Thursday, July 13, 2006

Human Interfaces

I was looking at a friend of mine's IPOD today. It's amazing to me that this thing can hold thousands of songs and be this small. Then I realized that it could probably be even smaller if it didn't need to have some kind of readable display and buttons to accept human input. I'm currently typing this on a BlackBerry and this too is pretty much limited from getting smaller only because it'd be harder to read and even harder to input the data. I saw a report on new airplane technology a few months ago. They have now designed planes that can withstand and maneuver at speeds and forces that would kill the pilot but the plane could still survive. In all of these technologies they are having to "throttle back" the technology and the true capability of the technology in order to make the human interface easier or in the case of the jets, non-fatal.
I wonder if this "throttling back" of the possibilities is limited to only science. Does it extend to other aspects of our lives? Relationships? Emotions? Spirituality? Is it possible that the religious doctrine that we've received has also been stepped down a little purely so that the humans who are expected to abide it can withstand it? I believe they are. And I'm thankful for it. I'm having a hard enough time as it is.
My concern would only come when we start to accept these human limitations as ultimate limitations. Perhaps there are other truths or possibilities that are withheld from us simply because we cannot interface with or survive that ultimate truth. Since I am functioning within these human limitations I can only accept that full understanding of these ultimate truths may not be possible at this stage of my "evolution".

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