When will there be too much information?

God willing.

True…

Don’t you think it will be bad if the internet shuts down due to information overload, we would loose everything and fluther will be no more!

No, I don’t. The capacity will grow as needed.

Yes, @antimatter, we would lose a lot, including Fluther. But we would survive—just as we survived before the Internet. Records could be saved in many other ways, and guess what? People would return to conversing in other ways, like in person.

I think there is already too much information!

I know that does not answer the question as you asked it, so with regards to your question specifically, I think @marinelife nailed it. Capacity will grow as it is needed. I am up to 1T external HD and with movies and music, that will soon be filled up and I will be looking for more space myself!

I know nothing about how the internet works, but I have a fear that someday our technology will outrun us. Humans are humans no matter the technology and I fear that someday the human brain can no longer control it.

Information is not a material item. It does not require “space”.
Code is a material item. It does require “space”... but funny thing about code, it can always be reduced to a factor of one bit.

Code represents Information. But Code is not Information.

Information is a process, denoted by the “ation”. Inform is from the Greek “informare”, representing the formless with form. Information is the process of representing formless thought on a formed code.

I’m sure ETpro can tell you the rest about my thoughts on this.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies has it right. I have it on good information that there will never be too much information, but there will always be those who complain of TMI.

As we move into quantum computing bits will take up the space of a quark or an electron. A Q-bit supercomputer incredibly more powerful than IBM’s Watson will then fit on the head of a pin and be able to model weather events out months into the future.

I feel there will always be questions that need answering, and there are so many things we don’t know about that we will never know everything. That is what makes life so interesting. I come across questions almost every time I find the answer to a question. That darned ‘Why?’ keeps sneaking in.

Even if we accept the premise that the limit of information transfer is reached, the Internet would not shut down. It would simply work at whatever its capacity was. Given the technological advancements on the horizon, it does not seem that this is going to happen any time soon.

Perhaps we should be asking if we will get to a point that there is too much information for humans to handle. Will we reach the point where we become dependent on computers to store information? Perhaps we have already reached that point. Will we then become dependent on computers to process the information to make decisions? IBM’s Watson is being trained to make medical diagnoses. Is this the future of medicine?

@LostInParadise I rather suspect we and machines will merge. We are already way beyond the point where any human can be a true polymath. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was probably the last human to come close. But Google and Bing do a reasonable job today, they just can’t think. I want direct access from my own CPU, which can think. And of course, Google and Micro$oft would LOVE to be jacked into my thoughts and yours—all of ours. Whether this is a marriage made in Heaven or Hell remains to be seen. But I fully believe it will be seen.

@ETpro ”...we and machines will merge…”

This is interesting to me. Do you think human use of cell phones is a form of human machine merging? Computers and humans… have we already merged, never to return to pure human.

How about humans and windmills? Humans and wheels? Aren’t they machines? Are we merging, or exploiting? Adapting? Directing? Projecting?

Humans and fire? Is fire a machine, in the parameters that humans use it?

What is a machine?

What does it mean to be human?... If not one who possess the ability to create and manipulate machines?

Would anything less be considered animal?

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies We are pushing into the cusp of the merger. Cell phones are a stop. Google glasses get closer. Corneal implants take us down the rabit hole.

I think exploration of interstellar space, which will be a requirement if our species is to obey its innate programming and strive to survive, will mean we have no choice but to port our consciousness into meat/machine amalgams to begin with, but to move increasingly toward being machines with carbon based add-ons only to preserve the parts of our militaristic nature we still love. The taste of Chateaubriand done rare and smothered in peppercorn sauce. The scent of a woman in the trows of a squirting orgasm. Oil can harry will be no replacement for these.

Yes, like this weekend…Easter.
All computer severs were down..too many users at any one time.
Of course .
Its like overfilling a glasses of water.

@ETpro what you saying brings that anime movie to mind “Ghost in the shell” it creeps me out to think that may happen in the future.
I wonder if we will end up like the Borg on Star Trek?

Probably end up with no electronic devices that don’t work anymore.
Revert to in person communication..like the old pioneer days.
Rember the old movie “The Postman”