is there a level of intellegence that once your there you cannot possibly be any smarter?
lets say the human race survives for 3billion years , wouldnt we know everthing and anything about science and the universe that can possibly be known?
and wouldnt we have technology by then so advance that it cannot be anything more advanced?
knowlegde is not the same as intelligence. For instance, we might anthropize wikipedia and say it is knowledgeable, but it is not intelligent, it is just a store of information, not a problem solving machine.
I'd imagine people who lived in such a world that you describe would have an apparent lack of motivation to become intelligent, while they might know many things, their technology is probably making any difficult task which would require people to develop real problem solving skills obscelete. Even today, interpersonal emotional intelligence is being replaced by ever more complex self-marketing through social networking that brings people together by keeping them isolated in fron of their computer
intelligence is relevent to the individual, knowledge is relevnt to the community. In 3billion years, there will likely be some people dumber than others. But as stated above, we (as a people) would still have more knowledge about how our world/galaxy/universe works.
As far as we know, quantum mechanics places a limit on what can be known. Since knowledge/information is limited, I would think anything which processes information is therefore limited, and intelligence may be considered as that which processes information for solving problems.
This is not just with empirical science. Transcendent/spiritual philosophies also place a limit on what can be known.
I've often wondered: given what we know regarding the laws of physics, what would be the most advanced tech possible? At what scale would it's smallest components operate? How large an engineering project could it take on?
I think this is what Stephen Baxter intended Xeelee tech to be.
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Yes, quantum mechanics also places an upper limit on information processing and storage. There is a point when you cannot unamigiously determine the needed information. Similarly relativity places an upper limit on thinking speed.
Not much smaller than nano-tech I would bet. Once you drop below that it gets harder and harder to power to indivudual pieces. They also get increasingly fragile.
With immortal engineers there's no limit. You just have to wait and keep the Shwarzild radius in mind.
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Last edited by Symmetric Chaos on May 21st, 2010 at 09:28 PM
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May 20th, 2010 09:48 PM
