Summa Technologiae

4. Intelectronics

4 INTELECTRONICS RETURN TO EARTH In this chapter we aim to investigate whether intelligent activity that manifests itself in technoevolution is a dynamic and permanent process, one that does not alter its expansive nature during any period, or whether it must undergo a transformation until any similarity to its original state has disappeared. Please note that this discussion will differ considerably from the cosmic debate that preceded it. Everything we said about extraterrestrial civilizations was not a product of vacuous speculation, yet the hypotheses we discussed had been based on further hypotheses, as a result of which the plausibility of our conclusions was at times rather low. In turn, the phenomena we shall be discussing here are predictions that are based on well-known and thoroughly researched facts. And thus the plausibility of the processes we shall outline in this chapter is many times higher than the plausibility that characterized our discussion of civilization density in the Universe. We shall examine the future of civilization while taking into account the developmental potential of science. It is easy to say that science will “always” be developing and that the more we find out, the higher the number of new problems that we shall face. Will there be no limits to this process? It seems that the rapid pace of discovery also has its limit—which we are likely to reach soon. The Industrial Revolution began in the seventeenth century. Its roots—or rather fuses, as it was more like an explosion than slow maturation—reach far back. Einstein answered the question about the “first cause” of science in a way that was both amusing and poignant: 78 INTELECTRONICS “No one scratches unless they have an itch.” Science as a driving force of technology was mobilized by social needs. It was mobilized, popularized , and accelerated—but not created—by them. The early origins of science go back to the Babylonian and Greek times. Science started with astronomy, with the exploration of the mechanics of the skies. The huge regularities of such mechanics brought to life first mathematical systems—systems that were considerably more complex than the first steps in arithmetic called forth by ancient technology (measurement of land, of buildings, etc.). The Greeks created formal axiomatic systems (Euclid’s geometry), while the Babylonians came up with an arithmetic that was independent from geometry. A historian of science is very much aware of the first-born status of astronomy among the sciences. Experimental physics, the development of which was largely driven by questions posed by astronomy, came second. Physics, in turn, gave life to chemistry—while also belatedly freeing it from the mythological dream of the alchemists. Biology was the last one among the natural sciences to surface from the mist of unverifiable concepts at the turn of the twentieth century. I am highlighting here important but not sole reasons that lie behind the development of individual scientific disciplines, since the mutual crisscrossing of their findings accelerated their respective trajectories and the subsequent development of some new branches from them. All this clearly indicates that both the “mathematical spirit” of contemporary sciences and its material instrument—the experimental method—already existed, in embryonic form, before the Industrial Revolution.The Revolution gave impetus to the development of science, since it combined theoretical knowledge with manufacturing practice. As a result of this, over the last three hundred years, Technology has maintained positive feedback with Science. The Scientists pass on their discoveries to the Technologists, and, should the results prove successful, their research undergoes the process of “amplification.” The feedback is positive, as negative attitude on the part of the Technologists toward a certain discovery by the Scientists still does not mean that theoretical research in that area will have to be terminated. I have simplified here the nature of the relationship between the two areas on purpose: this relationship is actually much more complex. As science is a form of information gathering, the pace of its development can be estimated quite accurately on the basis of the number of specialist periodicals currently in print. This number has been growing exponentially since the seventeenth century. Every fifteen years, the INTELECTRONICS 79 number of scientific journals doubles. Exponential growth is usually a transitional phase that does not last very long, at least not in Nature.An embryo or a bacterial colony on the surface of a solid medium grows exponentially (i.e., its rate of...