The Hubris of Modern Times

Evolution is a journey. We are the tip of the spear. Greater knowledge and intelligence have never existed! History, however, suggests our superiority will be short-lived. 

Taken-for-granted elements of modern life will be proven primitive and misinformed a century from now. How can I say that? Well, because it’s always been true. Ian Mortimer’s book, Millennium: From Religion to Revolution: How Civilization Has Changed Over a Thousand Years, proves the point.

Highlighted below are changes over the past 1,000 years gleaned from that book. As you scan through the centuries, imagine the perspectives of those who came before us. And then, imagine the everyday assumptions we take for granted. 

Changes Through the Millennium

The Eleventh Century

-The human race was illiterate, hunger was widespread; society was violent.

-People rarely ventured more than ten miles from home.

-Belief in the power of relics to inflict mortal damage was widely held. 

-Cordoba was the richest and most sophisticated city in the world.

The Twelfth Century

-The emergence of the Feudal estate ended universal violence.

-The Catholic Church amassed power through the doctrine of Purgatory.

-Monasteries advanced literacy and a common language.

-Arabic introduction of numerals, the decimal point, algebra, and the concept of zero. 

The Thirteenth Century

-Shift of England from a barter to a market-based economy.

-Coins became the normal way to do business.

-Growing urbanization, with 18% of the population residing in towns.

-A massive increase in the demand for literacy.

The Fourteenth Century

-Nationalism begins to eclipse religion.

-Introduction of combat at a distance with longbows and projectile weapons.

-45% of the world population perished in a terrifying Black Death of unknown origin.

-Additionally, 10% of the world population starved through consecutive harvest failures ending 3 centuries of population expansion. 

The Fifteenth Century

-The Gutenberg Press made the Bible accessible to people as a font of knowledge.

-The age of discovery (world and self).

-Measurement of Time.

-The development of glass mirrors, which previously did not exist, promoted individualism

The Sixteenth Century

–Shift to a literate society, expansion of the known world.

-Emergence of a common code of civilization, murders dropped by half.

-First modern Atlas.

-People become broadly aware of changes occurring.

The Seventeenth Century

-Discovery of planetary motion.

-Newton invented calculus.

-First mechanical calculator.

-Rise of the middle class.

The Eighteenth Century

-The age of transport and communications.

-First provincial newspaper.

-Rise of banking and sources of capital.

-An Agricultural Revolution creates a reliable food supply.

The Nineteenth Century

-The era of modern invention.

-Population growth and urbanization.

-Railways destroyed localism. Freedom to travel became widespread.

-Dramatic improvements in public health and sanitation.

The Twentieth Century

-Comfort, efficiency, speed, luxury.

-Dependence on electricity and fossil fuels.

-Internal combustion engine shrinks the world.

-Unsustainability and the threat of mass destruction become real.

The Twenty-first Century

–The internet creates ubiquitous access to knowledge.

-Artificial Intelligence…

-?

-?

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Now, for the hard part. What aspects of knowledge and understanding are destined to change dramatically in a hundred years?

It’s a fun and yet extremely challenging question to ponder. 

Here’s my guess:

Scientific progress today comes primarily through deconstruction. To understand our world, we take things apart and then study how the parts function and fit together.  For example, to understand how an automotive engine works, we take it apart. Same thing with the body. When something breaks down, we visit cardiologists, gastroenterologists, neurologists, pulmonologists, orthopedists, ophthalmologists, and so on. I recently needed to schedule an appointment with a specialist and had to scroll through a long alphabetized list before finding the one I was looking for.

If you or a family member has ever dealt with a serious medical issue, you have no doubt experienced what I have. Medical specialists aren’t knowledgeable about each other’s areas. Worse yet, they rarely consult one another. If your malady doesn’t fall neatly into one of the medical specialties, you are in for a long and frustrating challenge. In fact, it’s so bad that the Mayo Clinic built a reputation as one of the world’s top medical facilities by adopting a team-based approach among specialists.

The value of such an approach seems obvious. 

The problem we face today is that complex systems are extremely difficult to study. We don’t have the mathematical, statistical, or analytical tools to study 10,000 or more variables simultaneously. When we can’t isolate variables through deconstruction, we have great difficulty understanding them. Consciousness is a prime example. Scientists don’t have a consensus view on where it resides or even what it is.  

The weather is another example. There are so many variables that meteorologists have difficulty forecasting the weather next week, let alone a century from now.  

Perhaps artificial intelligence and quantum computing will enable scientists of the future to study millions of disparate parts simultaneously. Or maybe they won’t even study the parts and instead develop tools that reveal the gestalt mysteries of wholes. Such an approach would drive unimaginable advancements.

Who knows which tightly held beliefs today are destined to become the flat-earth beliefs of tomorrow? No doubt it will be something so ingrained in our thinking that we can’t even conceive of what it might be. It’s humbling to think about!

What’s your guess?

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Stay tuned for my new book, The Secret Within, which I expect to make available in time for the Holidays.