My friend Paul is a smart guy. I mean, the guy had all A's during the last four semesters of his years in the university. After that he went to a prestigious school in the UK for a masters programme, to prove to himself that he had all it took. So you would not believe that a guy like that could be wrong about stuff.
When some folks at Schlumberger asked him, "What scientific development or breakthrough do you think will prove to be the most significant within the next hundred years?", His response was: Combined Energy Production and Carbon Dioxide Storage in Natural Gas. I don't think he was right about Combined Energy Production and Carbon Dioxide Storage in Natural Gas being the most significant breakthrough of the next one hundred years.
But they gave the guy a prize for his thoughts so he must have known what he was saying. Or maybe they gave him an award because they were a bunch of Chemical Engineers and he was speaking of the most significant breakthrough of the century in chemistry.
But really, what would you say would be the single most significant breakthrough in science and technology for the next one hundred years?
Permit me to stand on the shoulders of my giant friend. In his work, he began:
The greatest scientific developments or breakthroughs of any century will usually either lie in the area of deeper understanding into the composition and properties of matter
(living or inanimate) or in the outstanding application of such understanding to real issues. [1]
He he was talking about the our scientific evolution but when you talk about throughout the ages or any century, you have to recognise that evolution is not only biological. While Paul was right in about the basis of advancement is understanding the nature of matter and applying this understanding in solving real issues, I would like to offer a slightly different point of view:
The greatest scientific advancement would require building upon the advancement that was made during biological evolution and technological evolution and merging them to get the best of both worlds.
I mean, think about it. Evolution did not start with man. Sadly we cannot begin this discussion with a man being a single-celled organism or an amphibian because that discussion would be as long f#*k, but if we believe in evolutionary biology, then we must realise that to speak of breakthroughs throughout the ages, we must begin from the beginning when the only progress in the advancement of the species was biological.)
To put this in perspective, let us for one moment look at Carl Sagan, the famous astrobiologist who wrote about the concept of a Cosmic Calendar. Even though we now believe it happened about 13.7 billion years ago, we can forgive him for using 15 billion years to establish the timeline for the universe originating with a Big Bang. After all, what we know about these things keep changing.
He used 11 months of his Cosmic Calendar to represent the significant events that had taken place since the big bang.
With each month representing slightly over one billion years, Sagan dated the major events during the first 11 months of the cosmic year.[2]
The most striking thing about this Calendar is that most of what we study as biological evolution started in December of that calendar! According to the timeline, the first warms appeared on December the 16th. This was followed by trilobites, fish, vertebrates, amphibians, winged insects, the first trees, amphibians, birds, extinction of dinosaurs, the appearance of early primates, development of frontal lobes in primates, the evolution of the first hominids and so on, in this exact order.
This means that you and I are so new that, we came into the calendar a few seconds before midnight on 31st December and we have only been around for a couple of seconds in the universal timeline. And if you have read your Genesis well, what this means is that God took His precious time after creating the Heavens and the Earth in The Beginning.
I will not bore you with details of all the things that happened since we have been here. Suffice it to say that the extensive scientific and technological development we have experienced including globalisation, acquisition of weapons of mass destruction, high-speed acceleration in technological advancement, artificial intelligence and search for extraterrestrial intelligence, all happened on the first second of the new year in Sagan's universal timeline.
The significance of this timeline is that most of what we have achieved as a species was achieved fairly recently due to rapid advancement in science and technology. Therefore whatever we think we could achieve in twenty years may well be within our grasp in one or two years' time if we see advancement as a composite phenomenon.
So What Exactly is Evolution and Advancement?
After the Big Bang, evolution began with physical and chemical processes, then there was biological evolution and finally technological evolution. Ray Kurzweil in his work, The Law of Accelerating Returns, wrote that it is with technological evolution that it became apparent that not only are we advancing at an accelerated rate, but the rate of our acceleration is also always increasing. During the ear of biological evolution and even in our recent past, the rate of development was too low for us to accurately predict the level of advancement we should expect in the future.
The law of Accelerating Returns makes it difficult for the Pauls of this life to accurately predict the rate of advancement we should expect in the future. We often fall into the temptation of using the present rate of progress to extrapolate future technological advancement. Therefore, we end up grossly underestimating it.
This reminds me of that movie Next where Nicolas Cage played Cris Johnson, a guy that could see the future.
Here's the thing about the future. Every time you look at, it changes — because you looked at it — and that changes everything else.
Well, in this case, the future changes because the rate of advancement keeps changing. Therefore, to accurately predict it, you must take into account the rate of change which is not constant.
So What Scientific or Technological Breakthrough Would Have the Greatest Impact on Our Generation?
Many great guys have answers to this question. My friend Paul thinks it is a technology that will enable humans to exploit the natural gas hydrates lining the coastal regions of USA, Japan, China, India and so on in a way that traps carbon dioxide. According to him, this would result to a win-win situation because global warming would be controlled by ensuring that the methane contained in these hydrates are not released into the atmosphere while our ever-increasing energy needs would be met.
According to Mr Bill Gates, if he could ask for one thing, he would ask for a technology that would enable humans to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to zero through technologies ranging from Terrapower to smaller alternatives like solar energy, fuel cells, winds and so on. In his view, achieving this would be the most significant achievement for our generation, and it is not one of those things we can choose to ignore or postpone because, life as we know it, depends on our success.
In the midst of scepticism concerning advancement in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the likely subjugation of Man by these machines, Ray Kurzweil was like the voice of the one in the wilderness shouting "AI will not take over unless we refuse to be one with AI".
Many experts believe that our technological advancement as a species shall soon run its course. To progress fast and retain our place as the most advanced species that we know of, we must integrate our biology with technology by figuring out how to merge our biological intelligence with machine intelligence. When we can achieve this, we shall become capable of such speed of technological advancement that we cannot now begin to comprehend. This is called a Singularity.
Conclusion
Our earth is challenged with the problem of global warming. Some of us deny the existence of the problem; others argue the urgency and the scope of the problem. In the end, climate change is a real problem that cannot be wished away.
While the problem of global warming is real, the size of the problem is so big that we need to innovate much faster than we ever have in the history of the planet. This is why the most profound breakthrough of our generation is developing super AI, then find ways of integrating our biological intelligence with it, thereby increasing our ability to handle big data and speed of processing.
Merging biological intelligence with AI will not only help us ensure that we remain the at the top of the food chain, but it will ensure that we have the resources to solve all our significant challenges with our climate and all the other problems that come with advancement, faster than is presently possible.
References
Thank you for being here.
Your boy,
@churchboy