from form to function.

So a couple of years ago deep in a discussion late one night with Jeff and Kathy and Mom–Dad having long ago dosed off–about the future of the human species and other such light topics, I chimed in with a theory I had been thinking about in my head for a few months before that about an observation I had along the lines of the advancement of our technologies. It went something like this:

I had noticed that even though the rate of introduction of seemingly-new technologies was apparently increasing (think of the newest generation of an iPod which seems to come right on the heels of the last one, or an updated software release, or the latest mobile phone model, wireless network, LED flatscreen, etc.) the underlying, fundamental technologies behind them were not really changing. In fact, I hypothesized–have we perhaps reached the pinnacle of technology much like the hypothesis of peak oil and from here it is all downhill?

I admit that perhaps that was taking it a bit far but it was late.

But what I still go back to is that idea that even though we seem to be advancing at an ever-increasing and fanatical rate, that actually there is the very real possibility that perhaps no other time in our history will our change be so rapid than in our very own generation and that in fact we have already peaked (although it is not necessarily all downhill as I may have once thought but rather a slowing–perhaps significantly–of advancements).

The idea came back to me today flying back from Chicago and reading a Carl Sagan book where he mentioned this very idea by saying ~

"In fact, it can be argued that in many respects there will never be a time when the change can be so rapid as it has been in our generation.

For example (he goes on to write), consider transportation and communication. Just a couple of centuries ago, the fastest practicable means of transportation was horseback. Well, now it is essentially the intercontinental ballistic missile. That is an improvement from tens of miles per hour to tens of miles per second in velocity. It's a very substantial increment. In communication a few centuries ago, except for rarely used semaphore and smoke-signaling systems, the speed of communication was again the speed of the horse. Today the speed of communication is the speed of light, faster than which nothing can go. And that represents a change from tens of miles per hour to 186,000 miles per second. And never will there be any improvement on that velocity."

So that is not exactly what I was postulating, but it was close enough to make me think about it again. And the first thing that came to mind this time was Moore's Law (which is of course merely a hypothesis of its own). Okay, but let's consider that for a second. Just because we double the processing or computational power available on a computer chip eighteen months (or two years, depending on your source) from now, what is really changing? Is the technology changing as much by doubling the computational power as it did when we went from the sliderule fifty years ago to the invention of the first computer chip a couple years later? How big of a leap was that in comparison to just doubling an already mass-produced technology? Sure, the chips might be getting smaller but is that merely an advancement in form rather than function? The leap from sliderule to silicone chip was definitely huge.

Let's look at telecommunications now for a second. OK, so Verizon is coming out with a 4G network spec but isn't that just a bit of an advancement building on from the previous 3G technology? Versus, for instance, the invention of cellular technology from ground-based telecommunication networks. Is that not a much greater leap (which happened back in the 70s)? Or the next generation iPod that includes a video camera and maybe a bit larger hard drive? Versus the phonograph to an iPod Shuffle the size of a quarter? Form over function again. Video camera technology is already prevalent–it is just now being stuffed into an iPod Nano.

If we think of our grandparents–those born in the early twentieth century–and the advances of which they have witnessed in just their one single lifetime. From the invention of the automobile (OK, technically that happened in the late nineteenth century but was not mass-produced until our grandparents were alive so I presume they never saw an automobile until that point in time) to men landing on the moon and spacecraft reaching the outer limits of our Solar System.

Um, wow.

If we try to extrapolate not only that same amount of technological advancement that we might see in our lifetime then but–say let's use something like Moore's Law and assume a continued exponential rate of advancement–what might we witness? Using this extrapolation is it not too far-fetched to think we might be traveling at or near the speed of light by the end of this century? Will we be on our way to visiting nearby star-forming regions or galaxies? How will we be traveling? Will we possibly be morphing through wormholes as theorized back in the 50s? Beaming ourselves to London to catch a concert and return home in an instant? The sky's the limit, so-to-speak.

Or has the rate of growth of technology reached its pinnacle? Will we just introduce a bigger, perhaps more efficiently-operated airplane based largely on technology from the mid-twentieth century rather than some seemingly unimaginable form of transportation like morphing through time or a ship of sorts that launches up into space and back down allowing us to travel across continents in under an hour? An elevator to the moon for an afternoon visit of our celestial neighbor? Will we just build off of existing technologies at a rate much, much slower than what we witnessed during the twentieth century? Is that rate of growth even sustainable and is that what our advancement is up against? Will we be forced to re-examine our technologies in order to create a new balance because we have tipped the scales far to much across the line of unsustainability?

I have no idea. It was late. And it was only speculation.