The development of knowledge

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by ProCop, Oct 26, 2002.

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  1. ProCop Valued Senior Member

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    Re:Clockwood

    It seems that you consider it necessary for one person to understand “the whole thing” (this was e.g. the case in philosophy from the Old Greeks (Plato + Aristotle) up till Hegel and Marx – they could follow and comprehend the scientific knowlede of their time). This is no longer the case (for enybody in any field of knowledge) so the time you are refering to has already come. (You haven’t noticed it coming though because we have accepted the dependence on the knowledge of others with ease). Let’s face it: The individual person has lost the control over the knowledge in the last two centuries (which means that the knowledge wil follow its own traject and no individual person kan control it (e.g. direct it towards some desired global goal…(should we find one...)
     
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  3. Clockwood You Forgot Poland Registered Senior Member

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    To make a computer you must know the behavior of electricity, the laws of thermodynamics, properties of numerous materials, dataflow, and endless other things. It takes hoards working together to make one. Think of that in comparison to to making a water mill. I am sure this trend will go on until it takes all the knowledge of the world just to make one computer.
     
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  5. ProCop Valued Senior Member

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    Re:Clockwood

    Scientific knowledge is per deffinition reproduceable: if you use the correct procedure you can reproduce what knowledge has achieved. These procedures are described and can be used. You are insisting that the lifespan wil become too short to contain and further develop the knowledge - you are limiting the process to ONE person - which (as I am repeatedly trying to explain) is not the case even now. We add lifespans of many induviduals togeather so that there is and always will be enough (added)lifspan(s) to develope knowledge further.

    I am sure that people (togeather) can add up enough lifespan to develop "<b>a light speed engine</b>"
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2002
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  7. Clockwood You Forgot Poland Registered Senior Member

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    I am sure you know that as a computer becomes more complex it becomes both "smarter" and slower and more power wasteful. Energy is lost to friction and the speed is limited by the speed of light (signals need to get from point a to point b) Though we find ways to minaturize them and thus reduce these negative aspects you only have a limited number of ways to do so. They also get more expensive.

    A similar thing happens with the human race. It takes more and more people to manage relavent data and more supplies to "fule" them. As bits of info are bounced around things are forgotten, jumbled, or corrupted. The data has to pass through more and more people and thus slows the mob's functions. Eventually nobody would be able to contain the overall plan in their head so everyone would be working half blind.
     
  8. ProCop Valued Senior Member

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    Re:Clockwood

    OK. You have a strong point here. (This probably explains why Germany could rebuild itself in a couple of years after being devastated in WWII - knowledge of how the things work was mostly in peoples heads while it took Korea decenia to develop to some comparable level (knowledge there came in technological description....)
     
  9. Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    Well, the buzillion dollars that the US sent over to Europe after the war to fund rebuilding projects probably helped too.
     
  10. Clockwood You Forgot Poland Registered Senior Member

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    The roman empire was a good example of waste in large systems. The larger it got the more worthless beurocracy and infrastructure it needed to stay coherent. That means higher tax rates and lower productivity while more of a military was needed to keep out invaders. Problems grow faster than solutions.

    A similar thing will happen in any dynamic system.
     
  11. cosmicdisturbance Banned Banned

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    There was a time once when we were all about exploration, conquest and colonization - we can now be defined as a civilization that focuses on internal problems that will or can never be completely solved.

    A cold shudder or chill may go up your spine looking at old black and white photographs of people, events, machines, inventions, proposals and visionary schemes from the early half of the century.

    To see what could have and should have been is sobering to say the least. That generation of yesteryear believed so firmly in science, technology and the progress of Western Man in all areas of life, it is easy to see why they have been called The Greatest Generation. They believed that science (understanding) and technology (application) would lead to a higher standard of living, which it did. They believed in letting technology solve its own problems. They believed in grand projects of engineering.

    Somewhere along the way we became complacent and if not complacent downright lazy. We allowed Giovernments to decide what could be researched and what couldn't. Not a new phenomenon. Governments once ran the majority of research efforts globally and I guess they are now taking it back from corporations. The car was virtually banned in Britain at the turn of the century. Under the terms of the Red Flag law cars were restricted to 4km an hour for many years. Horses were seen as far more sensible you see. The British Car Manufacturing Industry is still trying to catch up with Europe and the US as a consequence. The British Admiralty saw no value in submarines. Much to the glee of German Uboat commanders some years later on. It goes way back, this kind of Governmental shortsightedness. Perhaps if China had been more creative after inventing gun powder they might not have been so shocked at the arrival of foreign troops wielding repeater rifles. History will keep on repeating the message to us but I doubt governments will ever learn. You ban or ignore any technology and theres a very good chance it will come back later to bite you in the arse.
     
  12. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    Excellent post, cosmicdisturbance. Welcome to sciforums.
     
  13. ProCop Valued Senior Member

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    Re:cosmicdisturbance

    Cannot agree with your vieuw. Why do you think the goverment is bad and companies good? Look at Enron, World Com etc. Goverment is people. Get/aducate your people better and you wil get better goverment (Hegel). Your singling out the govermenrt as the bad guy is artificial. Look at the companies who deny AIDS medicine to dying Africans. Maybe a new Einstain is dying there now..If that be the case the development of knowledge will have be slowed for decenias - more devastating effect on the world than a couple of stupid decisions...
     
  14. ProCop Valued Senior Member

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    Re: Nasor

    It could have been the dolars. But Clockwoods vision is still an impressive possibility.
     
  15. cosmicdisturbance Banned Banned

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    Good and Evil are irrelevant.

    I haven't pigeonholed anyone as either good or evil. Theres a little of both in all of us. Governments mean well. They just have a tendency to treat the masses like children. Life is not about eliminating all risk. Its about balancing risks. Of all the animals on Earth Humans are the most exploratory opportunistic critters to be found. You can largely divide the animal kingdom up into opportunists and specialists. Specialists are Koala Bears, Anteaters and Giraffes. Very specialised and highly susceptible to environmental change. Opportunists on the other hand are more adaptable. They generally live on their wits. Gamblers every one but clever gamblers. Theres no telling where the next meal may be coming from in the wild so anything new has to be scrutinised carefully as a potential food source. This curiosity is a dangerous game. We may end up eaten ourselves. So we tap our memory banks for similar experiences and if the risk seems in our favour we go for it. First hand experience is therefore essential to the development of intelligent thinking. Unfortunately, in the interests of keeping children 'safe' we can be overprotective. Starving our juvenile population of first hand knowledge and replacing it with second hand knowledge. Junk food for the brain. Governments are just making the same mistake. Treating us more like cattle than intelligent primates that thrive on challenges. They think it is in our best interests to ban any field of endeavour which is a little scary. Such as cloning or nuclear power. You know, all the cutting edge stuff. To me it is far scarier that we are leaving these doors unopened for others to discover.

    Thankyou for the warm welcome Wet1. Are you in the navy? Just curious about the handle.
     
  16. Clockwood You Forgot Poland Registered Senior Member

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    Cosmic:The best thing you can do would be to be both. Be a specialist in whatever is most profitable but somehow "remember" how to do other things. That skill is recalled when your current role becomes less preferable.

    Of course current genetics doesnt work like that. People do at times, however.
     
  17. wet1 Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    cosmicdisturbance,

    You may click on my net name for a profile that explains the why of it.

    While I do not agree with your viewpoints, you have had something to say and given reasons for saying it. As such you have my respect for contributing a "reasoning" post. Something that we seem to have lost along the way when a lot of our members post. I thought you deserved a congradulations as a new member for the post.
     
  18. cosmicdisturbance Banned Banned

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    Clockwood.

    We are the greatest opportunists on Earth. Unfortunately, we may be turning into specialists. With any luck a big Asteroid will come along and set us back on the path of progress. Without challenge animals invariously become specialised and that is an evolutionary deadend. Once you get too far along the path of specialisation there is no turning back should the need arise and extinction is usually the result. We became smart because we were the elite explorers. The greatest opportunists. The cleverest gamblers. Sheep will never rule the Earth.
    Unfortunately there are few remaining frontiers and we are making little effort to open them. Specialisation may be death but by the time this becomes apparent we will likely be too stupid to realise it. I think human intelligence peaked centuries ago. Thats when it gradually lost significance as a survival trait among the masses. With burgeoning populations, welfare, diminishing mortality rates and the loss of any competing fauna we are now on the path of retrogression. Sure, we know a lot more than the ancients but we only built on what those sage thinkers gave us. how many people actually know how a TV works? A diesel engine? Concrete skyscraper construction, airplane wings, computers. Few can be bothered finding out despite the knowledge being freely available. Read through a couple of ancient greek philosophisings and you will see what I mean. We are evolving into idiots and its hardly surprising.
     
  19. chroot Crackpot killer Registered Senior Member

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    I see you are as adept with biology as you are with space engineering. Do you even know what the precise genetic definiton of 'evolution' is?
    Actually, every study done so far has indicated that the average human intelligence has been rising steadily for hundreds of years. Anecdotes from your experience of people's understanding of modern inventions is not evidence of anything.

    - Warren
     
  20. cosmicdisturbance Banned Banned

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    Thankyou Chrooty. I read widely. As a child I spent every weekend trudging tens of kilometres along open shorelines. Sometimes scrambling over rocks or scaling cliffs to save turning back. My fossil collection was only surpassed by my mountains of cheap second books on Palaeontology. Yes, I know you spell it differently in the US. When I eventually left England at the age of eighteen to emigrate by myself to Australia I knew I had to leave my boxes of treasures behind. It broke my heart. I went to visit my friend Miss Smith, the curator of Norwich Museums Natural History department. A woman I had been beachcombing with on occasion and was an inspiration to me. I will never forget that time. Helping to clean a Mammoth tusk. Discussing such finds as a neolithic scraper I had uncovered. Donated along with everything else my searches had revealed. This was all long before Jurassic Park nearly made Palaeontology a household word. I have a passion for science. I don't know everything but then nobody does. If they did there would be nothing to learn and no point in living.

    Quote
    "Actually, every study done so far has indicated that the average human intelligence has been rising steadily for hundreds of years. Anecdotes from your experience of people's understanding of modern inventions is not evidence of anything."

    I am assuming you are putting some value to IQ testing. Modern day snake oil. Now, while I enjoy solving the types of puzzles that usually appear on IQ tests, I don't really care for the tests themselves. I was thinking about the arbitrary nature of standardized testing a few years back at a MENSA meeting. All an IQ test does is measure a persons ability to do IQ tests. They are meaningless for any other purpose. The first IQ test was institutionalised for schools before its fraudulently recorded research results came to light. My experience of peoples understanding of modern innovation is subjectual evidence I admit and only my own opinion. Thats self evident and I usually wouldn't have to waste time spelling it out as obvious. It was my own personal observation. Our population has surpassed 6 billion globally and science is being pursued by our youth in ever decreasing percentages. The schooling system may be part if not most of the cause. Increasingly mediocre minds might also play a role. My opinion is only one of many out there. In a litter of young there is much genetic variation to be found. Complex intricate systems are also variable. One individual may be smart. Another quite dim. Which will survive? They both do ofcourse. When two intelligent people have children, those kids tend to have slightly duller minds. Partners at the other end of the bell curve tend to have slightly smarter kids. Do you see where this is leading? Average Intelligence remains static. Assuming ofcourse we are outside of evolution which we are not. I see the influences of societal laws dumbing us down. Perhaps you do not. Many people don't. Thats another personal observation. Yes, my own opinion and not a concrete law of physics.
     
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