Are there any limitations to technological advances?

[Philosophy Explorer]

I would say the answer is yes and no depending on what type of technology you're talking about.

There are numerous examples so I'll pick one to get this thread started. Say you want to set your thermostat to 68°F to maintain a comfortable temperature. But during wintertime, it can get very cold outside and with high winds, you have a wind-chill factor that cools off your place below where you'd like it to be. So you set the thermostat to high (in my case, 83°F) to maintain a comfortable temperature environment.

Now a computer can keep track of various factors (wind-chill, humidity, your temperature settings, etc.) and adjust your indoor temperature to the level where it thinks you like the temperature to be. That system is not part of my environment (I make other adjustments) and maybe someday there'll be such a computer system. That would be a technological advance.

What are your thoughts?

PhilX

[cladking]

Technological advancement is going to slowly start dying. Unless physics gets unstuck and back on track technology will catch up with theory and that will be that. It might take decades or it might take a century or two.

[surreptitious57]

Are there any limitations to technological advances ?
Yes there are as none can violate the laws of physics

[Dalek Prime]

I would say the answer is yes and no depending on what type of technology you're talking about.

There are numerous examples so I'll pick one to get this thread started. Say you want to set your thermostat to 68°F to maintain a comfortable temperature. But during wintertime, it can get very cold outside and with high winds, you have a wind-chill factor that cools off your place below where you'd like it to be. So you set the thermostat to high (in my case, 83°F) to maintain a comfortable temperature environment.

Now a computer can keep track of various factors (wind-chill, humidity, your temperature settings, etc.) and adjust your indoor temperature to the level where it thinks you like the temperature to be. That system is not part of my environment (I make other adjustments) and maybe someday there'll be such a computer system. That would be a technological advance.

What are your thoughts?

PhilX

With the right sensors, I could program that system now. Nothing special regarding your example.

[Philosophy Explorer]

As I said, there are numerous examples where technological advance is expected to continue and where it's expected to stop.

The most notable example of the latter is Moore's law which may happen during our current generation. Which technology is most likely to continue to advance beyond any other?

PhilX

[Philosophy Explorer]

I would say the answer is yes and no depending on what type of technology you're talking about.

There are numerous examples so I'll pick one to get this thread started. Say you want to set your thermostat to 68°F to maintain a comfortable temperature. But during wintertime, it can get very cold outside and with high winds, you have a wind-chill factor that cools off your place below where you'd like it to be. So you set the thermostat to high (in my case, 83°F) to maintain a comfortable temperature environment.

Now a computer can keep track of various factors (wind-chill, humidity, your temperature settings, etc.) and adjust your indoor temperature to the level where it thinks you like the temperature to be. That system is not part of my environment (I make other adjustments) and maybe someday there'll be such a computer system. That would be a technological advance.

What are your thoughts?

PhilX

With the right sensors, I could program that system now. Nothing special regarding your example.

If there's nothing special about my example, how come I never hear about any home having that system that I've thought up? Are there any articles on it?

PhilX

[FlashDangerpants]

If there's nothing special about my example, how come I never hear about any home having that system that I've thought up? Are there any articles on it?

PhilX

From what I could tell you were describing a system that would use exponentially more sensors to achieve tiny increments in performance. 10x the price for 10% improvement. There's nothing but cost (and the associated lack of a market) to stop you having a systems that tracks you through your house with thermal cameras and which could turn up the heat if you take off your jumper.

In fact I expect somebody is already doing that somewhere with a Rasberry Pi. There's always somebody doing something indulgent with one of those.

[FlashDangerpants]

Which technology is most likely to continue to advance beyond any other?

Materials Science I expect. It seems like every week they come up with a new strongest, stretchiest or most electrically weird form of new stuff.

[Dalek Prime]

With the right sensors, I could program that system now. Nothing special regarding your example.

If there's nothing special about my example, how come I never hear about any home having that system that I've thought up? Are there any articles on it?
PhilX

You didn't ask if it was rare or special. You suggested it couldn't be done with present technology, and I clarified it could.

[cladking]

Which technology is most likely to continue to advance beyond any other?

Materials Science I expect. It seems like every week they come up with a new strongest, stretchiest or most electrically weird form of new stuff.

Indeed. We've barely scratched the surface of materials that can be invented. There's also plenty of leg room in computers.

We're almost toast in biology and numerous other fields and chemistry will just be filling in the gaps.

It should be hard to even tell we're in a logjam for a few decades yet. It could be sooner if freedom is eroded.

[thedoc]

Are there any limitations to technological advances?

Yes, if the religious fundamentalists get their agenda into the public schools. Educated people need to stand up and demand that only science be taught in science class, religion could be taught in a comparative religion class, but not in a science class.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Duh.
When the electrical pathways on printed circuit boards get to a few molecules thick, they can't get smaller and remain reliable. Then there is the density of calculations and the problems of heat dispersal.
ICE technology has its own limits of speed, friction, heat dispersal, efficiency.
Space travel the old chestnut of a small matter of the speed of light being unsurpassable, pouring scorn on just about every major Sci-Fi franchise, all of whom assume this is a breakable limit - it is not.

Oh wait a PhilX thread - just another silly question.

[Philosophy Explorer]

Duh.
When the electrical pathways on printed circuit boards get to a few molecules thick, they can't get smaller and remain reliable. Then there is the density of calculations and the problems of heat dispersal.
ICE technology has its own limits of speed, friction, heat dispersal, efficiency.
Space travel the old chestnut of a small matter of the speed of light being unsurpassable, pouring scorn on just about every major Sci-Fi franchise, all of whom assume this is a breakable limit - it is not.

Oh wait a PhilX thread - just another silly question.

Duh, I have less confidence in you and I see you have parroted some of what I said. Your sock puppet Hex is right about you. Oh wait, just another dyslexic response from the tard of tards, HC.

PhilX

[cladking]

Are there any limitations to technological advances?

Yes, if the religious fundamentalists get their agenda into the public schools. Educated people need to stand up and demand that only science be taught in science class, religion could be taught in a comparative religion class, but not in a science class.

Religion is much less of a threat to human adsvancement than the scientific dogma. Science is a much greater threa6t to the survival of the species in the next century than religion.

Obviously religion can do a great deal of harm when it controls the mechanisms of government.

[Arising_uk]

Which technology is most likely to continue to advance beyond any other?

Materials Science I expect. It seems like every week they come up with a new strongest, stretchiest or most electrically weird form of new stuff.

I agree, also genetic engineering. So basically Biology and Chemistry, irony or what as over here we are closing our Chemistry courses hand over fist.