>From Lewan,
> I believe that a good explanation for doubling speed is provided by Kurzweil’s > suggestion that he calls The Law of Accelerating Returns > (http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns), basically > meaning that whatever is invented/evolved in a system is fed back into the > system and increases the over-all speed of invention/evolution, leading > mathematically to exponential growth of speed. I've read a few of Kurzweil's books. Last one I read, I believe, was "The Age of Spiritual Machines." His books are fun to read. It would seem that Ray's belief system involves an eventual "singularity event" which suggests the advancement of computer technology and AI will either save us, or transform our species into something very different than what we are now. That said, Ray's concept is not all that different, IMHO, than those among us who believe that Jesus' pending 2nd coming will save us, or that the benevolent Space Brothers from Arcturus (or is that Sirius... I can't keep the star systems straight) will either save us or at least transform us as a species. Despite all of these pending predictions coming from Ray Kurzweil, or from Fundamentalist Christians or from other religious doctrine, or for that matter from the Brotherhood of Benevolent Space Brothers, I think it would be wise of us to never ever underestimate the collective power of stupidity, ignorance, and Luddism. I'm more inclined to speculate that Kurzweil might possibly get some of his predictions right, but only if interstellar space travel becomes a practical reality. That would allow groups of like-minded humans to migrate to their very own habitable planet where they can then set up their own governing rules which would give them carte blanche to dabble with their genomes and infuse them with all the AI technology they see fit. In the meantime I suspect a very large group of Luddites will stay on Earth and maintain the status quo. That's probably a good idea anyway. Who knows. For all I know perhaps that is "by design." It's probably good idea to maintain a diverse gene pool such as what we have on our planet allowing interplanetary anthropologists and scientist from god knows what civilization to occasionally stop by and sample. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson svjart.orionworks.com zazzle.com/orionworks
