I just think he went too far with his theories and his timeline is impossible. Hyperbole and humor. You haz both.
I look at it like I look at Velikovsky's work: It would be awesome if it were true. The possibilities are what trips my trigger.
Gotta love the headline in Facebook: "Superintendent Accused Of Public Pooping Relieved Of Duties" https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entr...ns-public-pooping_us_5b5b9ebce4b0fd5c73cf8913
Science is fascinating, and scary as hell, at the same time. I remember the movie "2001, A space odyssey" where "Hal" is trying to take over the ship. Fantasy? Yeah it was then but today computers are nearing the point of learning how to protect themselves against allowing someone to intervene in their health. Maybe they can already do that to some extent. By the way, I saw an article a couple of days ago noting that it was scientifically established about 7 or 8 years ago that there was no "singularity" that existed in the beginning. According to the latest (theory?) space and time started to exist at the same time with a different method. I can't explain it since I lost my PHD in cosmology in a fire. (I think I remember rolling it up and smoking something in it.)
There are all sorts of cool theories out there - I like the one that suggests if you survived falling into a black hole - you would come out a white hole in another universe. That’s cool to think about. So is the one that describes bubble universes being created at every major event in a person’s life - that is mind boggling!
What counts as 'major'? Stopping at a yellow that you could've made, then, as a result, you weren't in the lane that the drunk driver veered into a quarter mile away and hit someone else? We can't know when a seemingly innocuous decision has had PROFOUND impacts on our lives and the lives of everyone we know. (and people we don't)
Have either of you seen the documentary on Kurzweil called Trancendental Man? I agree with both of your opinions on him. His ideas are at the same time accurate while being completely unrealistic. I think computers will continue to "evolve" and get powerful enough to simulate consciousness, but not to the extent that you can upload your brain to them and live forever. If you've seen the movie he has some weird hang up about his father and I feel like his ideas on the singularity stem from the desire to bring his father back from the dead.
Right. That's up to the universe to decide. But it's still cool to think that I have 8,000 other Sarah's out there doing different shit. Maybe I have died in glorious fashion in most of them.
I will have to look it up. I seem to have the hang-up where I am fucking pissed I will never get to see how machines evolve.
I'm pretty sure that my last words in most of the parallel universes are, "You gotta be kidding..." or "Oh, shit!"
Alexa, Siri, your TV... when I was in high school in 1983 we read the book by the title of the following year and one of the most spirited conversations revolved around exactly HOW Big Brother coerced everyone to put a vidscreen in their homes. It never occurred to us that not only would the populace willingly buy them, they would eagerly purchase the latest & most invasive iterations.