John Horgan writes that "admitting that science has limits may be our greatest achievement."

While it's possible that admitting science has limits may be John Horgan's greatest achievement, I don't think that's going to be true for the rest of us.

John Horgan has been a science writer for 20 years and he thinks this is the first time the idea of limits has come up? Lord Kelvin said that it was his opinion that all that was left to do was to carry out the calculations a few more decimal places. He advised graduate students to not go into physics because all the fundamentals had been discovered and there was no room for new, important work. Then Albert Einstein came along and blew that idea to kingdom come.

The author is correct that we are coming to the end. The end of this paradigm. That's what�s so exciting. All this certainty is about to be blown to kingdom come. I, for one, can hardly wait to see what's next.

John Horgan's argument about limits of scientific progress might make sense in areas where fundamental physical limits are being reached. But when he pleads for a greater recognition of the limits of science in mind-related fields, it seems that he is talking about a different kind of limitation. He seems to be concerned that advances in cognitive science will allow us to be 'led astray' into pseudo-scientific cults and the like.

While those may be realistic dangers in the future, I think 'limitation' is a poor way to characterize the situation. Advances in science that allow us to understand and modify our own brains will surely introduce all sorts of perils, but also staggering new opportunities and breakthroughs. Enhancement of human intellect will be the ultimate accelerant to scientific progress.

Progress in nearly every scientific and technological field continues its growth on a double-exponential curve (the rate of increase is increasing exponentially). This is documented in Ray Kurzweil's excellent book "The Singularity is Near," which reads like future history. What gives rise to this growth is continued scientific exploration at the small end of the physical spectrum (genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics). In approximately 2045, trends already in place for over a century will bring us to a convergence of intellect so stunning that it is impossible to predict what will happen after that. Humans may merge with their technology or launch off in entirely new directions. Either way, we will be millions of times smarter, and probably linked together in some sort of hyper-world-wide-web--Hence the term "Singularity."

What Horgan seems to be espousing is what Kurzweil calls the "intuitive linear view" of scientific progress. But it's hard to see how Horgan could have ignored what has happened in just the past few years, and what's happening now. We all already take for granted the approximate doubling in price-performance of computers every 2 years. But soon, this same accelerating trend will bring these improvements to other fields that have been more stagnant, such as energy and medicine. Kurzweil cites an example that the entire 20th century only achieved 25 years of progress at today's rate. But the 21st century will achieve 20,000 years of progress (at today's rate), just by extrapolating existing trends.

Horgan states another common misconception regarding diminishing returns. Even exponential technology trends always approach an asymptote where they slow down--just before a paradigm shift occurs to a replacement technology. Kurzweil refers to this as the "paradigm shift S-curve." There have been 5 paradigm shifts so far in the development of computers, from mechanical relays, to vacuum tubes, to transistors, to integrated circuts, to microprocessors, soon to 3D processor architecture, next to optical and quantum computing and beyond. Another such progression would be wax cylinders to vinyl LP, to CD, to .mp3, and-- Who knows what's next in the audio world?

We better hope that Horgan is indeed wrong, because another type of convergence is happening: Human population explosion, climate change, and depletion of fossil fuels--all at the same time. If it we were on a linear or decreasing path of development, it's hard to see how our species would even make it to 2045. We have invented ourselves into a corner where the only solution is to invent our way out of it. We need new energy sources, new ways of producing food, new ways of cleaning up the environment, and new ways of restoring the biodiversity that's been lost to our brute-force industrial methods.

The answer is to think small, really small, toward fine-grained solutions. Genetic modification, self-replicating machinery and tiny robotics can make all of this possible. I'm tired of pessimists of all stripes. Some see entropic or mental limitations, others see looming dangers, but progress will have to save us in the end whether we like it or not.

Please refer to the following sites:

KurzweilAI.net

WorldChanging.com

The notion that humans are about to reach a limit of knowledge and understanding about the world around us is not new and has been falsified many times in the past. It is surprising to see this idea advocated by a self proclaimed veteran �science writer�. Science is NOT some dogma or world view but a method for finding out how things around us work. The application of the insights gained via this method is what allows you to read these words. It is true that science has established some limits, such as the finite speed of information propagation (�the speed of light�, as John Horgan calls it). But consider that the fastest vehicle humans to date have engineered (the space craft Pioneer 10) is traveling at 0.005% of this limit. Is a snail on a freeway concerned about the 65mph speed limit. The snail would either be nuts or have some ulterior motive for voicing such concerns, wouldn�t you think?

The explosion described by Kurzwell is an illusion. That the speed of light can never be reached has such a consequence that science has its physical limits. Therefore, the amount of knowledge ever to be gained is constant = 1. Sure, the science community is bigger than ever and the knowledge produced continues to grow; therefore the divider x indeed explodes. Of this follows that knowledge yet to be gained will never be zero, but the more science community swells the more clear it will be that knowledge base gained is embarrasingly close to 0,00(truckload of zeros)001.