
Ask HN: What happens when there's nothing left to invent or discover? - meri_dian
Eventually we will reach that point. What happens when we do? How does it affect our economies and societies?<p>There have been very long stretches of history in which general human progress was stagnant.<p>Productivity growth will eventually slow, given that we are limited in what we can do by the laws of physics.<p>Of course I could continuously rearrange superficial designs of things, which may give me an infinite number of things to do, but that doesn&#x27;t increase productivity. There are a finite number of ways to do something in a more productive and efficient way than previous methods.<p>Given this, eventually we will reach a time when we can&#x27;t make any more progress in the traditional sense.
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pascalxus
Paul Graham would argue that since human desires are unlimited, we will never
reach a point of not having any problems left to solve. This may be true.
But... The question is what if we run out of SOLVABLE problems. There are sooo
many extremely important problems that humanity has (housing, transportation,
food/water, education inflation, medical) that can't currently be solved due
to either barriers to entry or mostly due to government regulation.

In fact, I think we're starting to reach a plateau in the last 10 and the
coming 10 years. With the exception of medical science and the entertainment
industry, I feel there hasn't been much meaningful innovation that changes
consumers lives. Sure, we have google maps and millions of apps, but honestly,
10 years ago, I didn't have any problems finding my way around the road, even
if I had to draw out a map by hand (lol). Today, Transportation is still at
the same speeds and costs, housing costs even more, medical insurance is
everybit as expensive, etc.

The most dire forms of innovation needed by humanity today, are at the bottom
of maslow's heirarchy of needs: shelter, food, water, and by necessity:
transportation and medical insurance. These areas are not being worked on, due
to the above reasons i mentioned.

~~~
chrismcb
Recently we landed booster rockets and took a picture of an atom... And there
is so so much we don't know about our own planet. We still have a lot to learn
and discovered and invent.

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nakedrobot2
Why on earth would we run out of things to invent? This shows a stunning lack
of imagination in my opinion. I guess at any point throughout the history of
the human race, since before the time anyone had thought to invent shoes,
rope, pottery, or fish hooks, there were people thinking that everything has
already been invented, and there can't possibly be anything else to invent.

There will _always_ be new things to invent.

~~~
slededit
On the contrary it is very imaginative. Seeing far beyond the horizon. We know
(or think we know) the universe has finite entropy. Therefore there's an end
somewhere - regardless of how far away that is.

~~~
yesenadam
It sounded to me like OP is assuming there will be a 'horizon'. "Eventually we
will reach that point." Why assume that? It sounds like a false assumption to
me.

It reminds me of the argument I hear occasionally about how one day soon there
will be no new music, it will have all been written. Which sounds to me about
as wrong as can be.

What you're talking about is an entirely unrelated matter, and mixing it 'very
imaginatively' with the OP's point as if they're the same.

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ambrosite
Seems a good place to bring up Charles Holland Duell, the US Commissioner of
Patents who supposedly said "Everything that can be invented has been
invented" back in 1899. That quote has since been debunked as apocryphal, but
the story behind the alleged quote is interesting.

[https://patentlyo.com/patent/2011/01/tracing-the-quote-
every...](https://patentlyo.com/patent/2011/01/tracing-the-quote-everything-
that-can-be-invented-has-been-invented.html)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Holland_Duell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Holland_Duell)

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marpstar
What makes you think that we'll reach that point? We've barely scratched the
surface...

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darpa_escapee
Nothing left to discover or invent _within our means_ , or do you mean that
there is literally nothing left?

If it's the former, we've hit a local maxima. If it's the latter, I don't
think we could speculate what would happen in that situation. It's too alien.

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datpuz
"Eventually we will reach that point"

No, we really won't. As life continues to evolve and conditions in the
environment continue to change, new solutions will constantly need to be
invented to solve the new problems that arise. That process will never end.

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jws
There was a time when the European countries developed transoceanic sailing
capabilities and began an age of discovery spreading outward to other lands. I
wonder if they considered that finding and exploiting resources from new lands
would be the norm, or if they realized that it would all be over in 300 years?

~~~
meri_dian
Exactly. Right now we believe creating new products and product categories is
the norm. But eventually everything will become commodified, according to my
thinking.

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rookiemaverick
We will do a big bang some where in the middle of no where, we will simulate
life on the planets created by it, from time to time we will visit them,
observe them, and one day we will fedup with that. We will leave them on their
own to attain what we attained. And may be they will call us God.

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patorjk
In a sense, we're already reached that point. Everything that can ever be
talked about or written, can be found in this library:

[https://libraryofbabel.info/](https://libraryofbabel.info/)

Though that includes all possible gibberish as well as all possible knowledge.

Though as a more serious answer, something like the above link does make me
wonder about the limits of information. I like to think that there's no limit
on information, but clearly there's a limit on information that can be
described by the English language (assuming a fixed book size).

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agitator
I don't see why there would ever be a lack of progress... maybe at some point
progress won't be at all relevant to our current society, but there will
always be something new. And at that point, where we have solved all problems,
like mortality, hunger, peace, etc. And the world is a perfect place, it will
be so far out from our current lives, that it seems like a misallocation of
brain power trying to think about "what then?".

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davelnewton
Heat death of the universe.

It's not clear to me why you believe we'll reach that point before extinction
--I find the notion _highly_ implausible.

~~~
tinymollusk
Extrapolating previous trends of energy consumption. Historically,
technological advances have greatly increased the energy consumption per
human. At an accelerating pace (exponential energy consumption growth).

According to Geoffrey West's "Scale", humans biological needs are about 90
watts at rest, 250 watts for an extremely active lifestyle. The average
American uses about 11,000 watts, 2 orders of magnitude more, and more than a
blue whale.

It is possible we will invent new ways to tap energy, but exponential growth
will have to end somehow.

(Unless you meant to imply that our technological progress could hasten the
heat death of the universe, in which case I fully agree.)

Note - I do not mean this will happen any time soon, just that there is a
theoretical upper bound to innovation: how much energy exists in the universe.

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enitihas
I think people were asking themselves the same question at the end of the 19th
century, when everyone thought mankind had mastered all of Physics. Suddenly
so much new stuff(Relativity, Quantum Mechanics) was discovered and flipped
our world view upside down. So I think there will always be something to be
discovered or invented.

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JSeymourATL
> when there's nothing left to invent or discover?

You're not married are you? You don't have kids either?

Most married people with kids find new challenges/problems/pain everyday,
requiring innovative solutions. Spend a day with a toddler, they invent stuff
ALL day.

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jaxtellerSoA
Huh? How could we ever reach that point? The amount of things that can be
invented are infinite.

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tw1010
That would mean we had a perfect understanding of our biology and how
chemicals effect the brain. It would mean having perfect predictive power
about the future. That's when the fun starts.

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0xdeadbeefbabe
Since it would require discovery, we wouldn't answer this question.

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mcfunk
There will never be a point at which there is nothing left to invent or
discover; it will be preempted by a point at which humanity is no longer
around to invent or discover anything.

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sunstone
With there being more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on
earth, running out of things to discover is not a worry that's on my list.

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tonyedgecombe
_There have been very long stretches of history in which general human
progress was stagnant._

Or even going backwards, see Britain after the Romans left.

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segmondy
We will never reach such a point. Given an infinite lifetime, we will find
infinite ways to rearrange things and come up with new things.

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lwhi
That which we create, shapes us. Our reshaped selves have differing needs and
desires ..

So we solve new problems, and create new things.

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CDCollier
This is a wrong question and indicates a misunderstanding of what the universe
is: infinite.

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trevyn
How will our economies and societies change if we fully understand how human
beings work?

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lixxz
Nobody living right now is qualified enough to even attempt to answer this
question.

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computronus
Then discover why there is nothing left to invent or discover.

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soneca
I think we will never reach that point.

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techer
Everyone and everything will be dead.

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wellpast
Hopefully, lots of play.

~~~
stuntkite
We will finally have time to invent new methods of play. I am sick of this
stick and hoop game.

~~~
0xdeadbeefbabe
This guy at the YMCA has a new game you play with balls and bushel baskets
[0].

Edit: Looks like having a mustache helps you play it better.

[0] [http://rate-sport.com/wp-content/uploads/images/original-
bas...](http://rate-sport.com/wp-content/uploads/images/original-basketball-
rules-10.jpg)

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CompelTechnic
We will finally start writing sufficient documentation.

~~~
osrec
Lol, and the maintenance and repairs industry will boom.

