In 1997, I managed to get a copy of the book “Limits to Growth, which was published in 1972. I knew that the basic ideas in this book, read about it in previous years, but it was very important idea, which I did not expect to find it there, this idea did not receive due attention. The warning from the authors (mostly technical scientists), from taking the hope that technological innovations that may come in the future, can solve the serious problems threatening the world.

Perhaps the reason for ignoring this very important idea that there were two reasons. First, it is a terrible idea, all hopes of salvation of civilization, mainly on the possibilities of new technologies to do the job, and the second reason is that “the Club of Rome” (a group that released the book) do not provide strong evidence in support of this .

This idea is one of the most difficult philosophical questions, and it is crucial to the question of the collapse of modern civilization is probably “the Club of Rome” base their expectations on a few simple assumptions, for example, the probability of failure to achieve economies of technological advances over time, with Given the expected closeness of the collapse, but if we wanted to make this idea must be installed on a strong theoretical basis, it is inevitable to go into the depth of philosophy.

I do not want to go, in this book, in the depths of this complex issue, but I will try to simplify the presentation, so that the interested reader would find a basis for the study.

Technology is the application of the laws of the theory in science, and therefore, if we want to answer the question: “What are the limits of technology?” We should first answer the question: “What are the limits of science?”

Scientists in the field of theoretical physics have tried for decades to achieve the theory, they are called, “The theory of all forces” or “theory of everything” is one of the well-known scientists are known for their commitment to this effort, was Albert Einstein These attempts means implicitly assumed that There are restrictions on the theoretical knowledge, but also physicists, often depends on a philosophical basis to support this trend, and most of these attempts have been installed only on personal views on the possibility of achieving this ambitious goal. These attempts remain incomplete and the history of science, gives us examples from the previous stages of science, where scientists thought they had already reached these final frontiers of science, perhaps the most famous of these historical stages during the late nineteenth century. Following the theory of Max-well of an electromagnetic wave, and before the explosion of ideas of quantum theory and relativity, in the early twentieth century.

However, philosophical thought is another, of course, the dialectical materialism of Marxism, confirms that there are no limitations in science, and this trend followed by most modern philosophies.

It is important to note that the introduction of the idea of infinite knowledge, in fact, did not solve the problem of the imminent collapse of civilization, but only puts it in another form. Maintaining the technological advances that continue to need very soon, if it is in great intensity, the result is that this question will vary from the “collapse of civilization” to “the collapse of the image that we know or what we can imagine a civilization,” and this result is no different. In fact, compared to the previous one, since it, in both cases, all the things associated with our current life, expires this result, was approved by the American philosopher Francis Fukuyama, in 1993 the credit for the courage, where the idea was incompatible with his famous idea of “end of history, which was at its height of popularity then.

On the other hand, the adoption of the idea of limited knowledge, of course, decide in favor of the idea of the collapse of civilization.