago. We can harness animals and nature to do our bidding, yet we cannot control the beast that is ourselves. Is there something inherently more difficult or strange or unknownable than quarks, bosons and fermions? or of entropy, quantum tunnelling and space-time warp? or of infinities, transcendentals and prime numbers? It is like there is some inherent limitation or blind spot in us that although we can know what’s outside us, we are entirely blind about ourselves. It is like we looked into a mirror and we cannot see ourseleves, but we can see all other things around us perfectly.

13

Now you’re talking, chanbengchin! I think you’ve touched upon the heart of the matter here. Personally, I can think of two reasons for this behaviour. First, we seem to have some kind of inherent fear of getting “too close” to someone (or of letting someone getting “too close” to us). Heck, we don’t even seem capable of getting close to ourselves, it’s as though what we see scares us. Second, our actions seem to be motivated primarily by prosperity, not by the goal of becoming “a better human being”. In other words, we think we know what it is we need, but we don’t. What we truly need, is not what we want. We haven’t yet reached the “evolutionary maturity” needed to make that behavioral switch. Quantum tunelling is complex, but confronting it isn’t nearly as frightening as confronting one’s own weaknesses.

In Suburbia, the credo seems to be “God forbid you’d have to change your way of life!”