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Mind
Power News The
Future of Science: We Will Have the Power of Gods By
Roger Highfield Just
before Sir Isaac Newton died, he described how humbled he
felt by the thought that he had glimpsed only a fraction of
the potential of the great scientific revolution he had helped
to launch: "I seem to have been only like a boy playing
on the seashore and diverting myself in now and then finding
a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the
great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." Three centuries later, that great ocean of truth is not so mysterious. According to the theoretical physicist Professor Michio Kaku of the City College of New York, we are entering an empowered new era: "We have unlocked the secrets of matter. We have unravelled the molecule of life, DNA. And we have created a form of artificial intelligence, the computer. We are making the historic transition from the age of scientific discovery to the age of scientific mastery in which we will be able to manipulate and mould nature almost to our wishes." Among the technologies he believes will change our lives in the coming decades are cars that drive themselves, lab-grown human organs, 3D television, robots that can perform household tasks, eye glasses that double as home-entertainment centres, the exploitation of genes that alter human ageing and the possibility of invisibility and forms of teleportation. "We
will have the power to animate the inanimate, the power to
create life itself," says Prof Kaku. "We will have
the power of gods. But will we also have the wisdom of Solomon?" In a new BBC4 series called Visions of the Future, Prof Kaku talks to today's pioneers about how we are moving from being passive observers of nature to its choreographers. Here are their remarkable speculations about how the scientific and technological revolution will transform life and society in the 21st century. State
of the Future: The World Is Getting Better I'm old enough to recall the days in the late 1960s when people wore those trendy buttons that read: "Stop the Planet I Want to Get Off." And I will never forget that era's "educational" films of what life would be like in the year 2000. Played on clanky 16-millimeter projectors, they showed images of people walking down the streets of Manhattan with masks on, so they could avoid breathing the poison gases our industrial society was spewing. The future seemed mighty bleak back then, and you merely had to open the newspapers for the latest story confirming how the human species was speeding down a congested highway to extinction. A group of scientists calling themselves the Club of Rome issued a report called "Limits to Growth." It explained that lifeboat Earth had become so weighed down with humans that we were running out of food, minerals, forests, water, energy and just about everything else that we need for survival. Paul Ehrlich's best-selling book "The Population Bomb" (1968) gave England a 50-50 chance of surviving into the 21st century. In 1980, Jimmy Carter released the "Global 2000 Report," which declared that life on Earth was getting worse in every measurable way. So imagine how shocked I was to learn, officially, that we're not doomed after all. A new United Nations report called "State of the Future" concludes: "People around the world are becoming healthier, wealthier, better educated, more peaceful, more connected, and they are living longer." How
to Live Forever (or at least
to 100) By
Jason Wilson The Mediterranean island of Sardinia is dotted with prehistoric stone ruins called nuraghi. Little is known about the nuraghi, or the ancient people who built them, except that they predate the earliest invaders to Sardinia, the Phoenicians, who arrived here about 9,000 years ago. I
passed a number of nuraghi as
I drove up into the island’s
interior through mountains of
limestone and granite, on a
terrifying road, into a region
called the Ogliastra. It’s
never been an easy ramble into
Sardinia’s mountains. Neither
the Phoenicians nor any of other
invaders who came to Sardinia
later — Romans, Vandals,
Byzantines, Carthaginians, Arabs,
Genoese, Catalans — were
ever able to the penetrate them.
Ignoring those overheated warnings, I traveled into the Ogliastra anyway. I’d been sent into the wild interior of Sardinia on assignment by AARP Magazine. Researchers had recently documented an abnormal cluster of modern-day Methuselahs residing here. At least one man in this region lived to 112 and, until his death, was the oldest man in the world. And there were many other centenarians living in isolated Ogliastra villages. Basically, my AARP assignment called for me to barge in on very old Sardinians and ask: How can our readers, too, live such a long life? The editors wanted tips, nuts and bolts, practical “how to” nuggets. Of course, I wanted to know these things, too. Like most other human beings, my desire to live forever — or at least as long as I possibly can — knows no bounds. Think Big, Dream Bigger to Manifest Your Life By
Barry Goss, There is the story of the kindergarten teacher who asks a child what she is drawing. "I'm drawing a picture of God," the child replies. "But, sweetheart," says the teacher, "no one knows what God looks like." They will in a minute!" says the child. Now, that is a perfect example of Thinking BIG! Big Thinkers possess this childlike faith. Not a childish faith that lacks maturity and understanding, but an attitude of deep faith in themselves. If you are a big thinker, you have an inner voice that asks "why not..." and "what if..." and you're in tune with your own skills, talents, and abilities to SEE the unseen or create the uncreatable. Here's another example of a Big Thinker: The Italian sculptor Agostino d'Antonio worked diligently on a large piece of marble. Unable to produce his desired masterpiece, he lamented, "I can do nothing with it." Other sculptors also worked this difficult piece of marble, but to no avail. Michelangelo discovered the stone and visualized the possibilities in it. His "I-can-make-it-happen" attitude resulted in one of the world's masterpieces - the statue of David. Yes, sometimes, all it takes is to have unstoppable belief and high-faith in your own creative talents to turn your imagination into reality. But
... if thinking big is all it takes, by now, wouldn't
we already have a world full of people steadfastly achieving
their goals and bringing major accomplishments into
their life? 3 DAYS ONLY! October 29 to 31st, 2007
Our mission is to continually provide the most compelling, benefit-dripping, leading-edge information on the art & science of manifestation and all knowledge related to new thought spirituality and metaphysics. Sex
and Marriage with Robots by 2050 Humans could marry robots within the century. And consummate those vows. "My forecast is that around 2050, the state of Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize marriages with robots," artificial intelligence researcher David Levy at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands told LiveScience. Levy recently completed his Ph.D. work on the subject of human-robot relationships, covering many of the privileges and practices that generally come with marriage as well as outside of it. At
first, sex with robots might be considered
geeky, "but once you have a story
like 'I had sex with a robot, and
it was great!' appear someplace like
Cosmo magazine, I'd expect many people
to jump on the bandwagon," Levy
said. Will
Science End Aging? Seven Steps to Eternal Life If you wish to be a prophet, first you must dress the part. No more silk ties or tasseled loafers. Instead, throw on a wrinkled T-shirt, frayed jeans, and dirty sneakers. You should appear somewhat unkempt, as if combs and showers were only for the unenlightened. When you encounter critics, as all prophets do, dismiss them as idiots. Make sure to pepper your conversation with grandiose predictions and remind others of your genius often, lest they forget. Oh, and if possible, grow a very long beard. By these measures, Aubrey de Grey is indeed a prophet. The 42-year-old English biogerontologist has made his name by claiming that some people alive right now could live for 1,000 years or longer. Maybe much longer. Growing old is not, in his view, an inevitable consequence of the human condition; rather, it is the result of accumulated damage at the cellular and molecular levels that medical advances will soon be able to prevent — or even reverse — allowing people to go on living pretty much indefinitely. We'll still have to worry about angry bears and falling pianos, but aging, the biggest killer of all, will cease to be a threat. Death, as we know it, will die. More
news at the Mind Power Blog
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