Nothing's impossible?

Question

What are some things that people have said in the past that we would never be able to accomplish, but succeeded in?

Like how we would never be able to climb to the top of Mount Everest, and how we would never be able to fly.

Answer 1

... Find true love.

But I think I just did.

Answer 2

Sail around the world without falling off the end of the Earth.

(I'll add more as they come to mind) : P

Oh, and reach the Moon.

Answer 3

We succeeded in those things "that people have said in the past that we would never be able to accomplish," because we understood what Hume meant when he said "To command nature, we must learn to obey nature."

As Ayn Rand put it, if you told someone 200 years ago that you could hear a voice 240,000 miles away, you may have gotten yourself locked up in a looney ward. But we heard the voices of the astronauts on the moon, and we did not break any laws of nature. We discovered radio waves.

It is still true that you cannot hear a voice from 240,000 miles away, but you can get around Mother Nature.

Now, about the "impossible." Despite Hume, some things will always remain impossible, for several reasons:

1. Man will run out of time and never learn what "impossible" things were not impossible.

2. Given all the time in the universe, neither Man nor any other intelligent creature will figure out a way to get around Mother Nature on a specific issue.

3. The nature of the issue is contradictory to logic. That means contradictory to language. For example, it can never be possible that "nothingness" existed before "somethingness." That would define "nothingness" as something that existed. If it existed, it was never "nothingness." Such definitions that cannot be contradicted are called "axiomatic concepts."

"An axiomatic concept is the identification of a primary fact of reality, which cannot be analyzed, i.e., reduced to other facts or broken into component parts. It is implicit in all facts and in all knowledge. It is the fundamentally given and directly perceived or experienced, which requires no proof or explanation, but on which all proofs and explanations rest."

Rand

Answer 4

some things are improbable but nothing is impossible.

Answer 5

Dear Friend,

                       You are 100% right in saying that nothing is impossible. You are a True Pessimist and one should be.

1.Nothing is impossible, unless you think it is.

2.In this unbelievable universe in which we live, there are no absolutes. Even parallel lines, reaching into infinity, meet somewhere yonder

3.Listen to the mustn't, child, listen to the don'ts, listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts, listen to the never haves, then listen close to me anything can happen, child. Anything can be

4.The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.

5.All things are possible until they are proved impossible - and even the impossible may only be so, as of now.

6.The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.

7.I have learned to use the word "impossible" with the greatest caution.

The Source for these Great quotations is given below.

Answer 6

if nothing is impossible.. then the mere concept of impossibility is impossible.

Answer 7

Nothing is impossible because nothing does not exist.

Answer 8

If we collapse a circle to a single dimension its parameters become rational.

Sorry I could not resist.

Answer 9

It is true nothing is impossible but we are simply governed by limitations which simply by default make it impossible, even if it is not ie time, capital, resources, available data/knowledge etc.

Take for example Mount Everest, of course there would've been people who would've tried and dreamed of climbing it but were simply limited - didn't have necessary resources for example. However that doesn't mean they didn't envision that one day there will be a time when somebody will conquer the mount everest, even if I might not live long to see it.

Sometimes available knowledge is a limitation, Right Brothers didn't wake up one day and invented plane BUT it was accumulative knowledge through out the centuries, passed on by generation after generations, century after century - that resulted in enough understanding, that Right Brothers finally became successful in developing a plane. However it doesn't mean other factors didn't apply ie motivation, hard work, capital, resources etc.

Now is it possible to land on mars, I think yes! but can we No! We are simply bound by the limitations, above all we simply don't have the technology. However no doubt one day our technology will be advanced enough that finally man would land on mars. I probably might not be able to see it, as I am bound by nature. I might die before that. So it is possible to land on the moon, but will it even be possible for me to visit the moon let alone mars???

I disagree with 'Yaoi' here that we will never be able to find a way around mother nature. We will - as humans we strive for the highest imaginable goal. We are manipulating mother nature right now through genetic engineering. However at a certain time we might not have enough available data or resources ie we don't fully understand every aspect of nature, in that case that is when we face consequences.

Can we directly defy nature no, manipulate it Yes! There are certain boundaries we must abide by, if we violate those laws of nature there would be serious consequences. Find a way to eliminate gravity and life as we know it would cease to exist. However in the future can it be possible to completely eliminate gravity by manipulating certain aspects of nature that it only has affects in isolation or that the affects can be contained. Yes! Same with pi mentioned above, one day mathematicians would be able to finally come up with equations that completely rationalizes pi.

So nothing is impossible unless we say it is!

Answer 10

The value of Pi (the ratio of the diameter to the circumference of a circle) is an infinite quantity (a '3' followed by an unsolvable number of decimal places).

It is therefore impossible to know the exact dimensions of any circle...ever.