Living In The Science Fiction World

When I sit back and look around our world at all of the mundane stuff we take for granted, I can’t help but be amazed. So many things were only in the wild imaginations of science fiction writers—not centuries ago, but within my own lifetime. What a wonder it all is.

The Flying Cars

First off, we have to concede this point made by Avery Brooks:

No, there aren’t any flying cars to speak of—certainly none that are practical—and that is perfectly fine because we have so much more.

I’m typing this blog using one of several computers in my home. It is communicating wirelessly to a global network of computers that are able to share infomation on just about anything from the ridiculous to the sublime all within seconds of me asking for it.

The screen I’m staring at is (as are most of the televisions in my home) a science fiction inspired flat panel device that was still being developed in labs less than two decades ago.

On my computer, I can access encyclopedias and research papers, view public records, and watch cartoons from my childhood. The one thing I hardly ever do with it is math.

We used to smirk at Star Trek, because the computers were so ubiquitous. Computers were accessible everywhere and controlled everything. Go up to a terminal, ask it a question, and it would give you an answer. Think of it as the pre-Google. The Enterprise was basically just one very large computer that could also carry people from place to place. How silly. Or was it? Fighter jets a little more than computers that are wrapped around a human and a jet engine. Modern automobiles have upwards of 50 small computers controlling how the engine runs, the climate in the cabin, and whether or not to deploy safety measures in the event of an accident.

And we even stuff more computers into those little-noted mini-Enterprises. The car stereo? Computer. The CD player? Computer. The DVD player and monitor. Computer. Computer.

We forget that our lives are now filled with computers. Microwave ovens, washing machines, calculators, toys, pens, watches, thermostats, and more are all little more than special-purpose computers. When I was born, computers were only starting to be made with transistors about the size of a pencil eraser. Now, on a chip of silicon about the size of a thumbnail, we can cram in 2 billion transistors.

Can You Hear Me, Now?

Not so long ago, if you wanted to talk to someone on the phone, you had to dial (not punch buttons, but dial) a number into a phone, attached to the wall by a wire, that you leased from the phone company and hope that the person on the other end was there and would answer. Since there were no answering machines (yet), you’d let the phone ring 10 times so that people had a fair shot of not missing your call. The person answering the phone never knew who the caller was until they picked up the handset (which was wired to the phone body). Most homes had one phone, maybe two if there were teenagers involved.

Now, our phones are with us almost all the time. They are small enough to fit in our pockets. Not only can we be reached in most inhabited places on the globe, but if we are slow to pick up the caller can leave a message. And, since we know (most of the time) who is calling us via Caller ID, we can decide whether or not to answer in the first place. We can even bounce between multiple callers at the same time with Call-waiting.

To someone raised in a era where the communicators on Star Trek were quasi-miraculous devices that walkie-talkies could only crudely imitate, the idea that you can be in touch with people no matter where you are in the world is truly fantastic.

Space…the Final Frontier

I’ve been fortunate to witness not only the manned space age, but also the extraterrestrial space age. Hundreds of people have gone up into space. Twelve have walked on another world. Shoot…we have a freakin’ big space station orbiting 350km above us.

Humans have had a nearly continuous presence in space since the start of the 1970s. But we are not alone. We’ve been sending out robot explorers for almost fifty years. They’ve shown us wonders we never imagined. We have landed on the Moon, Venus, Mars, Saturn’s moon Titan, and asteroids. Our journeys out into our neighborhood might be slow and measured, but we are there. Make no doubt about it. We are making space our home.

Some Headlines

In truth, you really need no more proof of the fact that we are living in what we once thought of as science fiction than these recent news stories—almost none of which are paid much attention to by the masses anymore:

Europe Extends Missions to Mars, Venus and Earth (Feb. 2009)

New Russian Cargo Ship Launches Toward Space Station (Feb. 2009)

FDA OKs 1st drug from genetically altered animals (Feb. 2009)

US, China must cooperate on climate change (Feb. 2009)

Study questions usefulness of animal-human embryos (Feb. 2009)

Science closing in on cloak of invisibility (Jan. 2009)

Hundreds of Houston computers infected by virus (Feb. 2009)

When you watch these ads, the ads check you out (Jan. 2009)

New Device Reads Minds Pretty Well (Feb. 2009)

Teleportation Milestone Achieved (Jan. 2009)

These don’t exactly seem like the headlines of some Victorian age…or even a pre-nuclear age. There’s no doubt about it, we’ve made the future, and now we’re stuck with it.

The Future Future

If we are living in the future, where do we go from here? If the future is anything like our past, we need to look to the pages of science fiction and into the pure research labs around the world for some clues.

Clearly, computers are going to continue evolving. Into what, we have no idea. Are they our next stage of evolution? Are they our successors? Will they always be nothing more than sophisticated tools? I think the first option is the most likely. For decades now we’ve been implanting cybernetic devices into human bodies to aid us in some way through our disabilities: eyesight, hearing, paralysis, amputation, etc. Many of us would be dead if not for implants that regulate heart beats, or brain seizures, or insulin flow. With this reality, it isn’t too large a leap to say that we’ve already begun the process of organic/mechanical evolution.

Just as our neolithic ancestors had to adapt to a changing world, so will we. They were emerging from an ice age. We, on the other hand, are precipitating a global steam. How well we adapt, and in what ways, will dictate whether or not we remain relevant as a species.

I’ve written before that our only long-term (hundreds of millions to billions of years) course for survival is to venture out into space. If we do that, we might very well require those robot parts for our very survival.

We will continue to make machines ever smaller and more capable. This may be the future of medicine. Nano-scale networks of robots injected into us programmed to attack individual cancer cells. Perhaps they could even modify the DNA within our entire body so that genetic disease become a historical footnote.

On the down side, it’s very likely that there will be a global pandemic that will make the “black death” seem like the sniffles. More and more viruses are evolving that are resistant to our attempts to combat them. And let’s not forget that some particularly nasty little critters have been “weaponized” and could cause a great deal of damage to the existing population.

There will be wars. Wars will center around the three things that wars always center around: ideology, resources, and power. Of these, the wars for resources will start to become more intense. As fresh water and crude oil both become scarce, desperate nations will doubtless try to act.

The single most important technology to emerge from our new future will be the ability to make fresh water for little-to-no cost in energy. No other technological result will be of more worth to mankind’s survival.

The Now

The reality is that I’ll likely not live long enough to see many more gee-whiz changes. I don’t mind. I’ve seen more than I ever expected to, and more. I do look towards the future, but I’m also very mindful of the fact that I’m always in the now. I’m just constantly amazed at how well we’ve done, all things considered.