Ian, So far all of the predictions of the end of Moore's law have proven premature. As Kurzweil points out sooner or later you run into the limit of how individual atoms interact. But he adds other technologies seem to be on deck to fill in the gap. Just as human technologies came on line to continue the acceleration of the slow moving natural process of evolution.
As for his predictions, what I read was written in the late 80s and in his recent work Kurzweil is touting the success of his predictions to date. I have only heard summaries of his current work but what I know about research in the medical field suggests he may be on to something. DNA sequencing is becoming routine and researchers are busy at translating and determining the function of various combinations of genes. Kurzweil calls this, not surprisingly, reverse engineering. There is no reason to think this won't succeed. Some don't like the idea because it assaults their sense of autonomy or their reliance on the supernatural but specific predictions and dates aside, we both know it is only a matter of time. Krimel ---------------------------------- Hi Krim, I think I appreciate that, but I guess I'm saying seeing the "geometric" acceleration is one thing, but predicting the sort of dates Kurzweil does is another - probably overlooking additional complexities like society's "skeptical correctness". My own pet theory (after Kondratiev and more recently Dawkins memes) is that these things always take three (human) generations, so long as humans control the press and the internet, no matter how "fast" the technology aspects. Moore's law has hit such limits - there are just so many mp3's and HDDVD tracks humans can conceive of. Ian On 6/11/07, Krimel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [Ian] > Timescales aside, I find Kurzweil's predictions hype. What it does > show is that evolution is needed to explain life and intellgence, and > that complex adaptive systems are needed to achieve it. Oh look, we > are one. > > [Krimel] > Kurzweil addresses this, claiming that the process of evolution itself has > followed the path of accelerating returns. He claims that as complexity > proceeds time speeds up and that the process of evolution has followed a > geometric pattern of acceleration. Moore's law he claims is an extension of > this. > > moq_discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ > moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
