[Ygrec23]

I wonder how many of us think about what science may be able to do in the coming centuries, positive advances that might seriously change our lives. We all have some ideas about negative "advances," but it would be interesting to hear from PC'ers about the kind of positive advances we can look forward to.

My first candidate is the possibility that through some new form of imaging or blood test, the medical people of the future should be able to measure objectively the level of physical and/or psychological pain that a particular individual suffers from.

What about you? Take care!

[pachyderm]

Originally Posted by Ygrec23;1771117[I

negative[/I] "advances,"

Are those like "advance to the rear"?

[Perna]

I think positive/negative is in the eye of the beholder, so-to-speak. I like the question they ask at the ER about how much pain one is in with a little chart of comparisons and one has to answer it for themselves. Don't think there is an agreed-upon meaning to pain and how much one is in/can take since we're all individual in that regard, can't really compare with anything as a standard. But then, I love going to the dentist

I would like a computer to imagine and maybe mold prototype ideas or inventions, even if only in concept drawings, from voice command. We're coming up on good voice software that allows writing to take place; why not 3D drawing?

I have trouble with doing too much fantasy daydreaming; would be nice if one could imagine a Holodeck but item by item, make storyboarding real but without the effort of programming frame by frame (have done that as a job, tedious!). The need to be more exact and work with dimensions and deal with obvious design flaws would make it harder than just wishful thinking but could allow others to see and comment on one's efforts, make it interactive with others if one wanted; could be great for working on dreams in therapy or seeing if one's idea for an invention might be worth going further on, a quick way to tell a story (to help with writing the story or inactively with a child/children) (eventually the scientists would be able to figure out how to make the images move and be added together, etc. like an animated gif with scroll; an imagined video without a literal camera) and one could imagine fears and practice dealing with them so one wouldn't worry as much (role playing; eventually the scientists would be able to make the images interact so you could make a speech with hecklers and/or envision the audience naked and have them be upset instead of you, you could laugh :-)

[pachyderm]

Originally Posted by Perna

But then, I love going to the dentist

Huh?

[Ygrec23]

Originally Posted by pachyderm

Are those like "advance to the rear"?

I guess. Bigger and better bombs and other war toys. Figuring out how to pack 600 passengers into the plane designed for 400. Longer tax forms. Exercise requirements enforced by law. Etc., etc., etc. Take care!

[Perna]

Pain. How do you compare the meaning of my pain with many people who are afraid of the dentist/are afraid of dental pain itself?

I like Ygrec's idea, that medical helpers would "believe" we are in a lot of pain when they can't "see" it but don't see how that is possible since there's no base or way to compare one person's experience with another. People can literally hurt because they believe they are in pain, have nothing that can be seen to be wrong with them; are they the same as those that are literally in pain but able to "hurt" less because of previous experiences or other, non-medical pain numbing practices? How do you compare the state of my nerves, how "good" they are at registering, how many endings I have, etc. with someone else with a different heritage and background? Why would you not believe me when I say I am in a "lot" of pain? Why? I could be lying, wanting the drugs but what if I'm not lying but your scientific chart or register or whatever decides that the pain I feel is only a 2 when I say it is a 5? How is that different from what happens today? I don't want "scientists" deciding on how I feel or what I want/need!

[pachyderm]

I don't know if this is a scientific advance, or an engineering one, but it is one I would like to see:

A successful new ion engine to drive spacecraft to much higher speeds (once into orbit) than are achieved with present-day chemical rockets. Might make travel to the planets possible in a few weeks. Of course, that has some disadvantages too -- we could do more damage to those places if we could get there more easily.

[pachyderm]

Originally Posted by lynn P.

Yeah sorry I hijacked the thread.

I thought I was the one who hijacked it!

[madisgram]

cure for schitzophrenia, cancer, and other serious illnesses.
a "green" world.
gosh this thread is thought provoking. thanks.

[Ygrec23]

Teaching has always been an art. And teaching certain young people has turned out to be nearly impossible. I'd like to see advances that would transform teaching into a scientific injection of knowledge into the student, including not only knowledge of facts, but knowledge of techniques, knowledge of writing, knowledge of mathematics, knowledge of how to think most rationally and effectively. One day I'd like to see ALL kids graduate from high school with ALL of them ready to take on a college curriculum without remedial work! I'm perfectly aware that this (and my previous suggestion) sound completely impossible. But that's the point. Two hundred years ago airplanes were impossible and computers were unthinkable. Let's think about the unthinkable in this thread! Take care!

[pachyderm]

Originally Posted by Ygrec23

Teaching has always been an art. And teaching certain young people has turned out to be nearly impossible. I'd like to see advances that would transform teaching into a scientific injection of knowledge into the student, including not only knowledge of facts, but knowledge of techniques, knowledge of writing, knowledge of mathematics, knowledge of how to think most rationally and effectively.

Isn't learning more relevant than teaching? Maybe that is the thing that needs study, not teaching.

I want to see a few advances......(This thread was doomed to be off-topic?)

(The one for schizophrenia is applicable?) I know it was a request for "Scientific advances".....yet my head and fingers did their own thing......

A solution to all the mentally ill people thrusted onto the streets to be homeless targets since the 80's when all the mental hospitals were shut down...and presidency changed with ...Reagan?(Of course the conditions within the hospitals were such that I don't even know which is a worse fate?)

I want to see a cure for schizophrenia...or a means of giving them back some quality of life.There is ...upon examination...a portion of the brain which is damaged for these individuals....and there are medications which can improve their lives.Yet there is a med non-compliance issue which goes hand in hand with the illness.Because no one should be 'forced to be medicated' true but controversial<----personal wants.

Political desire...
I would like to see more of our manufacturing done on our soil...returning employment to our nation.

Ecological desire.....
Would love to see the government stop turning away awesome ideas to propel vehicles or to transport us which do not involve petrol.

I would really love to see natural healing methods
for psychiatric and bodily healing attempted prior to handing us a prescription of chemicals.....ie,relaxation cd's...botanicals...hypnosis...affordable means to therapy/psychiatry.....

and housing resolution.Affordable ,organic as possible,with modifications to power consumption and environment all around.

I'm sorry...it went off topic. I apologize.

Ah well if it needs to be moved...it's all good...lol...Wolf

[Ygrec23]

OKAY, PEOPLE! If you wish you can go start your own thread on political correctness and how to say the right thing to say. THIS THREAD CONCERNS ONLY PEOPLE'S IDEAS OF WAY-OUT SCIENTIFIC ADVANCES IN THE FUTURE!

I'm surprised that no one has brought up the hoary old chestnut of fusion reactors-machines-tokamaks-whatever you call them. We've all been reading about them for fifty years and all seen photographs of guys in white coats surrounding weird-looking apparatus that MAY one day turn into a fusion reactor. WHAT'S THE PROBLEM? WHY IS THIS BEING HELD UP? WHEN IS THIS GOING TO HAPPEN? Anyone out there know anything about this?

Take care, but remember, go talk PC somewhere else!

[Ygrec23]

An antibiotic that works against viruses the way penicillin fifty years ago worked against microbes? A new antibiotic that works against microbes the way penicillin did fifty years ago!

[Ygrec23]

Roads that don't wear out and don't need resurfacing!

Bridges that remain upright in natural disasters....better flood prevention from land slides and tsunamis....?

[pachyderm]

Some way to make better people? I think that is one of the most pressing needs: how to make more emotionally balanced people!

We live in a world where even the most emotionally healthy leaders have to contend with the fact that a large fraction of the population is not emotionally balanced. It really hinders achievement of the most promising plans to improve life.

[Ygrec23]

Originally Posted by pachyderm

Some way to make better people? I think that is one of the most pressing needs: how to make more emotionally balanced people! We live in a world where even the most emotionally healthy leaders have to contend with the fact that a large fraction of the population is not emotionally balanced. It really hinders achievement of the most promising plans to improve life.

I see no reason why, in a thousand years, it shouldn't be possible to make more emotionally balanced people. And I'm quite serious. A thousand years ago the streets and towns of Europe were populated in great part by people with what would be to us unbearable and unnecessary physical deformities and afflictions. Cripples, hunchbacks, the legless, the armless, the lepers, those with harelips, the halt and the lame and the blind. Walk anywhere in the first world today and they aren't there. Or they're there but cured or using prostheses that of course weren't even dreamed of a thousand years ago. They're certainly not confined to special "hospital" barracks as they were not all that long ago.

Just as the techniques by which we have eliminated a lot of the physical suffering were developed over a long period of time, why shouldn't the same thing happen to the emotionally unbalanced (or whatever other term you want to use)? People are so ridiculously ingenious, and getting more so by the century. We're not going to get rid of emotionality, it's true; that's about as fundamental to human beings as having two arms and a head. But unbalance? Why not? I don't know that many people really appreciate what the human race (animals, every one of them) has done over the past ten thousand years, or the past thousand years, or the past two hundred years. We take so much for granted. The future will be very interesting indeed, and very different. Take care!

[madisgram]

bio-gradable everything. we are destroying this beautiful world with trash.

[pachyderm]

Originally Posted by madisgram

bio-gradable everything.

Just not too fast!

[madisgram]

Originally Posted by pachyderm

Just not too fast!

yeah, i know. those plastic milk and water cartons worry me tho not to mention the dreaded plastic trash bag.

[venusss]

Hm.... could we make some way to make the world suck less? I don't mean gravity-wise, I mean... making it a less of mess?

[pachyderm]

Originally Posted by VenusHalley

Hm.... could we make some way to make the world suck less? I don't mean gravity-wise, I mean... making it a less of mess?

As I said, make better people!

I think that might not be out of the question, either. Maybe we really are making some advances in that these days. Some people really are becoming more aware. It takes time. Look at how much time it has taken for other advances to happen. Just so we have the time. The situation is dire, but not hopeless (I hope).

[Ygrec23]

Originally Posted by VenusHalley

Hm.... could we make some way to make the world suck less? I don't mean gravity-wise, I mean... making it a less of mess?

I don't know, Venus. And I say that after having considered your question for quite some time. I assume, perhaps wrongly, that the meaning in your phrase "suck less" is to have less misery, pain and competition than we do today. Of course, tell me if I've got you wrong. But if I understand you correctly, I really wonder.

There have been eras in the world's history, and in the history of various countries, that have been much less traumatic and more comfortable than many places are afflicted with now. Can we make this a general thing, applying the world over for a substantial period of time? I would certainly hope so, and I do strongly believe that the majority of humankind would hope so too.

There have been bits and spots of such happiness now and then throughout human history, all by chance. Can we do it on purpose? I would love that to be the case. And if we can do all these other things, why not that? I'll tell you, I'm really, really confident about the scientific progress (why? because there's lots of money in it), but when it comes to general human happiness I really wonder.

Back in the old days, before movies and television, people didn't really know much about alternative life styles. Many of them were satisfied with what they had because they knew of nothing else. Now we have instant information and images for all, and the desire for "embourgoisement" on the part of everyone. Can everyone be satisfied? Can even a majority be happy? Big, big question. A question I don't feel I'm qualified to even attempt an answer. I sure hope so. Take care!

[Ygrec23]

Cheap, easy and fast long distance transmission of power and storage of power. Take care!