-Metablade- wrote:
Oldfist wrote:
We are good at imagining and that's cool, but we may not be bright enough to either understand what is really going on or to implement it in useful and nonharmful ways. For example, with all our great ability and knowledge we can't even make a decent Cox -2 inhibitor (Vioxx). It is clear that we really don't know Jack about making drugs and their side effects. We stumble along doing some definite and significant good, but mainly making a fortune for drug companies.
Meta: See, I don't buy that "are we bright enough to handle the technology?" argument because clearly we are, otherwise we could not have discovered these things.
What technology - the magical ones that you are claiming will exist but don't yet?
Be careful, you kinda morphed what I said.
Hyping a technology that does not yet exist is not equivalent to
understanding exactly what is going on at the molecular level - proteomics. Maybe it takes aliens that see in 4D and experience the world in a much different way than we do, or maybe no entity in the universe does. Maybe compared to such aliens or to whatever it would take, we are inadequate to the task of complete understanding in the same way that an ant is only hardwired to its interesting but very limited work. Note that this is only appropriate healty skepticism like:
To know that you know nothing is best.
To pretend to know when you do not is a disease.
-Lao Tzu
Oldfist wrote:
The real frontier and barrier that needs to be overcome is that we have a really, really, really, .... (omega times) poor understanding of what exactly a human being (organism) is and how it functions on the molecular level. Yes, we have mapped the human genome and that's wonderful. We know about how many and where the proteins are, but we still have very little understanding of the function and interaction of each of the individual proteins. So, in order to successfully apply any new technology to the human body, we must e.g. first make significant progress in proteomics, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Meta: It's only a matter of (exponential) time before these issues become clear. That's all.
Really, again, about exactly which
issues ?
Why do you think that deep and complete understanding of currently unknown complex scientific relationships is merely a question of settling
issues?
To know that you know nothing is best.
To pretend to know when you do not is a disease.
-Lao Tzu
Oldfist wrote:
Isn't unbridled belief in the human race's purported ability to figure everything out about the universe just another flavor of (pseudo-scientific) anthropocentrism? Doesn't it fly in the face of real scientific inquiry? It's fun to speculate, but it is what it is, namely unscientific speculation.
Meta: To quote Shakespeare:
"What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god!"
Well, yes that's a fine example of a literary device called "hyperbole."
Oldfist wrote:
I think the right (objective scientific) attitude is the one expressed by Richard Feynman (Nobel prize winning physicist). He often said that he didn't prejudge what science is or what it should be, but rather "he just wanted to find out about the world," and that if it came out all nice and neatly arranged, that was fine, or if it turned out to be an onion with an unbounded number of layers that we always must keep peeling off forever than that was fine too. He "just wanted to find out about the world," how ever he could and in what way it might reveal itself to us (humans).
Meta: Right.
I'm not saying that we will find out everything there is to know in the next 50 years. I'm simply saying that there is an
"Event" which we are rushing towards within the concept of technology, one wherein Medicine, Traditional Technology, and Quantum physics will unify.
Don't you think this "Event" is kinda vague?
It doesn't sound very clear or scientific, but yes it is
fun speculation which I too enjoy (believe it or not
).
I hate to say I'm right, but while I am indeed "guessing", I am making reasonable assertions based upon current trends, research, and technology levels.
No, you don't.
I would also add, that I have been making such predictions about technological advancement for the last 25 years.
I have not been wrong yet.
This type of argument is similar to my gambler friends who only report all the times that they won, but not their overall winnings/losses. I wonder what your predictions were regarding fusion reactors and energy, or real artificial intellgence promised 20 years ago to be realized in ten years.
Also, being a logical person I'm sure you realize that any such argument suffers from the problem of induction, namely, the occurrence of a success in a finite number of events, never ensures the occurrence of success on the next event, e.g. the levees have always held against hurricanes in the past, so they will hold this year.
)
