MIND MELD MAKEUP-Optimistic Scenarios for Our Future World by Paul Levinson
We have a late lost entry to this week’s Mind Meld where we asked:
My favorite far-future scenarios come from Star Trek, and include beaming (teleportation) and fast-healing medicine.
My own far-future scenarios expand upon this –
1. The capacity to travel anywhere in the world, at will, at no cost, instantly. This kind of teleportation would require nothing more than the urge to travel somewhere. Just as we can now walk around the block, at will, at no charge, any time we please, so I see our world someday becoming like our block, and allowing us to visit any part of it instantly and effortlessly.
2. The eradication of all illness, by boosting our immune systems to combat any kind of breakdown, is definitely something I can envision for the far future. The same enhanced immune system would rapidly repair all physical injuries. I’m not 100% sure I would want immortality – but I’m 99% sure, especially if we could live forever at an age of our choosing.
3. In the near future, I see continuing development of smartphones to the point that anyone, anywhere in the world, can retrieve any and all information at any time. I predicted this in my doctoral dissertation, “Human Replay: A Theory of the Evolution of Media” in 1979. The iPhone was and is a big step on the way.
4. In the far future, I expect all of this to happen not only on Earth, but in the galaxy and beyond, as humans fan out across the cosmos. We are most truly species not just of this planet, but the universe beyond and around us.