The human mind during the last century.?

Question

I’ve always wondered why in the last century the human mind just took off to another level of higher intelligence?
It's like, it took over 1,900 years & then suddenly we could come up with making decent cars, planes, mobile phones, DVDs, tapes etc etc the list is endless! ‘Most’ of this stuff only happened in the last century, why is that?
And will this burst of technology continue into this century or will it slow down again?

Thanking you in advance!

Answer 1

it's the technology built upon advances in previous science and technology ...

I don't think that "the human mind" has taken off to another level of intelligence. Read the writings of thousands of years ago and observe the human mind of thousands of years ago; then observe the minds of people on the street, at football games, in the White House ....

ask yourself "Is this higher intelligence?"

great minds come along in every generation and everry year .. and these minds are responsible for almost ALL the advances which you can see in this world.

If humainity can survive till the end of this century without a massive breakdown in the "infrastructure of civilization" then I believe that you will continue to see techno-advances

just my guess

Answer 2

I think the human mind has had this potential for a very long time. However, that potential has to create a setting for itself.

You can't build a nuclear power station without understanding the atom, you can't understand the atom without thinking of experiments to test, you can't think of experiments to test without asking 'what is matter fundamentally?'

Each idea builds on the last and then is the foundation of more than one new idea so the process is exponential in growth.

Also, as we advance in technology and education, that starts to add even more to the effect.

What each generation does essentially is double the accomplishments of the last (well, maybe not double, but some growth factor). When you start at the beginning, there isn't much TO double, but where we are now offers a whole lot to work with.

Answer 3

I think that it all kind of started with the Industrial revolution, you know the Ford assembly line back in the very early 1900's. Humans have an innate to develop, invent and improve on technology. Computers basically made the the biggest move toward developing, inventing and discovering new things. Plus, higher education has become a lot more important than it used to be back in the days.
But to answer your last question: Technology will not slow down because humans have that innate quest for knowledge.

Answer 4

I believe that we have bursted forward in science so much in this time mainly because of microscopes. Think about it, scientists in the years before 1900 didn't really have a microscope in which they could look and confirm what they were talking about. Also, the ideas of Charles Darwin were very controversial because of the religion aspect. For thousands of years religion proclaimed any new ideas such as evolution as heretical and so no one would believe taht person. Lastly, on a new perspective, have we come forward in science more proportionally in the last 100 years or is it just our perspective on things. For example, the cannon and gunpowder was a huge step forward in invention. Back then it must have seemed like they were going fast in technology. To answer your last question, I believe that technology will continue to speed up and will never stop, no matter how far we get.

Answer 5

The most recent technology is ALWAYS the most advanced in a contiguous society, think about it! A thousand years ago, people were asking the same question you are asking now! And actually, the few things you mention are not all that impressive compared with a few developments (like the wheel, and houses that are not caves) that occured much longer ago. Can you think of anything invented in the last 2000 years that has become anywhere near as ubiquitous and critical to daily life as the wheel?

The capacity of the human mind has probably changed little in the last 2000 years, what has changed is the availble pool of information, and our geographical ability to share that information; that's what drives progress.

Answer 6

The human mind took off in the last few thousand years because of its ability to incorporate cultural learning. We don't have to rely completely on instincts that are pre-programmed into our brains. We (and some animals to a lesser extent) can learn from our fellows. The discoveries of alphabets and writing expanded this ability by orders of magnitude. Computers and the internet are expanding this even more. So we have the same brain that we have had for at least the last few tens of thousands of years (evolutionarily, modern humans are extreme newcomers). It's just that technology is propelling the levels of accessible info to new heights.

I'm sure technology will continue to burst in some way, although noone knows exactly how. In the 60s, people probably thought we'd by living in space or something by now. As it turned out, the big tech jump was in information technology. Who knows what the next thing will be? Biotech seems poised to make leaps. But who knows really.

Answer 7

Answer NO. The reason that things come around so fast now is because we're at the point where one thing easily leads to another.In primitive times and places there was little progress century to century until the wheel was invented.
That led to a great many other inventions, gears, pulleys, etc. Next came the handling of electricity. Things really started coming fast. Now it's the memory card.
With so much to work with, it's easier to come up with new ideas. The more there is to work with, the faster new things pop into minds.

Answer 8

There is good evidence supporting advanced civilisations long before modern times - I mean 5000 to 6000 years ago the Egyptians built the pyramids. The Romans were arguably as civilised as we are today, just in a different way.

I have heard that if humankind was wiped out by some catastrophic event then in only a few thousand years time there would be literally no evidence of us ever existing anyway. The only reason we know dinosaurs existed is because they were around for such a long period of time, giving us more chance of finding evidence of their existance.

Who's to say there haven't been countless advanced civilisations in the past, each dying within a few thousand years and leaving no trace? Maybe this is the price of being too advanced too quickly and wiping ourselves out!

Answer 9

Actually We are getting dumber...
We are standing on the shoulders of the great minds of the past. They thought up all the basics upon which we have built our technology without the aid of computers and robots. They just used their brains.
As our machines get smarter, we get dumber. The plethora of useless gadgets springing up lately is testimony to that.
Now we are becoming trivial and bland and there seems to be no stopping this...
The greatness of man has passed. We have been on a decline since the 1920's.

Answer 10

Every few decades there are vast changes in ever thing. You will see it as you get older. The world changes so quickly and usually not for the good. In my grand parents time, their principle mode of transportation went from horse and buggy to automobile. Talk about a burst in technology!!