The problem with this viewpoint is it is like trying to figure out how to build a better oil lamp instead of developing the capability to generate electricity and built incandescent lamps (which led to vacuum tubes, which led to digital computers, which led to transistors, et cetera, ad nauseam).
Certainly we should invest effort into the evolution of current technologies, especially gene therapy, genetic modification and viral vector delivery of targeted pharmaceuticals, understanding of neurology and cognition, et cetera, but not at the marginal expense of expanding abstract knowledge that may someday provide a great incalculable boon to humanity. Six billion dollars? Peanuts compared to what is spend every year on junk food, or marketing of craptastical blockbuster films, or 24 hour Paris Hilton coverage.
As far as having it “pretty much all figured out,” not by a long shot. The more we learn, the more we learn we don’t know. Natural philosophers of the Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Century felt that they were at the cusp of knowing it all, and staring into the unmasked face of God Himself, only to reveal that things were not nearly as orderly, planned, and predestined as anticipated. We do miraculous things today, of course–imagine, a music library that would fill a room of LPs stored in a small tablet smaller than a deck of cards, a serum than can cure ward against lethal diseases for a lifetime, or an actor as President–but the people of yesteryear would say the same about their forebearers. Whatever neatokeen things we do today will undoubtedly be as quaint as television was to your grandma; I have a feeling that in particular they’ll laugh about “desktop” computers, the primitive health and trauma care, and the use of clunky “dee-vee-dees” to store and convey digital information.
On the other hand, I sincerely doubt that the Singularity is nigh; as we develop new capabilities, we’ll learn of new limitations, and then write books like “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Cyborgs” in order to try to deal with all the stuff we still can’t cope with even though we’re no longer beating rocks together to start a fire. It is a never-ending struggle to keep up with all that we can’t possibly know…and most people don’t even bother, preferring instead to watch the televisor and have it all distilled down to soundbites.
I think it was twenty minute or so. And who cares? Unless you’re discovering a new species of fish that self-assembles into transatlantic fiber optic cables, how is mucking about in the ocean going to impact me?
As I’ve previously said, I think that the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake is a wonderful thing and a fundamental part of human nature - but Saytwo summarizes my feelings on the matter very well.
Not only do we have a virtually infinitesimal understanding of the world around us, we actually know that we will not ever know everything about the universe thanks to the expansion of space and the cosmic event horizon.
Or, as Eric Idle sings: The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
in all of the directions it can whiz.
As fast as it can go, that’s the speed of light you know;
twelve million miles a minute, that’s the fastest speed there is.
So remember when your feeling very small and insecure,
how amazingly unlikely is your birth,
and pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'cause there’s bugger-all down here on earth!
Cure them with what? Sometimes, it just pays to explore stuff before you have any idea what to use it for. I’m sure the guy who discovered the laser had no idea we would be using it in supermarket scanners and computer mouses and presentation pointers. He probably just thought he was making a death ray!
Two words:
flying cars
No? Then don’t tell me everything has been invented yet.
But there are so many more of them, and each one points in a different direction!
I believe there was a thread a while back about a similar subject, and someone suggested we consider the experiences of a person living in the early 20th Century. The explosion of technology was mind-boggling. Automobiles, airplanes, radio, movies, sound recordings, etc. (Yes, I’m aware that some of these were developed in the late 19th Century, but they became widespread in the 20th)
I’m sure some people living at that time were asking the same questions you’re asking, and look what’s come along since.
Between the NIH, biotech research and development, and academic institutions, I would estimate that the United States spent about $100 B on biotech research last year.
Have we cured Alzheimer’s in the past year?
I would suspect not.
Would another $6 B have put us over the edge to have cured Alzheimer’s last year?
I would suspect not.
Will there be eventual biotech and other more “real world” applications for the physics discoveries made at CERN? Almost certainly.
So, Argent Towers, tell us, did physicists steal your lunch money or kill your father when you were young?
That’s just the thing, though. Of course the possibilities aren’t endless. Mankind will NEVER colonize the stars and I’d be shocked to see any serious interplanetary travel - or even realistic PLANS for it - in the next century.
What happens, really, when I wave my hand through the air? We could figure out the velocity, mass, kinetic energy of my manly flesh. Or use computational fluid dynamics to determine how the air would react around me. We know what my hand is made out of down to a level at which measurement becomes meaningless. Our current, modern day research is heavily focused on biological systems; we’re already manipulating the genome, the finest resolution of information storage for any organism. Even if we take massive leaps forward we’re still constrained by the relative inflexibility of complex living things. Sure, you can Control+X Control+V some plasmid base pairs into corn and trick the cell’s machinery into squeezing out a bit of pesticide or antifreeze. But we’re not, and cannot engineer sentient ultra mutated corn-men beasts that file income tax.
Would you at least concur that, regarding the nature of the world around us, that our handle is about as solid as you get? I’m genuinely interested in hearing your opinions, and I’d love to be wrong.
It’s an ongoing concern, apparently. The end user always wants something lighter, less breakable, more easily packed… The thing you split firewood with is of limited use to hunters.
Re the OP, when you can stand on the surface of a distant planet, look into the face of your cat and know what it is thinking, and then fly away with your genetically engineered wings, you can ask the question again.
I don’t think you’re giving enough consideration to what others are saying. In post #6, you asked “*And how long has it been since we changed the design of our axes?” *I would answer that we’ve moved way beyond axes (although they’re still very useful); we now have nuclear weapons, something Neanderthals could never have imagined. I think that was Lemur866’s point.
In post #22 you asked *“Who cares? How is mucking about in the ocean going to impact me?” *In post #24, Yllaria stated “The Victorians asked what use there was “knowing” what “electricity/magnatism” is. How could that possibly effect anyone’s actual life? The answer is that you just don’t know until later.”
In post #21, Stranger On A Train wrote “built incandescent lamps (which led to vacuum tubes, which led to digital computers, which led to transistors, et cetera, ad nauseam).”
and “The more we learn, the more we learn we don’t know.”
and in post #23 wrote “Not only do we have a virtually infinitesimal understanding of the world around us, we actually know that we will not ever know everything about the universe thanks to the expansion of space and the cosmic event horizon.”
The point is, we simply don’t know what useful benefits or technology might arise from seemingly unimportant studies or discoveries.
As msmith537 said in post #25, “Sometimes, it just pays to explore stuff before you have any idea what to use it for. I’m sure the guy who discovered the laser had no idea we would be using it in supermarket scanners and computer mouses and presentation pointers. He probably just thought he was making a death ray!”
(Sorry to borrow so much from other posts, but I thought they were worth repeating!)
Pragmatically, unless we can know with absolute certainty that the world holds no more secrets, it makes no sense to suppose that it does not. Of course it’s possible, though I believe unlikely, that contemporary physics has a fundamental grip on the nature of the world. However, could we ever justifiably know that it does, if it does? And if not, shouldn’t we assume that there is more to know about the universe in case there is, in fact, more to know about the universe?
Here is an article from NASA describing “some ideas that have been suggested over the years for interstellar travel, ideas based on the sciences that do exist today.”
At the bottom of the page, under “Contents”, are several links worth exploring, including “From Inspirations to Inventions” which says “Right now we don’t even know if practical interstellar travel is possible. Just because we don’t know how to do something today, however, doesn’t mean that it is impossible. There is a historical pattern that has emerged where the grand visions of yesterday’s science fiction inspired today’s reality.”
Sorry! That was a poor analogy I used. I was just trying to think of some modern technology that Neanderthals could never have dreamed of. A stone axe could be used as a weapon, right? OK, I’ll drop it. The chain saw is much better!
I came in here to post a very similar point. I’m taking a biology class (well outside my field of training: finance) just as a lark, and am absolutely amazed, daily, in my reading at the number of comments the text makes that:
(1) a given topic, discovery, or theory described in the text was made in the last 25 years (give or take), and / or is a complete revision of what scientists had previously thought; and
(2) a given thing (protein, cell organelle, disease, whatever) is still undetermined as to its purpose, cause, origins (whatever) despite decades of research.
When you think about it, the electron microscope and other tools enabling us to study the vast world of things we’ve never known of before, have only been available for a relatively short period of time; not nearly long enough to check out everything. In the field of biology (particularly microbiology), there is still a substantial, substantial body of undiscovered knowledge.
Part of the reason that there is still so much to discover is that we don’t know what advances in one science will affect another, and how what we know in theory will express itself in practice.
As an example of the first, materials science has made great differences in what can be accomplished in engineering – yet there are hundreds of devices that can be imagined but we don’t have the materials to create. The space elevator, for example – imagine how cheaply we could put things in space with a cable that would reach beyond the atmosphere into space. We don’t have the materials with the strength required, but who knows if nanotubes or other materials that we don’t know about yet will be the answer? Look at the advances we have made in plastics and metal alloys.
As an example of the second, take a look at the laser that other posters have mentioned. Einstein theorized about the exixtence and properties of lasers in a paper that he wrote in 1917. It wasn’t until 1960 that the first real laser was created. Now, they are everywhere.
Some theorists and scientists have postulated the possible existence of wormholes that “bend space” to create another path through a “fold” in the universe. Even though we don’t know any way to travel faster than light, if wormholes could be created, it would allow us a way “around” the limitations of lightspeed and make travel in and between galaxies possible.
And, as other posters have mentioned, biology is one of the last sciences to progress in the amazing way that other sciences have. It seems that we are now on the cusp of great advances in biology that can greatly affect our lives. The cause and treatment of cancer, understanding and possibly slowing aging, and many other possibilities are out there.
Basically, we can’t predict what will be discovered because we don’t know what we don’t know! It’s possible that we are reaching our limitations, I believe that there are limitations to everything. But we might have longer than we think before we reach those limitations.
What do you think people said about the moon pre-Wright brothers? We couldn’t even fly here on Earth, much less shoot something into space, land it on the moon, hang out there for a while, and get home safe and sound. But they did it. We have actual footage from a little vehicle that we managed to land on Mars. It’s there right now. This is with a somewhat underfunded NASA and an unenthused populace. If we suddenly found ways to reasonably travel to other planets and found the answers to secrets we’ve always wondered about there, you can bet that our research will increase a hundred-fold. Never say never.
And you’re right - the possibilities aren’t endless. Thing is, though, we don’t know where the end is. It could be that the end is is so far out that we’d never reach it in a billion years of research. We don’t know - we can’t know. That’s the nature of the universe.
