Poll of the Day > Do you think there's a limit to technological advancement?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I think so, and once we reach that limit, people will either be extremely bored, or will live in blissful paradise.

Nah, Apple still hasn't learned how to make a worthwhile phone, so we got at least another 2 decades of development left.

There will always be advancement as long as we exist
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^I gotta agree with this.
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Depends on where you draw your line with "technological advancement." There are literal physical walls in sight, at least with regard to silicon construction, that we're currently unable to overcome, but that doesn't mean designs can't be improved upon.

Red_Frog posted...

Depends on where you draw your line with "technological advancement." There are literal physical walls in sight, at least with regard to silicon construction, that we're currently unable to overcome, but that doesn't mean designs can't be improved upon.

We will break that wall if we last long enough
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No not at all, but I think it can advance to the point where we can no longer make sense of it
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Doubtful, because you'll always have incremental advancement.
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I don't think we ever will because there are some things we don't do, not because we can't, but because it's not practical in terms of resources or effort.

if you're asking whether there's a theoretical limit, then I think there has to be, but it's way beyond what we'll ever achieve.
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This is a question i have pondered much about... and im not sure about holding either opinion.

On the one side, if you think about the most extreme limitations we believe to be true about the universe (ie. entropy, accelerating space between things, amounts of time to travel through space, etc etc) then it would seem that there is an upper limit to what can be achieved before it inevitably falls apart.

That said, i think a number of the scientific modals that predict the unfathomably distant future and fate of the universe are merely "best guesses", crafted on the assumptions that the universe continues to follow the current model of physics and no new and unexpected emergent properties shift things into some other phase (that we can barely even try to imagine).

Also, i think that if we are able to get a handle on nanotechnology - and master it - then at that point almost nothing about the future of the universe could remain certain.
Once we integrate machine AI into biology and more specifically, into our own neural networks... and we have mastered gene editing, masted medical technology to cure all illnesses, have AR/VR accessible from within the nervous system/mind, then other than leaving the planet, it gets hard to see what else we'd come up with.

Life is fundamentally driven to survive. Thus, space travel and seeding new planets with life is an absolutely essential goal if life is to survive. The earth is inevitably doomed to either be smashed by a killshot sized meteor strike (which could happen anytime), or if not by any other means beforehand, then by the expansion of the sun before it's own death. So even the solar system will eventually become unsafe and life will be required to leave it too, at some point billions of years from now.
This goes on and on though. Thus, the ultimate problem to be solved is the problem of entropy.
After that, im not really sure what other problem would remain for technology to try and fix. Of course, plenty of new problems will arise all along the way but they'll all still be a sub problem to something greater.
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GanglyKhan posted...

Nah, Apple still hasn't learned how to make a worthwhile phone, so we got at least another 2 decades of development left.

I quite like the majority of their design choices, up to the iPhone 8 but I'll agree they really need to take a step back and fix the issues in their OS before patting themselves on the back too much.
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Yes and no. I'd say tech will keep improving, even slightly, as new solutions are created to needs we have. The limit is going to be our actual need. It's not necessary to have PC's installed behind your eye or butter-passing robots.

technological advancement is not a unilinear process. Consider the toaster; It has both changed very little (a simple electricly heated coil) and a lot (timers, weight, crumb protection, power efficiency, multiple sizes/bagel slot)

So, technology can advance forever
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The tech singularity

RazorX2003 posted...

The earth is inevitably doomed to either be smashed by a killshot sized meteor strike (which could happen anytime), or if not by any other means beforehand, then by the expansion of the sun before it's own death

Unless we get to the point where we devise a way to prevent either of those things from happening

As long as we still have fucking cords, there is always room for improvement.
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If for some reason industrial society collapses then we will be at a point where were cannot advance technology further.

Humans have an upper limit on intellect. We would be unable to advance technology further once when can no loner conceive of where to go from the point we're at. Even if we invent an AI that can conceive of new advancements 'we' would no longer be advancing technology.

If you were asking if technology has a peak advancement level it is subject to the physical laws of the universe, and the way those laws can be implemented is not infinite.
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Never.
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SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

If for some reason industrial society collapses then we will be at a point where were cannot advance technology further.

Humans have an upper limit on intellect. We would be unable to advance technology further once when can no loner conceive of where to go from the point we're at. Even if we invent an AI that can conceive of new advancements 'we' would no longer be advancing technology.

If you were asking if technology has a peak advancement level it is subject to the physical laws of the universe, and the way those laws can be implemented is not infinite.

I agree, there's only so much resources on earth or in the cosmos.