On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 5:39 PM, Alan Young <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm not offended ... and I don't follow Kurzweil. Are you making a > distinction between 'The Singularity' and the concept of a singularity > of some kind?
If my understanding of a singularity as a change which irrevocably changes human life on Earth, to the extent that what comes afterward is not recognizable or even within the realm of conception for someone who came before, then yes I am making a distinction. It's arguable that we've already encountered several of them, starting with fire and "ending" at the one we're currently experiencing in the form of the Internet. I even allow that Kurzweil's AI singularity might actually happen one day - I just don't follow the religion which worships at the shrine of Our Lady of the Diodes and Her Prophet Kurzweil, and I certainly don't believe that such an event would usher in the utopia that (if I'm hearing him correctly) he thinks it will bring. Also I just can't bring myself to associate with a group that would use, with a straight face, the phrase "Earth's electronic systems have been self-organizing at the speed of light since Faraday's time." I don't believe I have encountered a sentence with less meaning since I left Junior High. -Dan /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
