6 signs that reality is catching up with science fiction.

http://m.mentalfloss.com/article.php?id=54445

Well in many cases it is surpassing, or will surpass it, and at some point in a few decades, will likely be synonymous. We've gone way beyond flying cars in most areas.

RAMA

 

You do know what is "science fiction" is a sliding scale? Compared to previous generations the current generation is always "caught up".

 

It only remains science "fiction" if it's fictional. If it ever becomes synonymous with the real world, it ceases to be s.f. All that happens is that someone moves the goalposts by writing more s.f.

Not to say the items in that article are negligible claims — far from it. But making it sound like some breakthrough is about to be made between imagination and reality, or that we're on the verge of the Singularity, or some such thing, ignores all the times it's happened before.

That article could have been written 100 years ago, crowing about how reality was catching up to the predictions of Jules Verne. And it would have been right.

 

I haven't read it yet, but I've heard a lot about Kurzweil's book. It's on my list.

 

Science fiction is a sliding scale affair. Also science fiction isn't about forecasting but imagining "what if?" Being accuractely predictive is mostly just a happy coincidence

 

It has already happened. Computers, cell phones, smartphones, automatic opening doors (which killed courtesy), even space travel were all science fiction.

 

- Antigravity
- Terraforming
- Quantum computers
- Zero point energy
- Copied and downloaded consciousness
- Nanobots
- Nanodocs
- Nano-biology
- Forcefields
- Star travel (as opposed to very limited intrasolar travel)
- Self aware Androids
- Fusion energy
- Human hibernation
- Robot or synthetic (bio-engineered) bodies for transplanted minds.
- Genuinely self-aware A.I.
- Mining asteroids and other solar planets and satellites.
- Extraterrestial life

Those are but a few SF concepts that haven't happened yet.

 

You need to scratch out Quantum computers.

 

Big screen TV's, check. Black President, check. Space Station, check. As Gibson said; "The future is here, it just isn't evenly distributed yet."

 

Also:

Space drive:
http://www.fastcompany.com/1837966/mustafas-space-drive-egyptian-students-quantum-physics-invention

Nanotechnology:
http://www.geek.com/geek-cetera/17-...creating-cancer-killing-nanoparticle-1447819/

I'd like your thoughts on these. I'm SO behind in my science reading you'll just have to do a "explain like I'm 5" thing. But I would liek to add: THIS is why education is important. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but tell everyone you know, who says it's a waste of time, or that "young people aren't doing much these days".

 

I would also scratch Extraterrestial life as well,after all we can't prove or disprove that it has happened, and given the vastness of the universe isn't it more likely somewhere out there in the universe there is other life?

 

See
EM drive


oogy boogy science.

 

Here's the thing. When people say "extraterrestrial life" the connotation is usually meant to imply intelligent alien life. But the fact is any life, even microbial, found beyond the Earth would in fact be extraterrestrial life. And that is the first bit of solid evidence that might yet be found within our own solar system. If organisms are found elsewhere in the solar system then it establishes life can originate and exist beyond our planet. And if it can happen in this system the probability is it can happen elsewhere in the galaxy or even the universe.

Intelligence as we understand it (our own) wasn't an inevitable occurence in life evolving on Earth, but it did happen. That with life being able to form elsewhere would support the possibility that alien intelligence isn't impossible given the right conditions---it could and might have indeed happened even if it mightn't be an intelligence we could immediately recognize at first.

For all we know someone else is out there facing the same quandary and asking the same questions we are.

 

Agreed, however when I read Extraterristal life, I took it to mean even microbial life. If people mean Intelligent extraterristial life they should say that.

 

Dude the extraterrestrial debate is over. Aliens have landed on the moon, it's all over the internet.

I wish they would hurry up and exterminate Earth, the wait is killing me

 

Some paleontologists believe that had a meteor not struck earth that the likely result would have been this:

 

The first elected Black President (to hold the title of President) I believe would have been President Joseph Kasa-Vubu of the Republic of Congo, he took office on June 30, 1960.

We've had space stations since the early seventies.

The Human Species ... been there, done that.


(go seahawks)

 

^^^Emphasis mine.

Shall we read the text you omitted (link), which brackets what you quoted? Here (emphasis mine):

Hardly a "most likely" result.

 

I think DarthTom is suffering from the sadly common belief that evolution is goal-oriented and that upright-walking warm-blooded vertebrates with opposable thumbs and large brains represent some kind of pinnacle of evolutionary achievement.

Human bodies are functional but also fraught with all kinds of problems. We're mostly just lucky that our brains and dexterity allow us to develop technologies for overcoming our limitations.

I agree that dinosaur evolution would likely not have led to humanoid forms. It just doesn't make any sense.

 

Well... thanks for that.

What about the nanotechnology thing?

http://www.geek.com/geek-cetera/17-y...ticle-1447819/