If you had to score planet Earth as a whole on how advanced its technology is what would you rate it?
We’ve barely scratched the surface of nanotechnology and bio-engineering. And our technological base relies on the use of finite resources, which means it’s not currently sustainable. We clearly have areas where we can make major advances.
It’s the most advanced planet we know of. But we still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea, so we have a ways to improve.
I don’t think we’ll ever stop advancing, so I’m not sure how to answer that.
Compare today to 1919.
I can’t even imagine 2119.
As of 2017, we were a 0.7279 on Sagan’s Kardashev scale. Tangentially related (relates to energy development), but at least quantifiable.
Much of what we do would be indistinguishable from magic for the people who wrote the Bible. On the other hand, if we ever develop Star Trek technology that would be indistinguishable from magic for us.
It is hard to rate without a scale, but we can imagine lots of possible technology (like AI, maybe) which we don’t have yet.
If someone wants a quantitative rating, I’d suggest going through a bunch of science fiction from the 50s say and today, collect technological developments, discard the scientifically impossible ones, ad them together, count the ones from the '50s which we now have (or have better) divide this by the total number of developments, and get a rating.
I leave that as an exercise for the reader.
Are we grading on a curve?
“Mostly harmless”.
It depends on who is judging and in what time frame. In 100 years, assuming our civilization doesn’t crash, we will look at today’s technology the way we look at the technology of 100 years ago.
Of course it’s unknowable. But I usually regard us as way down at the bottom still.
Which is great: as long as we can keep making progress Nature will keep giving us fascinating things to discover for a long while yet.
F.
I don’t even know what this means.
Much of what we do is indistinguishable from magic for most people today.
But since there really isn’t any way to factually answer this question,
[Moderating]
Moving to IMHO
Yes, and I’ve always thought of it as a somewhat misleading, although technically accurate, thought.
Humans are very adaptable, and also good at abstraction. So generally the time interval between being in awe of a new technology, and just integrating it into everyday life and considering it mundane (even while still having no idea how it works), is pretty short.
I want something. I say it out loud. A few hours later it’s at my door. How is that not magic. The few hours delay knocks it down to 9 out of ten. When Amazon develops instantaneous delivery we will be at 9.5. When they can anticipate my wish and get it there before I utter it, we will be at 9.9.
I should add that I want to know where technology rates relative to what is theoretically possible, or what would be possible if cost were no issue.
Well, what do you mean by “if cost were no issue”? That Bill Gates could do it if he wanted? That the United States government could do it if it wanted? That if all of the billions of people on the planet agreed that they wanted it and pooled all of their resources beyond what’s needed for survival? That we wait until we populate the entire Galaxy, and then pool all of the Galaxy’s resources?
What does physics say the limit of technology is? And how close are we to it?
We are at the stage were some things are very, very hard to improve. Microchips, for example. We have reached the point where some parts of a transistor are just a few atoms wide, and quantum tunneling is getting to be a major factor (data leaking away.) Aircraft speed is another–the supersonic Blackbird got so hot while in flight that it had to be designed with loose, leaky fuel lines while on the ground because they would heat and expand during flight, plus the plane had to fuel up after taking off because it needed an inert gas in the fuel tanks. Don’t expect microchips and high-speed aircraft of 100, 1,000, or 100,000 years from now to be hugely more powerful than they are today.
Physics doesn’t say anything. Technology is not monolithic. It’s not a game of civilization where fusion power and stealth are situated at the peak and once you get there there’s nothing left to research but useless, undefined “future technology” advancements.
Technology must be constrained by physical laws, and known physical laws include a hard limit on the speed of light and therefore information transfer, but there’s more to technological development than just speed.
If you’re asking if there’s ever a point in time in which humans could exist, without having been blown back into the Stone Age, and yet reach a point where nothing new could ever be invented (the “end” of technology), then I think the obvious answer is “never gonna happen.”
And of course there’s always the outside chance that our understanding of the universe may change and the “laws of physics” as we currently understand them will be in need of amendment.