Human potential

A new scientific study suggests that we human beings still haven't reached the upper limits of our physical potential. Scientists now believe that the human body could potentially run at speeds approaching 40 miles per hour. That would easily blow by the current fastest human alive, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, who tops out at about 28 mph. That's not exactly Flash speed, but it suggests that human beings in the future would be consider "superhuman" by today's standards. Now if only we had a supersoldier serum to unlock all that potential.

LINK

I'm reminded of a TV show called Timecop (I think) that involved someone from the future coming back in time. He was noticeably stronger and faster than anyone from this time just because of the increased limits of human capacity just like what this article talks about.

"The Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest is an annual American competitive-eating competition. It is held each July 4 at Nathan's Famous Corporation's original, and best-known restaurant at the corner of Surf and Stillwell Avenues in Coney Island, a neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. In the ninety-sixth annual contest, held on July 4, 2011, four-time-defending champion Chestnut won his fifth title by consuming 62 hot dogs and buns (HDBs) in ten minutes."

I cant wait to see what the future brings.

Basic advancment of the species, see also Evolution.

I once had a philosophical debate with a friend over what would constitute 'stupid' in the star trek universe. As everyone we see on the shows would seem to possess an almost superhuman level of knowledge. Cadets know advanced trig like we know basic addition.

Human knowledge is stackable. The more we learn, the more we pass on to our offspring. This knowledge is held in the Subconcious mind, thus making it easier for succesive generations to learn and memorize.

Our minds now operate at an accelerated rate compared to those that lived in the 1800's. By proxy of the quicker pace of modern living, the mass media, the techno lust et al.

This accelerated thinking also in-turn makes us respond quicker and adapt faster.

Physical attributes continue to progress at this rate as well. While true that humans have always been capable of running at 40+mph. The fact that it hasn't been achieved yet makes it that much more difficult to. Once the barrier is breached however... It'll start getting passed on, both genetically and mentally, just the simple act of hearing about someone doing something changes everything.

It goes from being something impossible, and therefor pointless to strive for, to something acheivable and eventually becomes the 'Norm'.

In the future, we will be faster and more agile, with more intelligence at the lowest level than we currently have at the highest. This is natural progression.

Oh yeah, Timecop was the Jean Claude Van Damme movie where he found an excuse to jump up and do the splits on top of something for some reason.

I also remember reading a sci-fi novel called The Rings of Charon (I think) that discussed the possibility that there's actually a barrier to the amount of knowledge able to be learned and in that novel only the child prodigies were able to complete school in any reasonable amount of time just because there was so much knowledge needed to acquire.

Yes, because the truth is so very scary.

/facepalm

Your first post can readily be interpreted as "learning something directly helps your children learn it", by brain osmosis or something, which is pure crackpottery, as determined well over a hundred years ago when Lamarckian inheritance was discarded in favor of Darwinian selection. If you meant something else, could you clarify?

But anyway, I don't think that what evolution might some day make our descendants capable of is quite the same topic as what our current bodies are already capable of, if we could only figure out how.

Looking at the human race as a whole I would have to disagree. Joe Rogan has a really good point in one of his stand-up routines. If the smartest people were to disappear i.e. engineers, mathematicians, physicists, etc., which I'm sure we can agree only account for a small fraction of the population, what would happen to the rest of us? In other words, who knows how stuff works? Most of us don't. Honestly, I don't know how to put together a toaster from scratch. I have no idea how a heating element works. I know electricity goes to it and that's about it. In fact, all I really know is I can make money and buy a toaster that someone somewhere put together for me. So sure, every generation exceeds the accomplishments of the one preceding it but realistically we're only talking about a handful of folks who are really capable of doing these things.

Yes but that has been true since the dawn of civilization.

In fact, we have already suffered that kind of catastrophe before, the fall of Rome brought about the Dark Ages because we lost practically all the ones with the knowledge. It took us literally hundreds of years to relearn what they used to know.

That will always be a potential danger. We'd get reset back to, and I think realistically with what we have stored, most likely a steam era level of tech.

Yeah, but we also have a lot of documentation of how these things work. I don't know how to build a toaster either, but with some basic parts, trial-and-error, and even just google I could probably piece one together without too much trouble. We'd lose some of the detailed expertise those people had, but unless nobody has ever written down anything on the subject, it could be rebuilt within one generation at worst.

Now, if you want to talk about literally every engineer disappearing off the face of the earth, we'd have problems, but more in the short term (like huge blackouts as most power plants automatically shut down without maintenance) than in the longer term as we run out of toasters.

I always thought that evolution worked through adaptation to the natural environment via minor mutations. We evolved big brains, enabling us to adapt the natural environment to our needs.,Would evolution still function in an ordinary manner? Instead of becoming naturally immune to diseases we use medication etc. How will we adapt to technological advancemnet? Interesting questions indeed....

the discussion is an interesting one. I guess humanity has to wait and see how it develops.

Super Strength, Speed, and my favorite...

Bullet-Proof Skin!

http://news.discovery.com/tech/bulle...in-110820.html