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TheStevenator comments on Is Molecular Nanotechnology "Scientific"? - Less Wrong
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I forget who this commonly used quote is taken from, but I find it useful when discussing potential future technologies with people. "If a celebrated scientist says something is possible he [unfortunately the quote does use only 'he'] is almost certainly right. If he says something is impossible, he is almost certainly wrong."
I, as a lowly college student, would hesitate to call almost anything impossible. Speaking with the benefit of reading lots of dead smart people saying how impossible things that are trivial to us now are, I feel comfortable saying that future technology will likely surprise a lot of us. How surprised we'll be, however, depends on how much we underestimate ourselves and how much we constrain our imaginations.
The quote is Clarke's first law:
What is the relationship between saying that doing something is impossible and that understanding something is impossible?
Is saying that understanding something is impossible simply thinking that mysteriousness is a property of objective rather than subjective reality? In this case, it would be infinitely worse than simply saying that doing something is impossible, as it is a type error.
At the same time, the two seem related as they both may involve mistaking the limits of imagination for the limit of possibility.
Perhaps claims that understanding is impossible are sometimes from the first, more fundamental mistake, and sometimes from the latter. Alternatively, perhaps in practice all such claims draw from both errors.