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Why things might have taken so long

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Re: Why things might have taken so long

#81

Post by GistNoesis »

I like to think that inventions/concepts/idea have a life of their own. They interact, reproduce, mutate. They grow around themselves bubbles of compatible ideas. Sometimes they compete to kill other ideas.

When viewed this way as a complex system, it become more easy to understand their behavior as emergent properties of the system. Systems can come to equilibrium, then won't move anymore. They can also take some time to reach equilibrium, traversing full of saddle-points landscapes. Systems that have reached equilibrium are not interesting anymore as they are not thriving, in the concept ecosystem this is the equivalent of being dead. As long as there are alive, these systems are subjected to Darwinian evolutions, which would explain the tendency for systems which take a long time to converge.

But interesting systems (turing complete) can also exhibit chaotic behavior, and knowing when they will crash can't be predicted (halting problem). Any biologist know that ecosystems are fragile and can be pushed either side of the frontier of chaos.

I also like to think of inventions/concept as numbers, which can be factored, multiplied and added. Sometimes you get a new prime number (or was it there all along :) ).

Re: Why things might have taken so long

#82

Post by humanrebar »

melling wrote: post #27
drchiu wrote: post #19

The post touches on the idea that the number of human beings that exist today far exceeds those in the past. Interesting thought. We are now like a cpu (collectively speaking) with 7 billion cores vs 50,000 years ago would only be about 10-100k in numbers.

But only a few million cores are doing worthwhile work. Most of us aren’t contributing to the advancement of knowledge, for example. If we could up our utilization with more people doing R&D, for instance, we’d accumulate knowledge much faster.

A fast search algorithm is to have 1000 threads check all 1000 array elements at the same time. Possibly only one thread will find the value you're looking for, but it's not like the other 999 threads were wasting their time.

Re: Why things might have taken so long

#84

Post by celdon25 »

melling wrote: post #27
drchiu wrote: post #19

The post touches on the idea that the number of human beings that exist today far exceeds those in the past. Interesting thought. We are now like a cpu (collectively speaking) with 7 billion cores vs 50,000 years ago would only be about 10-100k in numbers.

But only a few million cores are doing worthwhile work. Most of us aren’t contributing to the advancement of knowledge, for example. If we could up our utilization with more people doing R&D, for instance, we’d accumulate knowledge much faster.

I'm sure the ratio of ancient sages to hunter/gatherers wasn't much better.

Re: Why things might have taken so long

#85

Post by emodendroket »

simonbarker87 wrote: post #31
quadrangle wrote: post #17

About not having invented anything: it's harder to invent something novel today simply because so much has already been invented and knowledge of it is available. Centuries ago, it was easier to think of things to invent (we should be able to fly, to stay under water longer, to copy books faster, to notate music… ). It still took a lot of work to actually realize the invention (which only could be done by people weal…

This is not the case, the famous (if apocryphal) quote of "everything that can be invented has been invented" made in 1900 by the head of the US patent office was clearly wrong and made either in jest or due to an enormous lack of imagination. The point is that there is always more to invent and the possibilities keep increasing. There are plenty of inventions yet to make, from complex AI enabled devices down to the…

New inventions are likely to require more specialized training. The days of a Benjamin Franklin inventing bifocals despite not being primarily an expert in optometry are likely over.

Re: Why things might have taken so long

#86

Post by mcherm »

coldtea wrote: post #35
simonbarker87 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not the case, the famous (if apocryphal) quote of "everything that can be invented has been invented" made in 1900 by the head of the US patent office was clearly wrong and made either in jest or due to an enormous lack of imagination. The point is that there is always more to invent and the possibilities keep increasing. There are plenty of inventions yet to make, from complex AI enabled devices down to the…

> This is not the case, the famous (if apocryphal) quote of "everything that can be invented has been invented" made in 1900 by the head of the US patent office was clearly wrong and made either in jest or due to an enormous lack of imagination. The point is that there is always more to invent and the possibilities keep increasing. Just because somebody said something that was wrong 100 years ago, doesn't mean it's a…

> Just because somebody said something that was wrong 100 years ago, doesn't mean it's also wrong now.

That is absolutely true. HOWEVER, if one notices that those in the past have made the same observation as oneself but were wrong every time, one would be wise to VERY carefully reexamine one's own position. This is good, solid evidence that one might be mistaken

Re: Why things might have taken so long

#88

Post by baud147258 »

> Often A isn’t useful without B, and B isn’t useful without A. For instance, A is chariots and B is roads.

Even without chariots, road are useful: pack animals and people on foot will move much more easily if there is a solid path that doesn't turn to mud when it's raining, that's clear of obstacles and relatively smooth.

Re: Why things might have taken so long

#89

Post by varjag »

simonbarker87 wrote: post #58
afarrell wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I founded a company based on the latter that is ticking over nicely. I'm curious: How much does your company's product rely on materials that either didn't exist 20 years ago or were significantly more expensive to procure in small quantities 20 years ago? I ask because I have a hypothesis that a lot of things that seem like low-hanging-fruit that should have been invented earlier actually depend on the abundance o…

The product would not have been possible 20 years ago as the fans would have konked out due to the heat, and the plastic would have yellowed and gone brittle also due to the heat. So we needed materials science improvements to make the product viable. I don't think I was advocating for low hanging fruit but instead progress in various fields allow other things to be invented, some of them I guess become low hanging f…

Nearly all commercial plastics available now were available back in 1997. Even exotic things like PEEK.

The yellowing is due to flame retardant additive to ABS granules. Modern flame resistant ABS stock is prone to same issues.

Re: Why things might have taken so long

#90

Post by bambax »

adrianN wrote: post #76
bambax wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. La Bruyère in 1690 wrote a very famous phrase "Tout est dit, et l'on vient trop tard depuis plus de sept mille ans qu'il y a des hommes et qui pensent." ( Everything has been said, and we're too late after 7000 years of human existence and thought. ) I can't find the quote right now but Aristotle complained once that the level of comfort attained in his era and city was so high nobody would ever conceivably w…

You should try a bicycle. If you want actual wings, that's just one of those problems that need absurd amounts of money and brains to figure out. Genetic engineering is certainly a lot more difficult than inventing Nitrocellulose.

I'm aware of the existence of bicycles. They are not as useful -- or fun -- as the ability to fly would be.

I don't understand your point at all. When something sounds far-fetched / difficult / expensive it means it's actually more interesting rather than less.

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