Is there any evidence to support the belief that tech doesn’t end?

[Maximum7]

I’ve grappled with this question for many years. There is no way humans can possibly know if technological progression ever hits an endpoint. Some say yes, others say no. Even truly brilliant individuals are divided. I want to believe that technological progression has no end because it frightens if we can’t keep developing as a species as I want humanity to invent some of the awesome things we see in Star Trek.

Is there any good argument that supports that technological progression is boundless? It can be something you come up with, a logical argument or an analogy that seems applicable BUT I would love sources as well that support this belief. From technological philosophers or even more towards physicists.

Bernard Stiegler is a philosopher who has a belief that technology is endless but I read some of his stuff and I don’t think it is enough to convince me.

 

[DaveC426913]

Are we talking about sci-fi level technology a million years in the future?

I think the key to technology continually changing is that needs - and therefore applications - change over time. It is not a straight line to a single goal.

 

[Maximum7]

Are we talking about sci-fi level technology a million years in the future?

I think the key to technology continually changing is that needs - and therefore applications - change over time. It is not a straight line to a single goal.

Yes sci-fi technology a million years in the future. Correct.

 

[DaveC426913]

Is there any good argument that supports that technological progression is boundless?

I would think the onus is reversed there. It is, by default, boundless (because that's what we currently observe) until and unless someone can come up with a reason why it wouldn't be. IOW, what will change such that technology stops progressing, as it has been doing?

 

[BWV]

If technological progression is boundless, the endpoint would be K3 intergalactic civilizations? our local group of galaxies is plenty old enough for one to have emerged if it was possible, but we see no evidence of this, hence there is a limit

 

[DaveC426913]

If technological progression is boundless, the endpoint would be K3 intergalactic civilizations? our local group of galaxies is plenty old enough for one to have emerged if it was possible, but we see no evidence of this, hence there is a limit

Iff exolife exemplars are > 0.
For which there is no evidence.

 

[Baluncore]

Is there a difference between a monkey and an organ grinder.
I think technology will evolve, like a parasite and its host.
Which one is the parasite?

There will be mutual self-limiting events. One of those may end the species before its self-replication becomes widely dispersed.

 

[Maximum7]

If technological progression is boundless, the endpoint would be K3 intergalactic civilizations? our local group of galaxies is plenty old enough for one to have emerged if it was possible, but we see no evidence of this, hence there is a limit

It’s a good argument BUT

a.) Perhaps we cannot detect it

b.) Perhaps it is never done due to not being necessary

c.) Perhaps we are the first technological civilization in this supercluster of galaxies.

 

[DaveC426913]

It’s a good argument BUT

a.) Perhaps we cannot detect it

b.) Perhaps it is never done due to not being necessary

c.) Perhaps we are the first technological civilization in this supercluster of galaxies.

It's also a question of whether unbounded technology must lead to galaxy-spanning effects. (what if, say, it goes sub-atomic instead?)

 

[dextercioby]

I don't see a value to this conversation, unless one has specific examples in mind. Let's choose a very simple, daily-life one: TV sets. The year is 2023. We have TVs acting like computers connected to the internet, showing incredibly clear 4K/16K 3D millions of colors images on house screens up to 8 feet or 2m50 in diagonal. Where do you think TVs will go from a research-mass production point of view in 20 years, 50 years, 100 years? Then replace TV with these mini computer phones we call "smartphones".

 

[BillTre]

Technology could be unbounded in some aspects while having limits in others.
For example, it may well be not possible to go faster than light, but there are still more possible protein sequences than could every be examined. New protein sequences could be utilized technologically.

For a protein of 400 amino acids there are theoretically 20⁴⁰⁰≈2.6×10⁵²⁰ possible proteins with 400 amino acids.
Thus not realistically limited.

 

[JT Smith]

I want to believe that technological progression has no end because it frightens if we can’t keep developing as a species as I want humanity to invent some of the awesome things we see in Star Trek.

You'll be long gone before we get to that point, if we do. So it begs the question, why do you care?

That said, most things have some sort of tailing off in improvement. Think about anything you learn to do. You get better really fast at first and then your skill development slows down. Moore's Law can't continue forever. Feynman had something to say about that. Endless growth is the fantasy of a cancer cell. The reality is usually something more finite.

A Star Trek world would be a pretty weird place. Is that really what you want? To live on a ship as a crewman wearing the same clothes every day?

 

[BWV]

I don't see a value to this conversation, unless one has specific examples in mind. Let's choose a very simple, daily-life one: TV sets. The year is 2023. We have TVs acting like computers connected to the internet, showing incredibly clear 4K/16K 3D millions of colors images on house screens up to 8 feet or 2m50 in diagonal. Where do you think TVs will go from a research-mass production point of view in 20 years, 50 years, 100 years? Then replace TV with these mini computer phones we call "smartphones".

So here is a 1950 16" tv set.

$300 in 1950 is about $4000 in today's dollars and for that you can buy an 85" Sony. This translates into a 2.4% annual growth rate in screen size. At 1000 years of this, your equivalent of $4000 would buy a TV with a 534,000 mile diagonal. Every 1000 years this would grow by a factor of ~400 million, so after 2000 years you would have a Kardashian II set that more than spans the orbit of Uranus.

The galaxy is old enough for some other alien race to have advanced to this point, the fact that we have seen no alien TV sets of this size ...

 

[kyphysics]

There are only a finite number of ways to arrange matter (the number is LARGE per astrophysicist Jeff Zweerink, but still finite), so I think, no. Tech has limits.

 

[hutchphd]

our local group of galaxies is plenty old enough for one to have emerged

This does not follow from any argument you have presented and therefore is purely personal opinion. Back this up somehow. I agree that a billion years is a very long time but so what? What actually progresses linearly????

 

[BWV]

This does not follow from any argument you have presented and therefore is purely personal opinion. Back this up somehow. I agree that a billion years is a very long time but so what? What actually progresses linearly????

It’s just the Fermi Paradox, old and well trod ground, hardly an original opinion of mine

 

[Frabjous]

Even if technology is boundless, it does not mean that it will be achieved. High technology civilization may prove unstable or dead end technologically with people hooking up their pleasure centers for a static existence.

 

[gmax137]

when entropy reaches its maximum there will be no clumping of atoms, and therefore no tech devices will exist. So no, it does not go on "forever."

 

[Baluncore]

So no, it does not go on "forever."

Technology does not go on forever.
Forever starts when the last clock stops.

 

[Vanadium 50]

First, "monotonically increasing" does not mean "increasing without bound". If a student said it was, I'd mark it wrong,

Second, we have evidence that technologies are forgotten. For example Roman cement (actually a concrete) was lost for almost 1000 years until the 15th century.

 

[kyphysics]

@BillTre - why the skeptical face?

You disagree with Dr. Zweerink? He cites the astrophysics community on the finitude of ways that matter can be arranged. If we "shrink" the problem - just think of some universe with very, very few laws and few elements and calculate all the ways matter can be arranged in that world - then it's easier to see this finitude.

Our universe is huge and maybe it "feels" like there are infinite or never-ending ways things can change and improve, but that doesn't seem true.

 

[Uri Zlatnik]

Technology creates its own problems among them overpopulation and Artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and nuclear technology could actually kill us all and also make this planet uninhabitable for future life.

Some technologies also cause climate change which is also a dangerous externality that technology creates.

 

[berkeman]

Technology creates its own problems among them overpopulation and Artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and nuclear technology could actually kill us all and also make this planet uninhabitable for future life.

Some technologies also cause climate change which is also a dangerous externality that technology creates.

Thanks for the uplifting necropost...

 

[DaveE]

There is the 2nd law of thermodynamics that gives a rigorous bound... eventually.