The Singularity - The pinnacle of evolution

Oh, where to begin. Perhaps here:

There are singularity conferences now, and singularity journals. There has been a congressional report about confronting the challenges of the singularity, and late last year there was a meeting at the NASA Ames Research Center to explore the establishment of a singularity university. The meeting was called by Peter Diamandis, who established the X Prize. Attendees included senior government researchers from NASA, a noted Silicon Valley venture capitalist, a pioneer of private space exploration, and two computer scientists from Google.

So what exactly is the singularity? In essence (and in my simple words), the singularity is the date after which biological limitations are no more. There's a feeling out there (backed by the like of the above quote) that near the middle of this century technology will enable to immortalization of human consciousness. Even simpler? The belief is that artificial intelligences will be created in such a fashion that they will assist humans cheat death. AI's that fight disease, repair organs and reverse aging, you name it.

This concept (oddly religious in nature) has not only been validated by more than a rare few 'mids' out there, it has actually become a social movement. One of it's biggest proponents is Ray Kurzweil. Here's a little about him:

In his childhood, Kurzweil was a technical prodigy. Before he turned 13, he'd fashioned telephone relays into a calculating device that could find square roots. At 14, he wrote software that analyzed statistical deviance; the program was distributed as standard equipment with the new IBM 1620. As a teenager, he cofounded a business that matched high school students with colleges based on computer evaluation of a mail-in questionnaire. He sold the company to Harcourt, Brace & World in 1968 for $100,000 plus royalties and had his first small fortune while still an undergraduate at MIT.

It goes on and on, but you get the idea. He thinks differently and with more focus on exponential evolution rather than linear, which is the key in this kind of forward thinking. He's a bright dude. He's penned a couple books on the subject: "The Singularity is Near" and "The Age of Spiritual Machines', neither of which I've read but they're on the list.

Statements like this make me think of old Walt's and The Duke's bodies shivering away in some deep freeze hoping for eventual salvation:

The doctor charges $6,000 per appointment, and wealthy singularitarians from all over the world visit him to plan their leap into the future.

Yes, there's a doctor in Denver who sees 'patients' (rich, rich patients) who are pushing to live long enough to become immortal (most are hedging bets and have money to burn, but some are converts).

Immortality will come in stages called bridges though, according to the philosophy.

First, lifestyle and aggressive antiaging therapies will allow more people to approach the 125-year limit of the natural human lifespan. This is bridge one. Meanwhile, advanced medical technology will begin to fix some of the underlying biological causes of aging, allowing this natural limit to be surpassed. This is bridge two. Finally, computers become so powerful that they can model human consciousness. This will permit us to download our personalities into nonbiological substrates. When we cross this third bridge, we become information. And then, as long as we maintain multiple copies of ourselves to protect against a system crash, we won't die.

So. Hopeful? Bleak? Crackpots? I guess we'll see. I'm fairly comfortable in my fatalistic mind set. Having to change it and embrace the concept of remaining productive for the rest of my life (which is now apparently inevitably never ending if I can cross that first bridge) is creepy.

Coming Soon! The Big Bang 2! An intelligence explosion that facilitates immortality! Yes, Mr. Kurzweil is writing and filming his own autobiographical documentary in which he takes the concept further through sharing with us his thoughts on becoming a virtual woman as women are inherently more interesting to be with, therefor must be more interesting to be.

It is a romantic thought though ain't it? Not so much the shift from procreation being the meaning of life (biologically speaking) to expanding and extending consciousness through downloading our intelligence into a box, but more the thought of moving from imperfect, flawed, failing systems to limitlessly self repairing and replicating beings with a whole new set of shattered boundaries to explore.

More to come on this I'm sure..

Just Funny

Still laughing about this one.

C.B. Embry Jr., a Republican member of Kentucky's General Assembly, introduced a measure earlier this year to boost the state's spirits and honor "one of the bright spots" of Kentucky's economy. But with pressing issues such as the state budget, casino gambling and proposed tax hikes occupying the legislature, the effort to honor the Corvette has been tabled for now.

Other measures put on hold include a proposal to name Kentucky Fried Chicken as the official picnic food and to make cornhole -- a bean bag toss game -- the official state game.

Of course this leads immediately to thoughts of:

"Welcome to the cornhole state" on Kentucky plates.
"My brother's name is cornhole" on t-shirts of rival state residents

.. and many, many more colorful iterations. Cough medicine is a beautiful thing.

Evolution - yet another perspective

I was watching a couple hours of random TV while working on getting over illness and came across some chatter about faith based initiatives. Through the course of the chatter, one of the panel brought up the idea that each country in the scope of the conversation had a burden to carry from its founders that is impacting conventional issues.

A few examples:

Canada - the French
Australia - the Criminals
United States - the Puritans

Talk about a provocative concept. Which is the worst? The French? Nah, they're separatists and offer little to the Canadian people and country, but that's a relatively light burden. Criminals? If anything, that helped Australia based on the state of that country today.

It's the puritans hands down as I see it.

The very concept of puritanism is yet another one of those 'safe enough sounding on paper but a huge mess when implemented' things. How many times have you seen, read or heard about one of those down the nose lookers (often republican types) being caught with his hands in another guy's pants, or sending naughty emails to underage guys, or being on the top 10 client list at a brothel? I inwardly smile and slowly shake my head when I see the verbal venom slinging preachers vilifying the very things they are most likely involved in, or secretly craving to jump into with both feet.

Puritan is directly interchangeable with hypocrite for most intents and purposes, especially in public life (politics, celebrity etc.) as far as I'm concerned.

If I had the time or the inclination, I'd blog up a list as I cruise around reading about all the recent examples. Instead I'll go with:

Hell, just google 'moral scandal', 'republican scandal' (which is basically synonymous with the previous), 'evangelist likes little boys' or any similar mix of those words.