Microchips and Pyramids are Surprisingly Similar
This post started off about microchips but took a bit of a tangent. I like how it ended, so I’ve kept it.
Checkout the video I made based on this article!
Technology is unbelievable
I think technology is an incredibly bizarre part of our lives. The vast majority of people use it throughout the day without knowing how it works. Most assume it should “just work” and don’t bother with the inner workings that allow it to do so.
I find this absolutely fascinating because it’s all still so new. Sure it makes for an interesting comment over the dinner table now and then, something along the lines of, “isn’t it just amazing I can talk to my daughter from the other side of the world!”
It’s not just amazing, it’s unbelievable.
Science and technology are moving so fast that it’s very easy for people born with this stuff to not appreciate how unbelievable it is. I mean, imagine giving your smartphone to someone just 50 years ago. It would blow their mind!
Now give it to someone 500 years ago. They’d probably either praise you as an incarnation of God or see it as witchcraft and burn you alive. I know which one I’d rather!
The point is, the technology we have access to today is remarkable. We should all know that. But most of us don’t really know how it works.
Given you’re reading an article about technology on Medium, I’m going to assume you have an understanding that microchips are the foundation of our technology. Whether it’s your phone, laptop, watch, washing machine, fridge, and so on, all the computers we have around us use these wonderful devices called microchips.
Abstraction
For a long time, I understood the role of microchips. I’ve built several computers and could identify and understand what microchips in different components were designed to do. This is an example of abstraction, which is the concept (used extensively in computer science) of hiding the complexities of complicated objects or systems, often through an interface.
Abstraction allows objects or systems to be used without knowing exactly how they work. You witness abstraction all the time in daily life. You can drive a car without knowing how its engine works.
This is why we know so little about how our devices work. They are complex, and it's not necessary for everyone to know the intricacies of their systems just to use them.
However, I believe it is very important that enough people do understand how such things work, as too much abstraction over too many years can lead to a general loss of understanding.
The worst scenario is that we actually forget how we made such things, and stop being able to replicate them. This has happened several times in history, just look at the pyramids.
The curve can be downwards
We are so used to believing that science and technology are always growing, always moving forwards. That is certainly the current situation, and its growth over the last 100 years in terms of breakthroughs has been exponential. But this may not always be the case.
Over thousands of years, science and technology have moved forwards and backwards.
It is very rare for it to actually move backwards, but what is more likely is the knowledge is lost. Today it’s said that we know pretty much all there is to know about what our ancestors discovered. Although information may have been lost for periods in history, it has since been revived.
That said, we don’t know what we don’t know.
For all we know there could have been an ancient civilisation of humans more advanced than us, but all evidence of them has been lost through time!
Although we believe we currently have very little lost knowledge, there have been points in history where people have felt in awe of what their ancestors achieved.
I won’t pretend to be a historian but for an example of this you can look to the fall of Rome. A great deal of the Roman’s inventions such as aqueducts were still in place, but no one knew how to replicate them.
Most of the algorithms the Romans used to calculate bearable loads were lost. We know that the Romans must have had exact mathematics to plan their buildings with some form of calculus and geometry.
We still don’t know how they did this with Roman numerals, that information has been lost.
It was only when Newton and Descartes “invented” modern-day calculus and geometry that we got to that level of mathematics again, several centuries after.
There’s a reason the 15th and 16th centuries in Italy are known as the Renaissance. It is French for Rebirth, as in this period a vast amount of science and technology was “discovered” or “invented”, much of which likely existed before but had been lost.
Our role
So whether it's diseases, wars, global warming, meteors, and so on, there is always a possibility that something can halt the growth of science and technology.
I believe it’s imperative that we ensure that our science, technology, and information will always exist for future generations.
I also believe we should make the most of what we have invented. We should put people on Mars! If something terrible does happen, a great reset, we may never get the opportunity again.
