Last post was 567 days ago!
Wow. It's been a while. I just felt the need to say something about the current Time magazine cover story about the crackpot-in-chief Ray Kurzweil. Kurzweil, you'll recall, believes that the goal of evolution is to manufacture God by turning the entire universe into a giant multi-dimensional computer ball which will be perfect love. Yep, he sure does. And, for that belief, he is granted a cover story on Time magazine. (What does that say about us?)
I have just skimmed the article as it contains NOTHING new about Kurzweil's or de Grey's views. Although one thing jumped out. The article says: "He's tireless in hunting down his critics so that he can respond to them, point by point, carefully and in detail."
Well Ray, I'm waiting!!!
Refuting Kurzweil is simple. The central article of faith of his Religion of the Singularity is that evolution is exponentially progressing towards higher intelligence and the only proof he offers for this view is that the frequency of taxonomic branchings (Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, etc.) for our own species has been increasing over time. But this is true for all species whether they are intelligent or not. Every species (and adaptation) has a Singularity. Kurzweil's central argument is a tautology and therefore is irrelevant. We don't know if higher intelligence is inevitable.
Therefore, the recent increase in the power of information technology is not the current manifestation of some cosmic evolutionary process, but is rather a local short-term trend that will end. All exponential trends end.
I'd like to think that Kurzweil is afraid of addressing me because he knows I got him. Apparently, other prominent Transhumanists are aware of my website, including Drexler.
C'mon Ray! I won't be too hard on you.
I have just skimmed the article as it contains NOTHING new about Kurzweil's or de Grey's views. Although one thing jumped out. The article says: "He's tireless in hunting down his critics so that he can respond to them, point by point, carefully and in detail."
Well Ray, I'm waiting!!!
Refuting Kurzweil is simple. The central article of faith of his Religion of the Singularity is that evolution is exponentially progressing towards higher intelligence and the only proof he offers for this view is that the frequency of taxonomic branchings (Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, etc.) for our own species has been increasing over time. But this is true for all species whether they are intelligent or not. Every species (and adaptation) has a Singularity. Kurzweil's central argument is a tautology and therefore is irrelevant. We don't know if higher intelligence is inevitable.
Therefore, the recent increase in the power of information technology is not the current manifestation of some cosmic evolutionary process, but is rather a local short-term trend that will end. All exponential trends end.
I'd like to think that Kurzweil is afraid of addressing me because he knows I got him. Apparently, other prominent Transhumanists are aware of my website, including Drexler.
C'mon Ray! I won't be too hard on you.
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