Science and the Technological Vision of the Future

Tom Lombardo, Ph.D.

Table of Contents

The Future of Science and Technology The Dreams and Fears of Science and Technology Cosmology and the Second Scientific Revolution

The Technological Revolution The Stuff that Life is Made Of: Energy, Materials, and Resources

Global and Transportation Technology Conclusion: The Evolution of Science, Technology, and Humanity

The Future of Science and Technology

Science is what the universe says to itself when the universe gets old enough to speak.

Robert Artigiani

I will begin the chapter by considering the dreams and fears associated with

science and technology. Will advances in technology benefit humanity or will technological developments harm or even destroy humanity? In this chapter I will also continue the history of science begun in Chapter one, tracing the development of science up to contemporary times, and speculating on where science may be headed in the future. I will consider the various effects, past, present, and potentially into the future, of the scientific perspective on the human mind and human society. Finally, I will examine the general theme of the technological restructuring and infusing of nature and human society, highlighting as starting points, energy, resources, transportation, nanotechnology, and mega-technological projects.

This chapter explores theoretical science and physical technology, beginning with a general discussion of the possible benefits and dangers of both science and technology. The second section examines basic theoretical science, including cosmology and the quest to understand the fundamental nature and origin of the universe. The next sections look at the ongoing and pervasive technological revolution, including energy, materials, nanotechnology, transportation, and global super-projects.1 The chapter concludes with a discussion of the possibility of understanding and mastering the very fabric of space and time and the dynamics of the universe in the far distant future.

The central theses of this chapter include the following hypotheses: There is an essential and reciprocal connection between humanity and science

and technology. For better or worse, our values, nature, and ways of life are

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inextricably tied to science and technology. Humanity and technology will co-evolve in the future.

The new ideas of 20th Century science go beyond and, in many ways, challenge the original views of the Scientific Revolution. These new ideas constitute a Second Scientific Revolution. At the most basic level, the Newtonian model of the universe, a dualist and static vision of nature, is being progressively replaced by an evolutionary and reciprocal theory of the cosmos. Whole and parts, order and chaos, and matter and energy are now seen as intimately and reciprocally connected in a dynamic transforming universe. Also a reciprocal theory of knowledge has replaced the dualist theory of knowledge in earlier science.

Over the last couple of centuries Newtonian science and industrial technology strongly influenced social and psychological ideas and values in the modern world. The new ideas of science will change the conceptual framework of the human mind, culture, and the organization of human society in the centuries ahead.

Future science will integrate heart, value, and meaning with the cognitive, quantitative, abstract, and factual features of traditional science. The scientific and spiritual quests for cosmic understanding and wisdom will integrate.

Although our scientific understanding of nature has become cosmic in scope and depth, the future growth of human knowledge seems potentially infinite. Despite predictions that science will soon achieve a complete understanding of the universe, science will be an endless and infinite project into the future.

The technological revolution in contemporary times is multi-dimensional, global, and integrative, with different technologies mutually accelerating each other. The accelerative growth of technology promises to continue into the future. Technological projects and devices will become both bigger and smaller simultaneously - nature will be technologically infused at all levels of reality. This process will transform transportation, habitation, resources and energy, and production, as well as the entirety of life, earth ecology, and beyond.

Technology will become increasingly intelligent, self-maintaining, self-evolving, and in partnership and synthesis with the biological, psychological, and social dimensions of human reality. But it is also possible that at some point our technological creations will transcend us.2

It is possible, if not probable, that human and/or technological intelligence will gain an understanding and significant degree of control over cosmic dimensions of reality and sweep out across the universe and beyond.3

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Included in the notes for this chapter is a list of websites on physical science, cosmology, and general areas of technology.4 Later chapter notes include websites on information technology and biotechnology.

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The Dreams and Fears of Science and Technology

New technologies alter the structure of our interests: the things we think about. They alter the character of our symbols: the things we think with.

And they alter the nature of community: the arena in which thoughts develop.

Neil Postman

A machine is as distinctly and brilliantly and expressively human as a violin sonata or a theorem by Euclid.

Gregory Vlastos

The world has changed far more in the last hundred years than in any previous

century. The reason has not been new political or economic doctrines but the vast developments in technology made possible by advances in basic science.

Stephen Hawking

Does technology enfeeble or empower us? It does both. By becoming dependent

on technology to perform different functions, we lose the capacity to perform those functions ourselves. The machines we create though perform the functions better than if we were to use nothing but our natural bodily abilities and hence we use them. We can move about (locomote) much faster in an automobile than by walking, but if we never walk to get anywhere we would lose this ability. We become stronger with the machine and weaker without it.

We should look at humans and technology parts of a reciprocal or symbiotic system. Humans and technology are interdependent. The human-technology system can perform many functions that humans could not perform alone and can perform most human functions better than humans alone.

Since the beginnings of the Scientific Revolution in the 17th Century, science and technology are often seen as epitomizing the promise of the future. Through science we will discover the ultimate secrets of the universe. Through technology we will harness the forces of nature and create a world of miracle and wonder.5 Clearly, this promise of science and technology in creating a new future has in many ways been fulfilled. As Stephen Hawking notes in the opening quote above, science and technology have done more to transform our world in the last century than any other single factor.6 Yet the world transformed by modern science and technology is, in many peoples minds, a mixed blessing, and the future of science and technology is frightening to many individuals.

Science can be defined as a set of methods for understanding nature and the cosmos. Out of this methodology, which includes experimentation, observation, and mathematical analysis, a set of scientific theories have developed (and continue to grow and transform) that provide a relatively integrative and detailed description and explanation of nature and the universe. The scientific method emerged in the 17th and

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18th Centuries in the works of Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes, Bacon, Kepler, and Newton. The goal of these earliest scientists was to achieve a rational and theoretical comprehension of nature and the universe. The methods and theories of science that they developed have had a powerful impact on the modern era and the modern mind. Due to science, the Western view of the universe, nature, and humanity has been transformed in the last three centuries, replacing in great measure the earlier medieval conception of reality.7 If anything, with the continued growth of science, the future may be even more dominated by its ideas and principles.8

Technology involves the application of scientific ideas and principles to practical and instrumental ends. Why a machine or technological apparatus works and how it works derives from science, for example, the principles of optics, mechanics, electricity, or thermodynamics. Technology though can, in turn, affect science, for as more complex and powerful instruments are developed for observing and manipulating nature (e.g. the Hubble telescope, the electron microscope, and cyclotrons) our scientific knowledge grows through new observations and experimental results.9 Further, new technologies often redefine our values and ends thus technology is not simply a means to a predefined end but an end in itself.10

During the Industrial Era, Newton's physics was the central theory in science. Newton described the physical universe as discrete, solid objects of matter moving through empty space. Material objects influenced each other through material forces. The motions of objects and the effects of physical forces were governed by stable laws of nature. The universe, as a whole, behaved deterministically and the motions of all physical objects, earthly and heavenly, could be calculat