Limit to optimisation

Whenever I look at some of the old technology, I can't help but think, "That was normal for the time!" Spending several minutes setting up a film roll, or the effort spent on trying to dial in a phone number was never looked at as tedious or time-consuming during that age.

Unless given something to contrast with, any process/thing seems normal for us humans. A similar thought occurred to me when reading a book. Anyone who has seen a book doesn't think much while flipping through it, or writing in it. But for a person in the far future, a book will be looked at the same way we look at stone tablets. Ancient and delicate. This shift to digital media is already underway and I can't help but think, is there a limit? A limit to the extent of optimisation and comforts.

Recent previous generations did not know how to carve on stone walls, or thatch a hut. Ours, does not know how to dial a number in a vintage telephone. The future generation shall never know how to flip the pages of a simple book.

With the progression of ease in our lives, is there a limit to optimisation? It may seem so considering that the only thing stopping us is our physical forms and the speed of human evolution. But then again, a man operating a dial phone would never have thought that the phone itself could remember the number! However imaginative we get in our sci-fi futuristic visions, we never truly know what we will come up with.

Coming to the original question, My answer would be, only as long as we have breakthroughs in the Biological field will technology progress beyond a point.

Humans have been evolving for 6 million years and the change from 'inventing the wheel' to 'flying in Jet-liner' took just 5000 years.

The ratio of evolution time to technology development comes to about 6,000,000 yrs / 5000 yrs = 1200. Meaning that at an average, every year given to human bodies to evolve is equivalent to about 1200 years worth of technological development!! And to think that only 200 years were enough to go from the ENIAC to iPhone 13 Pro. (not sponsored 🥲 )

➡

As long as we evolve at the same rate, technology will remain bounded by our limitations. Mobile phones have no scope of compaction, keyboards will be bulky, and space suits will be huge.

Comments

1940 - Siege of Calais

(Audio enhances reading experience) 21 May 1940 “My good men, I come to you with grave news. The beaches of Calais will continue to be lonely tomorrow. There will be no boats at dawn. Word has come from London and it seems lads, ‘home’, has just been turned to a mere word of nostalgia and not something we can hope to see, ever again. The fat politicians sitting in parliament have sent their gravest apologies and perhaps think that we have surrendered to the Germans already. The Prime Minister has personally put in his apology through the wire too, cursing our enemy to his full capacity. I did not bother noting down all that. Because I don’t for one moment believe in surrender, or defeat. Yes, even defeat. We men of war may lose our lives in the coming hours but with God himself as our witness I can assure you good lads.. A soldier never dies in vain nor defeat! ‘Home’, has just been turned to a mere word of nostalgia and not something we can hope to s...

Empathy's Demise

It's quite wonderous really, How clocks around the world are ticking right now in perfect synchrony. Wonderous how even in such a large world, We are all nakedly defined by a common present. A common, now. Wonderous how the sun is setting right this moment, In one corner of the world. While it rises in another, all at the same time. . Perhaps it is all that's left that unites us through the present. Only the sun bears witness to the capering of man, For the world is simply too large for us. Large enough to let a man in Paris grab an afternoon Latté, While a woman in Casablanca runs to the sweet embrace of her lover. . Large enough that the loudest sound you hear is this poem, and my voice, Sheltered from the shelling beyond the seven seas. Large enough that at this very second, There's a little girl with ringing ears, Looking through the rubble, For her dead mother. . Now, when my voice too goes quiet. I implore you, tell me what is louder. Is it the luxury...

Novelty of the Mind

Every thought one can have is nothing but a complex and new permutation of known facts and memories. A man without any memory, knowledge or experience of all life senses technically, should not be able to imagine, well... anything! Every thought we have is but a mere extrapolation and combination of pre existing thoughts. Or is it something more. Our thoughts are but a product of all stimuli ever received. Just piled up. Being consumed, processed, replayed, remodelled.. In all the permutations and combinations that strike our mind first. I would honestly love to be disproven in this matter. It is eerie how missed out experiences in life contribute more to our path than we could ever know. Merely because, we do not know what we've missed out on! Stimuli is replayed behind our eyes again so that we make sense of the world around us. The catch is, this constantly changes the way we think or - the permutations used before the memories fade. Forcing us through a fixed, rigid path of wa...

Kopfkino

Search This Blog