Falling from the sky need not be our fate, if we accelerate
rather than cripple our innovation and progress. As I said earlier; the future
is bright, if we take action now to create a better world, and a better future
-- by fostering innovation and making positive progress. However, we need to act.
We need to make progress now, toward the goal of creating a better world, or we
may lose our chance. And we also need to manage progress well, for it to be
meaningfully applied to solving some of the problems we face. Merely having a
solution in someone's mind somewhere, and having that person unable to offer
their insights to the people making decisions, doesn't do much to change
existing conditions. We need to apply better solutions to the problems at hand,
when better answers are available, and this alone will solve those problems.
Today's people also need to get better at solving problems in general. This requires ingenuity as well as knowledge. Memorizing lots of information will not improve our problem-solving ability. For that, we need to learn from our mistakes, make new theories, and then test those theories against reality. This is precisely what allowed the Wright brothers to fly, while others failed to get or stay aloft. According to Cognitive Studies researcher Alison Gopnik, this is also what all young children will do -- at an early stage of their development. Her studies have shown that -- in the course of their play -- young children will form theories, perform experiments, note the results, form new theories if the results are unexpected, and so on, just like little scientists.
There is so much we do not know; so much that human beings
do not understand, but it is not as though simply adding more and more facts
will lead to greater understanding, no matter how much we learn. If there is
anything I have found out by listening to and talking or corresponding with the
experts, it is this -- it's only by getting better at figuring things out for ourselves,
that some important lessons can ever be learned. While some people read a book
or paper with the idea of interpreting what the words say, I feel it is more
important to gain insight into the thought processes behind them, and to grasp
the meaning the author intended to convey. Often, instead of simply learning
new answers; it is more important to learn how these answers were found, and
why they are superior solutions which contribute more to our understanding and
predictive capabilities, when compared to the answers they supersede.
The theory of gravity formulated by Isaac Newton is highly accurate for describing the effect of gravitation on Earth, and it works rather well for describing the motion of the planets in our Solar system, but Einstein's theory of gravitation clearly gives us more insight into the cause of gravity, and it is far more accurate for describing the effects of gravity in extreme conditions, or in situations Newton never considered (such as the bending of light rays). Thus; while Newton's "law of gravity" still works perfectly well for everyday uses, there are more and more applications for which Einstein's theory is essential to use.
In some cases, however, the changes wrought by newfound knowledge are neither incremental improvements nor compatible with older views. Discoveries made around the start of the 20th century that brought us Quantum Mechanics force us to re-examine many assumptions we have made about the nature of reality. However, even after 100 years, there is still considerable disagreement and disbelief about the relevance of these discoveries to anyone not studying Quantum Mechanics, as the common assumption is that adjustments to our world-view are only important in the extreme microscale. Unfortunately; nothing could be farther from the truth, unless we consider everything below 144 km (the distance Zeilinger and his colleagues recently demonstrated quantum entanglement) as part of the microscopic realm. Obviously; it's a bit of a stretch to imagine that 90 miles is a microscopic distance, but this is not the most telling example. If quantum theory didn't work, and didn't give us better answers, devices like transistors and later ICs, lasers, and LEDs, simply would not function, as the reality of Quantum Mechanics is what makes them function. The almost ubiquitous usage of such devices in today's world makes some of the arguments leveled against its broader adoption appear quite inane, to this author.
The fact there is considerable disagreement about the
applicability of quantum theory to many kinds of problems takes nothing away
from its effectiveness. Some assert that it can be completely ignored in fields
like Cosmology, while others are adamant that we will never understand the
origin and evolution of the universe without it. However, still others see the
difficulty in uniting Quantum Mechanics with other advances, such as
Relativity, as clear evidence that it is not a final theory -- as was found true
with Newton's "law of gravity" -- and that it must ultimately be superseded by a
superior description of what is real.
But such is the nature of progress in the sciences and technology. The belief that it was impossible for bacteria in the stomach to contribute to gastric disorders -- because such organisms could not possibly survive there -- gave way to the discovery that H. Pylori is the root cause of ulcers, acid reflux, and GERD. To find out the truth, however, someone needed to go where no one had gone before, by looking where others thought there was nothing to find. It remains to be seen if the future of humanity can ever be as bright as that conceived by visionaries like Gene Roddenberry, in the Star Trek universe. But even such a utopian future remains within our reach, if we put ourselves firmly behind the cause of innovation and progress.
It is ironic that the original Star Trek series aired its last episode just six months before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon, and that it was pulled from the air because advertisers thought the idea of people living in and exploring Space was too unrealistic. Let us not make the assumption certain things are impossible into an excuse to quell innovations and limit the possibilities for progress. Time and again; the innovators among us have shown that what is impossible today can become a reality tomorrow.
A great future lies ahead for humanity, if we remain committed to continuing positive progress, but we could easily create a new "Dark Ages" if we downplay that prospect -- or if we fail to take action now, to secure a better future. Tomorrow can be better than what is real today, but it won't happen automatically. We must imagine and actively work to engineer and create a better tomorrow, if we want to make that possibility real. We can have a better life in our own immediate future, and secure a better world for future generations, if we are willing to do what is needed today -- to make that happen. But we must actually create a better tomorrow, if we want that to be real. We can create a better world for the future of humanity; however, we must make progress now toward that goal, if it is to become real at all.
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