The Drake equation postulates the number of communicative civilisations in our galaxy, technologically advanced enough to reach out to other star systems.
But what of civilisations who are intelligent and wise, who have overcome their innate tendencies for anger and aggression, but have little by way of technology? "On my planet, there are no wars, no hatred; we live in harmony with one another and with our environment. But then we've not even developed a simple wheeled cart. Our evolution has been spiritual."
The development of technology on our planet required the coming together of a number of innovations; one was a counting system that allowed for multiplication and division (try dividing MCMLXXI by CLVII. And how does one express fractions of whole numbers in Roman numerals?).
As important was a motive. Necessity might be the mother of invention, but making money is the father.
The railway (the bicentenary of which is drawing close) was the fusion of two already-existing technologies; the steam engine, which had been in use to pump water out of mines for about a century, and the iron rail, which had been around for half a century, [There is a clear correlation, then, between the invention of the internet, which was the coming together of the telephone network and the computer, both of which had existed for a similar time.]
Driving progress in the railway industry was the profit motive. Getting coal out of the ground was one thing, getting it to market another - but more profitable was getting people to markets. From the first inter-city railway to the first international airline took humanity less than 100 years of innovation, innovation that resulted from war as well as from market adaptation. It is likely that tourist flights in space orbit will be commonplace by the time we celebrate the 200th anniversary of the opening of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway on 15 September 2030.
But imagine had humanity not taken that direction. Imagine a life without modern technology, modern medicine - all the practicalities and comforts of human existence - yet a society driven by kindness, rather than by greed. A society in which the dog-eat-dog hardscrabble of mammalian hierarchy and its attendant violence had evolved away, but in which technology had failed to take root.
Sea creatures such as whales and dolphins, squid and octopus, display high levels of intelligence, the cephalopods even being adept at making and using simple tools. They are also sociable. Yet life underwater - which began some 100 million years before it did on dry land - is not suitable to the construction of technologies. Not least because of the impossibility of fire. Not even in a hundred million years would dolphins or squid ever develop aircraft or submarines. But evolve they will, at some stage, perhaps, as I have posited here before, in the area of consciousness.
Our imaginations are constrained by our understanding of physics, in particular by our inability to grasp intuitively the implications of quantum mechanics, despite the underlying theory being proven around 95 years ago. We may not be able to get our heads around quantum mechanics - there are several competing interpretations - but it works. Without quantum mechanics there would be no modern electronics, no computers or mobile phones. And remember, the foundations of quantum mechanics were defined less than a century after the first inter-city steam railway opened.
Technology, therefore, is advancing at an exponential speed. Those of us who used the Internet a quarter of a century ago remember how slow and unreliable it was, and yet it existed - I had my first modem and laptop hooked up to the 'net in early 1993. Can you remember the whistle and crackle of the modem as it attempted to connect to a server over a telephone line?
Extrapolate the rate of the past two centuries' technological advance and take it forward another two centuries to 2221. Assuming humanity hasn't destroyed itself or its planet, assuming no cataclysms such as a mega volcano or asteroid strike or a really deadly pandemic.
I would contend that the development of understanding of human consciousness, on the basis of quantum effects within the brain, would open up new areas of technology such as telepathy and psychokinesis. We can expect huge advances in personalised medicine, driven by an understanding of genetics, and attendant advances in mental health, based on meditation becoming a mainstream therapy.
We must strive to live our lives in comfort, removing and reducing all elements that cause discomfort. [Comfort, though not luxury! There's no such noun as 'disluxury' nor adjective 'unluxurious'!] Inventions that ease discomfort will continue to prevail; however it will be the inner discomfort that will take our attention. Materialism has run its course - we need things, of course, but there is a limit. Modest comfort and a rich inner life, based on deeper spiritual yearnings.
This time last year:
Autumnal lockdown walk
Remont of Metro bridge over Puławska
This time four years ago:
We are what we read, what we watch, what we listen to
This time eight years ago:
Extraordinarily warm autumn
This time nine years ago:
On behalf of the work-shy community
This time ten years ago:
Classic truck cavalcade
This time 11 years ago
Suburban back-roads clogged with commuters
This time 12 years ago:
Autumn gold, Łazienkowski Park
This time 12 years ago:
Quintessential autumnal Jeziorki
This time 13 years ago:
Google Earth updates its map of Jeziorki
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