this is my view:
current technology is working on improving speech recognition, controlling computers with your mind (already possible BMI), ... List of emerging technologies
basically computer human interface is getting more and more important.
but what will the future bring?
i think the first step is detecting advanced tasks by computers in our mind, so we can think what it should write, in contradiction to what we now already can do is move the cursor from letter to letter, but this is a quite slow process.
next will be the other way around. suppose we can remove an vertebra from our back and replace it with a synthetic one. one that can have an computer cable connected to it so we can intercept signals going to our body and instead send them to a computer. great improvement of game motion :)
Now an other step in technology would be simulating human beings. (this would only work if my assumption that: humans are completely physically determined, in other words, we don't have a spiritual part or soul.
Imagine we had a really advanced scanner system that can scan things to the atom. and a really advanced computer system that can simulate billions and billions of atoms including interactions between them. Do you think we could scan a human and simulate him? If so, this poses a gigantic ethical problem, the human would live in virtual reality, if we were smart enough to scan some air and food first he would be alive in a virtual reality. Does that mean when we cut power to the computer that we killed a person?
Ok one step further now: suppose we had advanced robots, that we can speak to and do what we ask of them. (some like the ones in the movie "I robot"). we ask them to make sure a certain computer has power always. suppose we scan the complete solar system with all humans in it. And simulate it, so we all live virtually. We could life as efficient as the energy that is necessary to simulate us. No more diseases no more violence. We could instruct the computer to stop any human that tries to kill. we could live in total peace BUT at what price, our complete freedom would be gone, what would we work for? we would have put ourselfs in somesort of virtual simulation where you think and feel completely the same as normal life.
this probably would not become mainstream since a lot of people would detest the idea of being only virtual.
It does offers some great things though. when we get the robots to build a computer on a very distante planet we could travel there at the speed of light since it would only be the simulation information to be send.
further more we could then rebuild ourselves at the other end. Put back atom by atom part by part.
an other improvement would be eternal life.
an other would be: no more over population, although we would have to increase the power of the computer more and more to keep simulation all the different computer.
a disadvantage would be if a computer gives up, it should be totally secured with 20 backups cause we are dealing with human lives here. we are still dependent on the physical computer that simulates us.
last step in the technological advancement would be to make sure we are no longer dependant on physical matter. This is where it starts to get hard imagining it all. we could try going to an other dimension that is more secure.
Did we just ascend?
–verb (used without object)
| 1. | to move, climb, or go upward; mount; rise: The airplane ascended into the clouds. |
| 2. | to slant upward. |
| 3. | to rise to a higher point, rank, or degree; proceed from an inferior to a superior degree or level: to ascend to the presidency. |
| 4. | to go toward the source or beginning; go back in time. |
| 5. | Music. to rise in pitch; pass from any tone to a higher one. |