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I don't know what it is about the idea of the far future that makes people so willing to throw out fundamental physical laws. The relevant point here would be t
by sethrin 8y ago
I don't know what it is about the idea of the far future that makes people so willing to throw out fundamental physical laws. The relevant point here would be that there are fundamental limits to heat transfer, and a finite amount of work which can be done on Earth-as-we-know-it for a given unit of time, irrespective of the energy source. An "unlimited" source of energy would be in practice limited by its heat output.
- kungtotte 8y agoImprobable is not the same as impossible. We didn't even know about atoms for a huge stretch of science, and now we're smashing them together to break them apart looking for smaller things. Is it completely out of the question that some discovery will be made that invalidates our current understanding of physics?
- narag 8y agoEven without new physics, processes can be improved with new tech. As far as I know current computers are based in the same foundations as in the past century, but they're many orders of magnitude more powerful. Then, after some threshold, quantitative changes become qualitative ones.
- sethrin 8y agoYes, it's absurd to consider that there will be any large-scale violation of thermodynamics in the indefinitely far future. Literally, nothing is less probable.
- kungtotte 8y agoLiterally nothing is less probable? Alright then. I don't know why we bother with science any more since you've apparently got this one in the bag.
- sethrin 8y agoNon sequitur, and rude.
- objectivetruth 8y agoNo ruder than calling their parent comment absurd. In fact, I thought it was a clever way of pointing out the hubris in your statement, which I likewise read as "no intelligence in the universe in the next several billion years is likely to have a significantly more advanced understanding of the universe's physical laws and properties."