I want to transcend
First, I have to point out that I don’t know that this is a good thing… I’m just trying to be open and honest about how I feel.
I don’t always feel this way, but I feel this way especially when I feel like I’m having success, or when I feel like a lot of success is just around the corner (even though that feeling might not pan out).
And I’m not sure that “transcend” is a good word for what I’m talking about. I’m not sure how to describe it. It’s kind of like my life is a snowball, and it’s been growing since I was a baby. It’s rolling along and gaining more snow. Sometimes it’s rolling faster and growing faster, and sometimes it’s almost at a standstill. When it gets rolling faster, I sometimes feel like it could roll super fast, my “life” could get exponentially bigger, and I could somehow dominate some part of business, knowledge, or life. It’s like I could roll into a snowball so big that I could jump off of the Earth and start fly, even though that doesn’t make much sense since I’d be heavier than ever. When I catch this glimpse of what seems like something that is a possibility, I want to do it. It seems like sometimes I’m trying to.
Of course, I’m not superhuman. In fact, my faults are pretty glaring. But I still want the power, sort of like a superhuman power, to transcend normal progress in one area or another, or in every area, and become superhuman at something, or everything. And it doesn’t have to be me who’s directly getting better. It could be something I have some influence or control over.
For example, I’ve been trying to spin up a new publication (it’s the one that this article is published on, called Predict). It’s been going pretty well lately. Many days I seem to get more new followers than I was getting previously. Because the growth almost seems exponential, I feel like I can dominate everything with just this one thing. I don’t think the growth will stay exponential, even if it might be right now. I suppose when Gordon Moore figured out his Moore’s Law, and (in my rough understanding) that computing chips would get twice as fast at the same cost every 18 months, he saw the future of that exponential explosion as very exciting. And his exponential growth wasn’t limited by the number of readers on the internet, either.
Moore’s Law seems like it has had a much bigger trajectory than my new publication will ever have, but I sometimes still can’t help but get excited, seemingly over excited, about the exponential possibilities of my new publication.
And Gordon Moore is still human, not superhuman. This, even though he may have been thinking of these “superhuman” levels of progress in computing. I suppose that thinking about amazing things doesn’t necessarily make you amazing. Computer chips are ultimately still doing human things, at best. Although, some of those “human” things are done at a superhuman level when harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, like playing Go or picking stocks in the stock market.
At this point, Moore’s Law seems to be slowing down. Chip progress seems to be slowing down. This could be a temporary blip, but my guess is that it will keep slowing down. Time will tell, but my theory is that many of these “exponential” technologies, such as microchips, do start slowing down as they hit the barriers of physics. Of course, something like quantum computers could make up for that and help us keep moving as fast as Moore’s Law predicts, and for much longer than we already have.
But eventually, couldn’t we run out of new technologies to push things even faster? There could be quantum computing, then subatomic computing, but what if we actually find the smallest particle? Perhaps computing will reach its limit. Or perhaps there is no “smallest” particle and, in fact, particles can be divided an infinite number of times and get infinitely smaller. If so, computing could progress at a Moore’s Law pace forever, right?
It’s probably not right to want to “transcend” and be superhuman or do superhuman things. But I must admit that I wish I could, sometimes. Thinking about the future makes me think of crazy possibilities, and even the smallest level of exponential success seems to send my mind into the clouds.
David in the Bible says,
Nor do I involve myself in great matters,
Or in things too difficult for me.
That was from the second half of the verse Psalm 131:1 (NASB). I hope to abide by it.
