Will we reach a technological stasis ?

[Sarevok]

The last few centuries have witnessed tremendous leaps in science and technology. The world has been transformed several times over from the age of telegraph and steam engines to the modern information age. This rate of progress would probably continue into the future. However how long will technology continue to improve like this? Will there come a point where we have learned all there is to learn about the universe and reach a technological stasis as a result ? How far away might we be from such a time ?

[Zero]

It's obvious that there's a limited amount of knowledge that you can actually obtain from the universe, so eventually, once we've learned all we can know, it'll only be a matter of finding new applications. The real trick is if humanity will actually survive that long.

[Havok]

What I find interesting is that it seems that what we are doing now is making technology for technology. A computer is basically the same as when they were created, but the new technological inovations that have developed because of them are just smaller, faster or different components for them to basically do the same things they have always done. There, of course, are always exceptions.

I'm curious to see what the actual next technology age is and hopefully I'll be around to see it.

[wolveraptor]

In our age, everyone in the 1st world has access to practically limitless amounts of information via the internet. As online-books become more prevalent, it may become all we really need. I'm of the opinion that we've reached something of a plateau (or at least a gradually increasing slope as opposed to a cliff representing a huge leap). The next great challenge would be space-travel and communication.

[NecronLord]

The next great challenge would be space-travel and communication.

There's still plenty of biotechnology goals to work towards.

[wolveraptor]

The next great challenge would be space-travel and communication.

There's still plenty of biotechnology goals to work towards.

Yeah, but with America's population of fundamentalist retards, we might be severely blocked in that area. Another country would be better abled to pursue that field.

[Penitent Tangent]

Personaly I don't think scientific advancement will stop or even slow down for at least several centuries. With computer procesing power increasing as rapidly as it is we have better and better tools with which to work. Gene therapy and genetic engineering might someday be used to make people smarter faster and stronger then ever before, greatly increasing our problem solving power.

[Nephtys]

In our age, everyone in the 1st world has access to practically limitless amounts of information via the internet. As online-books become more prevalent, it may become all we really need. I'm of the opinion that we've reached something of a plateau (or at least a gradually increasing slope as opposed to a cliff representing a huge leap). The next great challenge would be space-travel and communication.

We have plenty of space to go with incremental increases, which are just as important as revolutions. Materials science, new biological sciences applications, space technology, more advanced computing and so on are all important.

Just think of how much appeared over the last ten years. The Internet alone has changed our lives immeasurably. Look at the small things like flat screen monitors and TVs, common celphones and so on to start with.

We're not stopping anytime soon.

[SpacedTeddyBear]

Sudden scientific revelations usually are proceded by long term steady technological evolutions. When technology in a particular field might have looked to have reaced its stagnation point, some new discovery in another field could very well catapult it to new boundaries.

In my opinion, the two most important technological/scientific achievement mankind made in the 20th century, was the development of the semi-conductor, and the laser.

[RedImperator]

This is an impossible question to answer with anything more than a wild-ass guess, because it's impossible to predict what you don't know. We might keep running at this pace until we dot every i and cross every t in physics, chemistry, and biology, or we may run smack into a wall next Tuesday.

There are also political and social factors that drive scientific advancement, and nobody can predict those, either. Suppose we run into a period where returns on investment in research start declining rapidly, to the point scientific research becomes unprofitable and grinds to a halt? There might be another golden age just beyond the slow patch, but we might never reach it. Or suppose we wind up following the wrong line and end up in a cul de sac, technologically, where we have so much invested in one kind of technology that radical advancements never leave the blueprint phase? What if some crisis gets us trapped in a red queen race, where we have to concentrate all our efforts into just maintaining the status quo? What if there's a radical social shift that stops scientific progress, or shifts its focus to refining existing technology instead of developing new innovations? What if we're just plain too dumb to understand the universe beyond a certain point? There's no way to answer these questions, unless they happen, in which case it's too late to do anything about it except maybe blow everything up and start all over again, or they fail to happen, which we won't know for sure until science is complete.