According to the author of the book The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Klaus Schwab, “We are on the cusp of a technological revolution that will fundamentally transform the patterns of how we live, work and relate to each other” and complement the transformations of how we learn and relearn. In its scale, scope and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything human beings have experienced before. In this way, some types of jobs and ways of doing things will be extinguished, opening new opportunities.
The 4th Industrial Revolution is causing changes in the entire business ecosystem and in society at an unprecedented rate. From 1760 to 1840, in the 1st Industrial Revolution, steam engines developed in England drove the growth of the textile and iron industry. Between 1850 and 1945, with the 2nd Industrial Revolution, advances in the chemical, electrical, oil and steel industries allowed inventions such as the car, the telephone, the mobile printing press, and the mass production of consumer goods. And in the post-war period, between 1950 and 2000, we experienced the 3rd Industrial Revolution with the turn of the millennium marked by profound changes in production and the emergence of new technologies such as the internet.
The term “Industry 4.0” was introduced in 2011 by the Communication Promoters Group of the Industry Science Research Alliance to describe the broad integration of digital technology into industrial production and services. “4.0” alludes to how the potentially revolutionary impact of this trend directly follows in the footsteps of the three previous industrial revolutions. The main economic potential of Industry 4.0 lies in our ability to make agile decisions, generating innovation and adapting to constant changes.
It is in this context of Industry 4.0 that I make use of a concept called “Infinite Potential”, used in various fields, such as mathematics, philosophy and theology, being represented with the symbol of infinity. Potential infinity is the most natural and intuitive way of conceiving infinity and is therefore generally accepted and not controversial.
In this conception, infinity corresponds to something that can be increased, continued or extended, as much as one wants, that is, compared to human potential.
This means that we can all reinvent ourselves in our infinite potential by keeping our cognitive, creative, collaborative, entrepreneurial and/or intrapreneurial capacity constantly active and attractive.
We are in an ever-expanding world, and so our skills and talents must also be pushed to the limit of our human potential as much as we want.
How do you expand your Infinite Potential?
Thinking or imagining that we cannot learn new things, such as a language, a technology or playing an instrument because of some opinion or even self-assessment is a limiting belief in learning.
Limiting beliefs are like absolute truths, which often come through an opinion, a thought, a feedback and that we accept as absolute truth, easily manipulating us to give up, but there is also self sabotage when we don't believe in our ability or potential. .
“Man is a will, a force and a knowledge that tend towards infinity.”
Giambattista Vico
Silvio Rocha is a teacher and columnists at Portal Gente Mais.