How close are we to reaching the limit of what is physically possible...

How close are we to reaching the limit of what is physically possible, in terms of our scientific and technological development as a species?

Is this about 90% of what we're going to get?

Or is there still good reason to believe that the future will be radically different? Could the world be as different in 2116 compared to the world of today as our world is from the world we had in 1916 or 1816; fundamentally different in many material respects?

Or are we likely to see only incremental improvements?

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
youtube.com/watch?v=eqwxKwG93Hg
youtube.com/watch?v=nuU4L7-n0q8
youtube.com/watch?v=mAbuHe9X_cs
blueprint.keshefoundation.org/blueprint.php
i.4cdn.org/wsg/1473968055554.webm
youtube.com/watch?v=ojEq-tTjcc0
nature.com/news/2003/031110/full/news031110-17.html
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

> Or are we likely to see only incremental improvements?

That's how it almost always is. Lots of little steps add up to big changes after a while though.

Far too close for my comfort. We've discovered most of what is to discover from a standpoint of things that will help humanity. It is more or less up to engineers to actually do something monumental with it. Materials tech is nearly a dead end for science. Genetics on the other hand still has a long way to go.

>How close are we to reaching the limit of what is physically possible, in terms of our scientific and technological development as a species?
We are way too fucking far from reach our limit user.

>Is this about 90% of what we're going to get?
No.

>Or is there still good reason to believe that the future will be radically different?
The future will always be different.

>Are we likely to see only incremental improvements.
See: Its all one step at a time.
My only hope is we cure/find major way to combat Alzheimer on the predicted time of 2025, and rid the world of aging/combat it majorly 20-30 so we can live long enough to reap our constant hard work in 2116 and beyond.

We stand on the shoulders of our forefathers.

There's always more to do. We haven't even begun to get into biotech, nanodevices, designer materials, AI, and all sorts of other fields.

The challenge going forward will be finding efficient ways to assimilate mankind's information to form useful conclusions.

Think how many incredible inventions could have been made by now but haven't because the right pieces of already known information haven't been put together.

Not even close, we don't have a complete model of physics and if we do eventually get one you can expect some whacky shit.

Could we create white holes to pump energy in the universe for an eternity?

We can doing it if we put are mind to it!!!

trying to predict how close we are to the limit of scientific knowledge is like dipping your toe in a pool with your eyes closed and speculating on how deep it is

>We haven't even begun to get into biotech, nanodevices, designer materials, AI, and all sorts of other fields.

Implying that's going to change anything significantly.

AI will change everything

What is the point of doing any of it if it doesn't change anything significantly?

>Implying that's going to change anything significantly.
user are you fucking with me, or just baiting and trolling.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

We are currently at 0.724 on the scale as of 2012 estimates. It won't end until we have figured out how to harness all the energy in the universe and perhaps the entire multiverse.

>Is this about 90% of what we're going to get?

no not even close

are you retarded or do you just have 0 imagination?

You could cure cancer with nanobiotehnology by replacing broken parts od the cancerous DNA with healthy parts and later removing the tumor

I didn't say I thought that, did I?

The world already changed massively compared to 10 years ago. It will barely be recognisable in 20 years.

> The world already changed massively compared to 10 years ago

Really? I don't think it feels that different.

Internet actually changed a wolrd alot past this 10 years.

Like stuff that doesn't affect humanity as a whole. Oh boy, can't wait.

I wasn't, but I don't know enough nanotech to know what applications it would have. My feeling if you cured cancer it would only keep a bunch of ignorant, non-contributing, old people living (not knocking the young cancer patients). Old people who wouldn't feel the need to work after 65, and who aren't necessary PhDs or STEM advancers. It would put a bigger burden on the younger generations.

We've always been at the limit of the physical models. It should always feel like the future is impossible. Otherwise you're not trying. You can't go into the bleakness of the future without going into the specifics of the limits in each field. Generally however, just looking at sites like phys.org or even arxiv doesn't give me much hope.

not really, just more normies with iphones and bandwidth enough to support decent video

>How close are we to reaching the limit of what is physically possible, in terms of our scientific and technological development as a species?

is it 1890 again?

Just wait for full automation and AI singularity and then you will see some real shit.

But information era actually changed the way we think, how we interact with each other, how we do like everything. You can say anything about normies with iphones, but its a big change.

Not that user, but: The more things chance. The more they stay the same.

Basically since you were there for the ride, nothing really changed for you because everything seems natural since you were part of it all.

If you were to take yourself from 10 yrs ago or even 20 yrs ago and plop them into now, they be wondering what the fuck is a smart phone, how close are they to finishing flying cars (which some prototypes do exist) and hoverbikes, VR, etc, etc.

If the universe is not mathematical and it just ha some mathematical properties that we already observed or we're very close to finalize the list - then yea, we're stuck with this until heat death.

Alternatively if the universe is entirely mathematical, there is literally no end to what relations we can find in it - the progress of science cannot stop.

And obviously unless you're religious you will see from evidence that the universe is entirely mathematical, otherwise - it's God fart or something.

>they be wondering what the fuck is a smart phone
That's basically all we got. And faster computers but that was expected.

having basically EVERYONE capable of running a livestream anywhere is kinda a big deal

Wait until we have robots that are capable of mimicing human actions, human sight, human hearing, human understanding of these senses.

Capable of manipulting objects with flexible finger like digits, etc

>space x hydra.....
hail hydra

We don't even know what we don't know, and what we do know is a drop in an ocean. Let that sink in for a second, and then ask yourself the question.

Biology and genetics is still low hanging fruit. Thats going to be the new frontier for a while.

We're just now entering the realm of Geometric Arrangement Relevance. I.e. The realization that the specific geometric arrangements of quanta impact the pertinent quality of their interactions. Evidence for this found in devices like: The Joe Cell & The Keshe Foundation's Magrav power unit.

Videos:

youtube.com/watch?v=eqwxKwG93Hg
22:30 - ~30:00 most interesting portion of the video I can remember, very interesting

youtube.com/watch?v=nuU4L7-n0q8

youtube.com/watch?v=mAbuHe9X_cs

Magrav Power Unit blueprints:
blueprint.keshefoundation.org/blueprint.php

ITT:

Science, as we currently define it, has been around maybe two or three centuries. We've understood that light has a speed for just a bit longer than that - understood that it is indeed the maximum speed of information propagation for considerably less than that, and turned our standard model of the universe on its head four times in just the past hundred years.

>Is this about 90% of what we're going to get?
0.09%, maybe, and, should the pattern continue, a good deal of that is going to turn out be resting on incorrect assumptions.

>Or is there still good reason to believe that the future will be radically different? Could the world be as different in 2116 compared to the world of today as our world is from the world we had in 1916 or 1816; fundamentally different in many material respects?
Further, a lot of what we could be doing, right now, is held back out of a healthy fear of the unknown.

Should we start getting the balls to play with genetic engineering and start CRISP'ing ourselves before 2116, odds are, you won't even recognize the average human, as human, by then. (And if we start playing with such things sooner, rather than later, you may even have your life extended enough to see said gene-pocalypse.)

That's leaving aside things that may or may not happen - such as AI. A simulated brain is more or less inevitable, and while that doesn't get you into singularity territory, in and of itself, it does raise a whole lotta inheritance and authority issues that could rend civilization a new hole or two, just in and of themselves.

Granted, a dark age could always happen, and some of these things, among others left unmentioned, could lead to one, so there's always the possibility we maybe we'll all be back to playing with sticks and stones again or living Mad Max, only with more genetic aberrations running about.

no, most of the limitations on technology at the moment is a pure materials problem. We don't have any efficient way of turning stored electrical energy (either as batteries or as heat) into energy. Once we do that, all sorts of crazy shit from laser guns to flying cities and warp drives become possible

Raid thread. It's happening!!!

>It won't end until we have figured out how to harness all the energy in the universe and perhaps the entire multiverse.
Then what? We just chill for an eternity with anime and immortality?

can you explain so i dont have to watch anything

The ocean needs to be looked at more critically. We know more about space than our own oceans. And most of space is empty. It's also very underfunded and who knows, maybe we will find a chemical compound down there that can cure many of the diseases up here.

Then we become the anime.

> maybe we will find a chemical compound down there that can cure many of the diseases up here

Are you trolling or do you honestly believe that?

Let me ask you a question
After 6 gorillion years when our sun swallows up the solar system, where would you rather live
On another planet
or in the ocean

In 6 gorillion years wouldn't we have most likely mastered the universe and do whatever we want?

I'd pump energy into white holes na'mean?

Billion to 5 billion, depending on where ya read... Or maybe a solar flare will boil your oceans tomorrow, ya never know. (Or someone will weaponize smallpox.)

But it's not as if we don't have enough hairless apes running about to do both.

(Granted, pic related isn't taking into account that we actually have more accurate maps of the ocean floor than we have of either Mars or the Moon.)

Theres really no way to tell. We dont know what we dont know

NTG, but probably something worth finding there - already broke our minds to find that shit is living below the Challenger depth, using cellular mechanisms we previously didn't think possible. And not just the occasional freak fish - but bunches - an entire ecosystem's worth, making us re-evaluate the degree of which life itself can proliferate and what it actually requires to be.

Colonizing such a hostile environment maybe a dead end, but it'd be good training for learning to do the same in, somewhat, less hostile environments somewhere.

And yeah, with ~7 billion peeps around, it's not as if you have to choose one or the other.

We can't put a limit if we don't know or we can't reach what's on the other side of the limit.

You are going to waste "6 gorillion years" looking at empty matter through a telescope like what has most space exploration has been doing for the last 20 years. Now I'm not saying we should stop exploring space it is important but we should fund oceanography equally or more so.

Fuck you spacefag, after a gorrillion years planet earth will become a space ship that left our dying sun a long time ago.

You think after living on this rock for this long, we're going to abandon it?

I don't mean to compare anything but at least with oceanography you have a better chance of finding a new species that you can name or finding a major discovery.

You can spend your whole life studying space and still be exactly where you started and not find a major discovery.

>reaching the limit of what is physically possible, in terms of our scientific and technological development as a species?

Yes.

Anyone who thinks otherwise is a child.

Give me your evidence.

>How close are we to reaching the limit of what is physically possible, in terms of our scientific and technological development as a species?
0.000000000000000000001% of the way there.

If you took someone from the year 500 and dumped them in the year 1300, eight centuries later, what would they see that would make them go "HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS DID THAT?!"

>Between 70 and 90% of the universe is made up of shit we've never been able to detect with properties unlike anything we've ever seen before, and can only infer the existence of.
>Can't say dick about the top quark.
>Model of the universe into the trash three times in as many generations. (At least twice within the lifetimes of half the folks here.)
>Still using silicon chips, despite proven superior alternatives that simply haven't been put into mass production yet.
>Have CRISPR, but have barely used it on ourselves yet.
>Every other person walking about with more computer power than existed on the entire planet less than half a century before. Able to send the entirety of all texts ever written by all of man in mere moments, anywhere in the world, all while the generation that barely dreamed of such things as millenias distant science fiction is still alive.
i.4cdn.org/wsg/1473968055554.webm

You'll be lucky to recognize this world by the time you're old enough to leave, even assuming that ever-changing marker doesn't move well before then.

Cathedrals, cannons, armies of full plate knights, and a network of boats large and reliable enough to trade from Europe to Indochina regularly.

Granted, if you took someone from 1816 and dumped him in 2016, you'd have a hard time even explaining half the shit he saw, even barring the linguistic barrier. (Hell, the internet, cell phones, and satellite networks, would be a hurdle for the average Joe from even 1916.)

Well, and the Black Plague, that kinda resulted from that network of boats, assuming you managed to snag them young enough to live to see it.

>the limit of what is physically possible
you cant even fucking define that OP jesus christ

I picked out 1300 in an attempt to go as late as possible before plate mail and cannon were commonplace - and cathedrals are as old as Emperor Constantine, although certainly they got larger and more ornate

CRISPR is a piece of shit. It doesn't work correctly. It fails to edit the target genes, and edits untargetted genes. You are memeing.

The flying buttress and other architectural innovations, along with the willingness to invest 100+ year build times, kinda put 10th century+ cathedrals leaps and bounds beyond anything built before, with few exceptions, and they cropped up in and around every major city, and even some minor ones, quite quickly, unlike the previous world-wonder tier monuments that were more or less restricted to the capitals of old and major regional civilizations.

But it's true (especially since you're kinda including a "dark age" in there), the more civilization warping tech advances used to come along a lot more slowly. Information technology and methodology has just continued to accelerate to such a degree, where we can more or less take it for granted that even basic communication methods and radical social change will occur even within one's own lifetime, and it shows no signs of slowing down. (Which is kinda scary, actually - and may yet result in something cataclysmic enough to create another "dark age".)

It's not "scary", it's necessary.
Technological progress is the only way to counteract diminishing returns. If we stagnated technology, our lifestyle would regress year by year.

If people are living longer they'll just raise the retirement age so it would actually result in a larger workforce which is good for the economy

I would think that ends at being able to manipulate the universe on a quantum level. Once we can replicate objects like they do in Star Trek, there will probably be nothing else left for us to achieve. (Technologically)

I can see this happening. I guess I can be okay with it.

Necessity doesn't make things any less scary. I have to breath and rely on this biological ticker to keep me alive as it is, all while living in a house where there's enough energy flowing through the walls to stop said ticker, and enough flammable gas to burn it all alive, all running through pipes that are inches apart, if not outright wrapped around each other at points.

The fact that any bio grad student worth his salt, with access to a university lab, and an amount of data small enough to fit on a modern USB keychain, can now cook up the Smallpox virus from scratch in a matter of, likely, unsupervised days, with half the process automated for him, is kinda scary too, never mind how much easier both that, and all matter of other of devious mad-minded destructive plans are only going to get easier and easier to achieve as time goes on - nearly always outpacing the security technology designed to prevent it.

Always gotta answer That Last Question:
youtube.com/watch?v=ojEq-tTjcc0
(These days, additionally complicated by an accelerating expansion.)

Assuming you're in the US, and old enough to post on the board legitly, it already happened in your lifetime, and will probably happen again. Granted, at the moment, it's fairly gradual.

>make up a virus from scratch
sounds like bullshit

Chemically building viruses from scratch is standard procedure these days, and a key piece of certain retrovirus therapies. We've been doing it for over a decade, it just used to take a lot longer.

nature.com/news/2003/031110/full/news031110-17.html

Granted, we're not *quite* doing it with bacteria yet - still need to inject it into an existing beast, but close to. More complex viruses are harder, but Smallpox is a pretty simple little bugger, compared to Ebola or HIV.

Well fug.

>you cant even fucking define that OP jesus christ
But you can. Current limits, critical magnetic field limits, speed of light limit, dielectric breakdown, tensile strength limits, compressive strength limits, Carnot efficiency limit, bandwidth limits, ET CETERA.

According to this thread. The future is bright. We gonna be 'ight? 'Ight?

Interesting quotes user. What is your response to: though?

NTG, but beyond that there are still limits to it, such in that it's difficult to make sure, in some cases, that the re-programmed cells out produce the original ones, and it's still in the developmental phase, even if some therapies do have FDA approval, I can't find anything to support his claims. (Closest sort of thing I can find is, for instance, the CRISPR cure for hemophilia sometimes being *too* effective, leading to uncontrolled clotting, and other similar fine tuning hurdles.)

Nevermind the fact that some maniacs are now trying to build huge swaths of the human genome from scratch via HGP-write, and such things are of little concern in the dark art of prenatal genetic engineering.

There's a whole lot in the human genetic engineering department we could be doing, but aren't yet. ...and this, is probably a good thing. It's going to get ugly when said science starts taking off - no doubt initially complicated by gene patents.

Kind of a minor thing, when set against the rest of that list of complaints, but probably the most likely to fundamentally change who we are within the next few centuries, barring a dark age, if ever left unchecked.

>Materials tech is nearly a dead end for science

why?

Wasn't there some new development recently that significantly reduced off-targets?

>Materials tech is nearly a dead end
ehm, really?
CNTs, graphene, room temperature superconductors, programmable matter, all still basically in infancy, waiting to be created and utilised
it might not be the freshest field but it's hardly finished

It is mostly just learning how to mass produce those for cheap.

It is an engineering problem.

You can't begin to imagine the kinds of advances that will be made by the end of the century. It's going to seem like magic.

>they don't use the principles of physics to solve the "engineering problem"
I really hate this meme.

Thanks for the response user. Pretty nice to hear about CRISPR being "too effective", and that there still exist some problems such as re-programmed cells out produce the original ones.

Final question. Is there a best estimated time when such problems could be fix with CRISPR?

Well, it already works, I mean they've done some crazy stuff with it (such as adding bioluminescence to animals that don't have it, and giving the certain primates more color cones for a wider range of color vision), just not for everything, and it's not yet perfectly reliable to the degree where you'd want to risk large alterations to a fully grown humans, on a large scale population... And of course, any genetic engineering on humans is dicey ethics territory, as it should be. (And also means any viruses that infect said modified humans, may have unexpected mutations.)

Nonetheless, China is doing studies, and the FDA has even approved a few related therapies.

There's just still some efficiency problems, in terms of application. You get some mistargeting, but as long as the bulk of mistargeted cells are non-viable and don't go cancerous, you're good, and there's been improvement in that department (and it's less of a problem, depending on what you are targeting). The other issue being the efficiency of spread, in that you need to be sure your modified cells don't get overwhelmed by their non-modified counterparts, but that's just down to improving the delivery methods and fine tuning ratios.

...and even if CRISPR was a meme, there's other stuff on the horizon providing the potential for even more fundamental and finely tuned changes to the genome - provided you're willing to tinker with freshly fertilized embryos.