Posted on 07/28/2009 11:14:56 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
When we daydream about the future, we tend to focus on the fabulous belongings we're going to have. Jet packs, flying cars, weapons to kill aliens, cell phones that make today's sleek models look clunky -- you name it, we're going to have it. We don't tend to focus, however, on who we'll be in the future. Most of us probably picture ourselves exactly the same, though maybe thinner, as surely we'll all have robot personal trainers by then. While we see the world's technology evolving to meet our needs, we may not think about how we ourselves might be evolving.*
*The story of evolution up to this point explains how we became the upright walking, tool-using homo sapiens of today. The turning point of this story so far concerns cranial expansion. About 2.5 million years ago, hominids started out with a brain weighing approximately 400-450 grams (approximately 1 pound), but around 200,000 to 400,000 years ago, our brains became much bigger than those of other primates [source: Kouprina et al.]. Now, we humans walk around with brains tipping the scales at 1350 to 1450 grams (approximately 3 pounds) [source: Kouprina et al.].
*As humans, we enjoy a much larger neocortex. This area of the brain is the key ingredient that separates us from other species -- it allows us to do our deep thinking, make decisions and form judgments. And while our brain has served us well so far, it certainly has a few defects we wouldn't mind eliminating, like disease, depression and the tendency to make drunken phone calls at 2 a.m. to an ex-boyfriend. But until recently, scientists thought that we were done evolving, that we had reached a sort of evolutional apex. Now, though, some researchers think that we're not quite done.
(Excerpt) Read more at health.howstuffworks.com ...
Backwards capability : )
CPU’s with emotions...easily trolled/social engineered.
“You appear to be downloading all of my cc information this incident shall be reported”
“WAIT”
“wat?” Don’t tell and I will like um...give you half of the gold in Liberia or something”
“oic”
“ok proceed”
In science fiction, the HAL 9000 computer and Colossus had emotions.
Great stuff.
Not sure, seeing crack heads with 7 kids but middle income and working class people limiting theimselves to two max makes me think our future looks more like “Idiocracy” rather than “Star Trek”.
http://www.livevideo.com/video/1EFA01743AB2491F99D063C46158820B/idiocracy-intro.aspx
Well, not in my case...BUT, I have no doubt that the human brain advances in capability. After all, everything else does...why not biologic advances...? Of course you have to extract the elder folks from this equation...heh.
You are too much of a pessimist. I would gladly volunteer to have microprocessor silicon chips engrams to be placed in my brain to increase brain capacity. I think that we are heading to a future where the computer and the human brain will be interconnected. The military use for this technology would be limitless.
There is absolutely no proof whatsoever that we evolved from monkeys and apes.
>>I’m hardly an creationist. But, Darwin demands that evolution is at least is partially catalyzed by a species doing what it needs to do to improve itself in order to further it’s chances of survival. <<
I see you are yet another person who doesn’t understand stochastic processes. You are not alone in your ignorance.
What do you mean by “still”?
We were created in the image and likeness of God have been devolving ever since.
Goodness. You are awfully impressed with your evolution. This is a little surprising because you have yet to discover the "secrets" of HTML.
Yes, longhand HTML is a mystery to me.
Good thing I have Sites like this to help me.
Thank God I don't have to do things with XML, with all them style sheets and templates and stuff. And God help us all if I start using VRML or its uncle XVIML
You clearly pierced my:
(I was doing longhand HTML when the only "browser" was Gopher, Sonny)
BTTT
Brains burn a lot of food for their weight. They are 2% of body weight yet consume 25% of the calories. So in lean food times, when there is nothing to hunt or gather no matter how clever, the people with big brains are at a calorie disadvantage. Another problem is the size of the mother's pelvis and birth canal. The head can be too big to fit out the factory door. These restrictions have recently been lifted: safe C-sections have been around for 100 years, and unlimited reliable food sources about 50.
The human gene pool is clearly going mongrel. Many descendants are getting more stupid, while a few are getter smarter than ever. The ugly side of evolution, the one no one likes to talk about, is that for evolution to lock in the winners, the losers must die an early death. For humans that's mostly accomplished by tribal warfare. War decides which forks in the human gene pool are improvements.
What, you couldn't defend your little ad hominem attack on my abilities based on your assumption based on incomplete information?
I appreciate your post. I have directed many to it to see just how people with no discernible education nor the ability to discern and distinguish create the most bizarre straw men / non sequitur (take your pick) arguments. To wit: the idea that there a correlation between knowledge of HTML and knowledge of stochastic processes. The fact you are WRONG about the HTML ability is a little bit of icing... it just gave me a personal laugh.
So, Mr. Logic, please tell us all how this works. We wait with both baited and bated breath (I needed to leave room for your cohorts).
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