The Singularity Is Near : When Humans Transcend Biology

[Gorilla]

The Singularity Is Near : When Humans Transcend Biology
by Ray Kurzweil

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly:

Starred Review. Renowned inventor Kurzweil (The Age of Spiritual Machines) may be technology's most credibly hyperbolic optimist. Elsewhere he has argued that eliminating fat intake can prevent cancer; here, his quarry is the future of consciousness and intelligence. Humankind, it runs, is at the threshold of an epoch ("the singularity," a reference to the theoretical limitlessness of exponential expansion) that will see the merging of our biology with the staggering achievements of "GNR" (genetics, nanotechnology and robotics) to create a species of unrecognizably high intelligence, durability, comprehension, memory and so on. The word "unrecognizable" is not chosen lightly: wherever this is heading, it won't look like us. Kurzweil's argument is necessarily twofold: it's not enough to argue that there are virtually no constraints on our capacity; he must also convince readers that such developments are desirable. In essence, he conflates the wholesale transformation of the species with "immortality," for which read a repeal of human limit. In less capable hands, this phantasmagoria of speculative extrapolation, which incorporates a bewildering variety of charts, quotations, playful Socratic dialogues and sidebars, would be easier to dismiss. But Kurzweil is a true scientist—a large-minded one at that—and gives due space both to "the panoply of existential risks" as he sees them and the many presumed lines of attack others might bring to bear. What's arresting isn't the degree to which Kurzweil's heady and bracing vision fails to convince—given the scope of his projections, that's inevitable—but the degree to which it seems downright plausible. (Sept.)


From Booklist:

Continuing the themes of The Age of Spiritual Machines (1999), Kurzweil further expounds his conviction that the human being will be succeeded by a superintelligent entity that is partly biological, partly computerized. Welcoming this prospect, and regarding it as inevitable, Kurzweil plunges into contemporary technological arenas, particularly genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics. Citing examples from medical devices to military weapons in which human control is increasingly detached from the autonomy of machines, Kurzweil stresses that trends are accelerating in terms of miniaturization and computational power. Eventually, smallness and speed reach a point of development, a "singularity," with implications Kurzweil says even he cannot imagine. Disinclined to categorize his views as dystopian or utopian, the author recognizes that his vision is profoundly threatening to concepts of human nature and individuality. A closing section on philosophy and ethics accordingly addresses objections to his optimistic predictions. An involved presentation, this is best for readers of the wide-angle, journalistic treatment Radical Evolution (2005), by Joel Garreau. Gilbert Taylor


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/067...lance&n=283155

Man I want this book but I'm so damn broke

[Baba Ahmed]

Its not surprising that YURUGU* is constantly trying to "create" or fashion a creation that's better than it's Creator. An incomplete creation, it (yurugu), chases its feminine principle like a dog chasing its own tail.

So the Last Poets screamed: The white man has a god complex. No matter his constant aim to displace hueman kind, whatever it comes up with will be patterned after who? Those with melinated beginnings; who're comprised of the stuff that was here at the beginnings and termed the indestructible stuff!

We, Afrikans and other nature based cultures, best return to our sources! Later for the white boys and their destructive toys.
======================================

* Yurugu is the name given Europeans by the Dogon (of Mali, West Afrika) through their mythology of a spiritless creature desperatley in search of an ever elusive fulfillment and the venting of the rage over their frustrated efforts on others who were complete bings. As relayed to us by Marimba Ani, in the Dogon myth of the Yurugu,

"...Amma, the Creator, ordained that all created beings hould be living manifestations of the fundamental universal principle of complementarity or 'twinness'...But in one of these primordial placentas the male soul did not wait for the full gestation period to be born. This male being...arrogantly wished to compete with Amma and to create a world better than that which Amma had created... Realizing that he was flawed and therefore deficient, Yurugu returned to Amma, seeking his complementary female self. But Amma had given his female soul away. Yurugu, forever incomplete, was doomed to perpetually search for the completeness that could never be his." (Marimba Ani, Yurugu: An African-Centered Critque of European Cultural Thought and Behavior, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1994, p.xi)
[/b]

[jamesfrmphilly]

we don't even use the intelligence we have already.

[MadameX]

Originally Posted by jamesfrmphilly

we don't even use the intelligence we have already.

You've definitely made a valid point. Perhaps, this is due to the fact that our minds are too preoccupied with trivial matters.

[Gorilla]

Originally Posted by Baba Ahmed

Its not surprising that YURUGU* is constantly trying to "create" or fashion a creation that's better than it's Creator. An incomplete creation, it (yurugu), chases its feminine principle like a dog chasing its own tail.

So the Last Poets screamed: The white man has a god complex. No matter his constant aim to displace hueman kind, whatever it comes up with will be patterned after who? Those with melinated beginnings; who're comprised of the stuff that was here at the beginnings and termed the indestructible stuff!

We, Afrikans and other nature based cultures, best return to our sources! Later for the white boys and their destructive toys.
======================================

* Yurugu is the name given Europeans by the Dogon (of Mali, West Afrika) through their mythology of a spiritless creature desperatley in search of an ever elusive fulfillment and the venting of the rage over their frustrated efforts on others who were complete bings. As relayed to us by Marimba Ani, in the Dogon myth of the Yurugu,

"...Amma, the Creator, ordained that all created beings hould be living manifestations of the fundamental universal principle of complementarity or 'twinness'...But in one of these primordial placentas the male soul did not wait for the full gestation period to be born. This male being...arrogantly wished to compete with Amma and to create a world better than that which Amma had created... Realizing that he was flawed and therefore deficient, Yurugu returned to Amma, seeking his complementary female self. But Amma had given his female soul away. Yurugu, forever incomplete, was doomed to perpetually search for the completeness that could never be his." (Marimba Ani, Yurugu: An African-Centered Critque of European Cultural Thought and Behavior, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1994, p.xi)
[/b]

Makes you wonder where humanity will stand in the near future as tehcnology continues to excede our humanity.

[Baba Ahmed]

Well humanity starts with me, mine and my people... FIRST! Technology can not "exceed" that. Technologies expressions are made by people, whatever they've done will be continued to chew up all who buy into their madness. I wanna see where, when & how we blew. This ship of fools is like in an automatic pilot mode. There's been many societies who, comparatively, were more powerful than these cretins. Where are they now?

What happened to daughters and sons of Pharoahs, Queens/Kings; Imhoteps, Hatshepsut, Nzinga and the like? like brutha James stated: use the intelligence we already have that can bcome more effective as we too gradually reclaim our roots. Even in the use of herbs, the roots are your most sturdiest, strong closer to natural nutrients! Helps to ward off and destroy outside invaders. Look where we stumbled more than looking where we've fallen....

[Gorilla]

Originally Posted by Baba Ahmed

Well humanity starts with me, mine and my people... FIRST! Technology can not "exceed" that. Technologies expressions are made by people, whatever they've done will be continued to chew up all who buy into their madness. I wanna see where, when & how we blew. This ship of fools is like in an automatic pilot mode. There's been many societies who, comparatively, were more powerful than these cretins. Where are they now?

What happened to daughters and sons of Pharoahs, Queens/Kings; Imhoteps, Hatshepsut, Nzinga and the like? like brutha James stated: use the intelligence we already have that can bcome more effective as we too gradually reclaim our roots. Even in the use of herbs, the roots are your most sturdiest, strong closer to natural nutrients! Helps to ward off and destroy outside invaders. Look where we stumbled more than looking where we've fallen....

They're where all great sand castles go when the tides of time roll in and roll out. As for your humanity not being exceded by technology, all of our fates are tied together when behavior like this starts up on the planet we all share. The eurocentric view of objective nonparticipants in the natural physical world will prove a danger to all of us just like it has in the past. After all, it didnt matter whose hands openned up pandora's box. The singularity of which the author speaks about is a convergance between the things we consider what makes a human being sentient and a new container. Intelligence is only one of the limitations they wish to escape. I do agree that this emergence will not mix well with people out there with a god-complex. They think they'll find a solution to the human's physiological and mental vulnerability through starting with biomimetic endeavors then becoming something else. What a strange ontological view it is indeed

I've got a few bucks to spare now I intend on purchasing the book and exploring the disturbing view some.

[MadameX]

Originally Posted by Baba Ahmed

What happened to daughters and sons of Pharoahs, Queens/Kings; Imhoteps, Hatshepsut, Nzinga and the like? like brutha James stated: use the intelligence we already have that can bcome more effective as we too gradually reclaim our roots. Even in the use of herbs, the roots are your most sturdiest, strong closer to natural nutrients! Helps to ward off and destroy outside invaders. Look where we stumbled more than looking where we've fallen....

You took the words right out my mouth.