Miraculous things will happen in the future.
People will carry around little communication devices everywhere they go, along with tiny electronic boxes that light up and play music or moving pictures. They will have wires hanging off of them with tiny amplifiers that plug into your ears. And although we are all walking around with any desired tune playing seamlessly into our ears and cannot hear the noise on the street, the noise will just be a whirring of quiet electronic motors as automobiles stop using fuel and start using electricity to glide through our cities.
The technology of the future will be truly astounding. A new global community will erupt as people from all over the world, even the most remote parts, communicate with each other through a network of tubes and wires. Not only will they be able to communicate words and ideas, but pictures and sound as well. A photo that takes two weeks via mail will be instantly broadcast to thousands of people. People will be exposed to cultures and ideas they never could have imagined as ideas are shared through this global network.
Machines will be faster, and as a result people will be able to do more. They will be more productive in their work, using technology to complete tasks in minutes that may have taken hours. The speed and ease of completing chores will leave much more leisure time for us, where we can take advantage of the technology that surrounds us to learn new things and explore our world. But what about our body? That most complex machine of all?
Unlike the clunky prosthetics of today, the future will have amazing advances in technology that allow us to move robotic arms with pure mind-power. The need for war should be obsolete as people come to accept a more global sense of community, but accident and disease may be unavoidable even in the future. A synthetic leg can be created that not only looks and feels like the real thing, but comes complete with a skeletal structure and nerve endings that send signals to the brain which will allow the user to “feel” the ground beneath their feet. Even complex organs, like the heart, may be completely replaced by a robotic heart that soundlessly pumps blood through the body using a rotor. As more people have these robotic hearts, the heartbeat may become an archaic idea of the past.
Philosophically, there may be some hesitation to the idea of humans replacing organic body parts for mechanical ones as the originals age and deteriorate. Where does it end? one may ask. When does the self stop becoming the self, how much of a body can be replaced while still holding true to that original person? There are many who believe that nearly everything but the brain can be replaced without affecting a person. And so, in the future, there may be people who’s bodies are kept alive with machines because their minds are still active and thinking. Whether society feels that a body with a non-active brain should take advantage of technology to stay alive will be interesting to see.