I haven’t been able to find the exact quote, but unless my memory is playing tricks, Martin Gardner once posed the question “What modern artifact would most astonish Aristotle?”, and concluded that the answer was a Texas Instruments programmable calculator that could be taught to execute simple series of instructions. That was, roughly, 1975.
Here is what my iPhone does: It listens to the radio and tells me the name of the artist, song and album. It scans bar codes and tells me where to get the same item cheaper. It gives me step by step directions to anyplace I want to go. It points me to the nearest public bathroom. It recommends restaurants, based on cuisine, price, and proximity. It plays any music I want it to play, and it recommends new music based on what it’s learned about my preferences. It shows me a photograph of the entire earth and lets me slowly (or quickly) zoom in on my (or your) front porch. It takes pictures. It takes videos. It lets me edit those pictures and videos. It photographs 360 degree panoramas. It plays movies. It plays TV shows. It displays pretty much any book, newspaper or magazine I want to read. It reminds me where I parked my car. It lets me draw rough sketches of diagrams with my fingers and makes them look professional. It allows me to accept credit cards. It takes dictation. It checks the stock market or the weather with the push of a button. It reminds me of my appointments. It lets me browse the Web. It shows me my email. It locates and summons nearby taxicabs. It turns itself into a carpenter’s level. It turns itself into a flashlight. It makes phone calls. It makes video calls. And, oh yes — it has a calculator.
Now who would have been more astonished? Aristotle confronted with Martin Gardner’s calculator, or the Martin Gardner of 1975 confronted with my iPhone? I’m going to say it’s a close call.
Dr. Who once had a tool called a “sonic screwdriver” (and the original star trek had one called a tricorder) – a pocketable device that after a bit of fiddling with the controls could do just about anything the script writers needed it to do. This seemed wildly implausible at the time but that’s exactly what the iPhone is today. What makes it truly magical is that if you wake up tomorrow and decide you need it to be, say, a 4-track recorder or a drum machine, you can download the new functionality over the air and make it do that too.
One of the oddest hacks I’ve seen is a “sonic ruler” app – software that makes clicking noises from the speaker, listens to the echo, and tells you how far away the wall is. (It doesn’t work all that well, but that it works *at all* is just…wow.) And then there’s the onscreen garageband piano that plays louder if you hit the keys harder by using the motion sensor to estimate the residual vibration associated with your touch.
We truly are living in the future.
I don’t think it’s such a close call. Even back in the 40’s, when computers filled entire rooms, science fiction writers were imagining human-like robots and all sorts of crazy inventions, some of which now exist but some which don’t. Moore’s Law was noticed in the 60’s, so it wouldn’t be so hard by 1975 to imagine the miniaturization of sophisticated computer functions down to a smartphone. I doubt that Aristotle ever imagined the idea of electronics at all, let alone an electronic calculator.
and now that they are cranking out those 23 nm transistors and packing a billion of them onto a chip, the near future will go even deeper down the rabbit hole.
As an aside, are we imagining Aristotle coming to the 21st century, or you going back to then? If you’re thinking of going back with your iPhone, I’d suggest that you’ll have lousy coverage, and you’d better charge your phone before you go. Otherwise, bring a slide rule or a loom.
Apart from artifacts, it might astonish him that, even with all our apparent progress, we still talk of Aritotelian philosophy, logic and ethics. He may be astonished with Wikipedia, but also that it says of himself ” Aristotle is one of the most influential people who ever lived.”
Harold, I think the probability that Aristotle would have a healthy (above average) regard for self is probably high – due to his own intelligence and his position among his own contemporaries. I think it would be very human of him to be not surprised that he indeed is regarded as one of the most influential persons ever. However, that may also lead him not too think too much of modern civilization.
This reminds me that I need to get an iPhone.
What Steve is saying is certainly true, but I would offer a different perspective. In 1969 man went to the Moon with computers that were only a small fraction as powerful as the iPhone today. Now *that* I find astonishing.
By 1975, four key inventions had happened that Aristotle couldn’t imagine: the radio, the transistor, information theory, and the integrated circuit. Aristotle would probably be overwhelmed by both the technology and its use. If a scientist or engineer from 1975 saw an iPhone today, they would be amazed by its utility, but they should be familiar with the four basic technologies that enable the machine to do its magic.
I often say that I love living in the future. That said, what app are you using for your rough sketches and where you parked your car?
(I’m mentally ticking off your points against Apple’s prescient Knowledge Navigator. Modulo the nattily dressed visual agent with the ability to manage human-level conversation I think we’ve hit them all. Finally.)
Alan Wexelblat: Instaviz and Park-and-Forget. I haven’t used either enough to tell you much about them.
Moore’s law was formulated by 1975. Gardner, or someone like him, could extrapolate the trend and not be too surprised by today’s computation and communication devices, even if some of the details are unexpected. Aristotle, on the other hand, would be floored and clueless about an old fashioned black, Bell telephone.
Not only can it be a calculator, it can be the very same TI (or HP, as your preference runs) calculator that Mr. Gardner would have used to impress Aristotle with.
And it might even help you unmask anyone attempting to lie about the artist, song or album.
Of course, Aristotle would find the concept of radio baffling, let along the concept of an album, let alone the concept of a fraud involving an album. But this is a trick that might even impress Martin Gardner.
Which app is the public restroom one? Does it actually work well?
In 1966, Kenneth Boulding said “The world of today… is as different from the world in which I was born as that world was from Julius Caesar. I was born in the middle of human history, to date, roughly. Almost as much has happened since I was born as before”.
I tend to agree with him. The change between 1900 and 1970 was orders of magnitude greater than the change between 1970 and 2011: cars, televisions, telephones, women’s rights, nuclear power, washing machines. iPhones are fancy toys, but are they really as impressive as all that?
Super-Fly: THe public restroom app is “Sit or Squat”, and it seems to be extremely accurate.
Wait ’til the next time you need a public restroom….
I would think that Aristotle would be more amazed at the genome registries and underlying DNA technology that requires laws to be passed to prevent the creation of centaurs and minotaurs.
http://www.kvoa.com/news/new-az-law-to-prevent-human-animal-hybrids/
I take the view that 19th century saw more technological revolution that the 20th. For example, laying down a world-wide telegraph network made it possible to transmit a message from the Far East to Europe in hours rather than weeks. Compared to that, the internet is a mere refinement.
And what will be the 2040 gizmo that will floor you? My vote: A device that controls the weather to a square mile.
It is absurd to even compare the two.
We had been to the Moon and back in 1975. The Greeks thought the universe revolved around us humans.
Star Trek had a transporter and warp drive. Now, I would be shocked if either of them were remotely possible.
We probably will have computers far snarter thab we are in 35 years.
It is absurd to think that an iPhone is so shocking to someone from 1975. I’ve seen the Jetson’s. We don’t even have Marty McFly’s hoverboard yet.