Highest point in human technological advancement?

[Unity+]

As we progress through the digital age, questions will arise about whether there is a limit to our capabilities of advancement. Will we simply continue to go beyond the boundaries that we think is the limit or is there a "transcendent" state we will soon be in, where we are no longer physical, but data entities and we no longer are consistent as biological organisms, but as pieces of data that live in a network?

 

I put this in philosophy because this may bring some philosophical questions.

[swansont]

There are certainly areas where advancement has been limited, basically to improvements brought about by other technologies maturing, but nothing inherent to the area in question.

 

Air flight, for example — modern planes are more advanced because of better materials and technology that has been incorporated, but the basics of flight haven't changed since the jet engine was deployed. Aside from a brief flirtation with supersonics along the way, it takes about the same amount of time to fly from point A to B than it did 30 or 40 years ago. And there doesn't seem to be any new paradigm shift on the horizon, AFAIK. No unexplained behavior which hints that something new is out there.

 

But other areas of technology continue to see advancement, and if one take a broad enough view, one shouldn't bet against it. The danger, I think, is banking on advancement in one specific area of technology, or as an excuse to not modify current attitudes and behaviors. "Technology will save us" is a bad mantra; the apathy it fosters means that there is less support for looking into new technology, until we are in crisis mode.

 

The "singularity" scenario is so hypothetical that I'll leave it alone. Predicting the specifics of the future of technology is hard.

[cladking]

Technological advancement is related to the causes of technology. The two biggest causes are theory and existing technology. That is all true human knowledge is theory and without advancement here technological advancement must stop. Right now technological advancement is primarily the result of new equipment and new learning based on it.

 

It's possible that if a true hurdle exists in attaining the unified field theory then it can be surmounted by means of improvements in technology such as, perhaps, artificial or machine intelligence. Without such advancements in theory technology will stop advancing for most practical purposes within a century probably. Of course, there will always be new means to reinvent the wheel so nothing will ever be static.

Edited October 1, 2014 by cladking