Ray Kurzweil - Transcendent Man

Many of you are familiar with controversial futurist and technological singularity proponent Ray Kurzweil.

This is the trailer for his upcoming documentary film ...

Description from youtube link:

YouTube Link

I honestly don't know enough about the man and his work to have a position, still, I found the premise of his work to be fascinating to say the least.

Hmm, I thought he was coming out with a movie based off of one of his books The Singularity is Near.

Like most visionaries Ray Kurzweil is very misunderstood. The thing that scares most people is how he intertwines technology, philosophy, and theology. I for one think that in the future, people will see him as the genius that he is. Often I am reminded of how people treated Tesla and his ideas.

This is a very interesting talk he gave about "technology will transform us"...

Inventor, entrepreneur and visionary Ray Kurzweil explains in abundant, grounded detail why, by the 2020s, we will have reverse-engineered the human brain and nanobots will be operating your consciousness.

View Video here: www.ted.com...

YouTube Link

You are correct ...

The Singularity is Near is being released September 9th.

Interesting, two documentaries to be released in relatively close succession.

I guess he's in a hurry.

I only know a little about Kurzweil, but he seems like a smart man. I think a lot of his predictions about the future will happen, but I think some of them will take a lot longer than he does. For instance, he thinks people will put themselves into machines/computers within our lifetime, but I think he is too optimistic. I don't see why it couldn't happen someday, but I really doubt I'll live to see it.

More than think it, he's championing it.



singularity.com...

Here's an interesting recent Q&A for those who are interested in Ray Kurzweil:

YouTube Link

[edit on 17 Aug 2009 by schrodingers dog]

I read one of Kurzweil's books (The Age of Spiritual Machines) and I find the material quite convincing. I also happen to play music using a synthesizer of his design

Ray is right.


[edit on 17-8-2009 by buddhasystem]

Agreed, perhaps not about the pace but definitely about the destination.

I just finished his latest book, "The Singularity is Near", and it blew my mind.

It is, I believe, the most profound, near future prediction, that most of humanity has never heard about. The first 1/3 of the book is thick with the evidence to support his argument that by 2029, we will have "computers" (nothing like what we have today, mind you) that will effectively be conscious human beings (minus the physical body).

After that, all bets are off.

Humanity will quickly transition (transcend) from our bodies to...eternity. The acceleration of technological, scientific knowledge will advance so fast it defies human understanding. We will advance more from 2029 to 2050 than we did during our entire existence on Earth. It's essentially the next stage of evolution, on an accelerated pace the likes of which nature has never witnessed.

And in the blink of an eye, Human 2.0 will expand out into the Universe at, if not beyond, light speed.

This guy is 100% serious, and a certified genius with a proven track record of inventions and creations and patents, etc. He's not a nut case. He's a prophet.

He isn't a prophet, just excellent at predictive modelling. Maybe that is a modern day prophet, he has Hollywood stars flocking to him as we speak, the Deepak Chopra of technology.

SD you still onto this singularity stuff? KEWL!!!

For all his cleverness (and I really mean that, he is incredibly smart) he can show us how we will advance, but not WHY we need to advance.
I am not a particularly 'spiritual' person, I do currently adhere to a premise, that is all 'existence' are required as a function and all existence is evolving. All evolution is a result of need. So WHY are we (all life not human only) needed? Is it random? evolution is a repeating pattern to suggest otherwise.
Evolution creates a capability to advance to the 'next 'stage' What is the next stage? WHY is advancement required. What "need" are humans satisfying?

As biological machines we have evolved very slowly, Kerzweil lists biologically the following as our developments, skull size, thumb usage, and weakening of jaw. Our brain is now dedicated to the cerebral cortex to allow reasoning and create hierarchical structures.
Biological evolution consists of 10 000's of bytes of information in current hominoids, that enable us to evolve culturally and technologically.

The progression of human measure of work activity is a smooth and predictable s curve .
www.youtube.com...
Humans as a biological collective are able to be predictive modelled. So he is not a prophet, rather he understands predictive modelling.
He predicts the intersection of biology with technology. I would add it is still currently controlled by the biological entity, the biological result of the "why" allowed us to move into technological and cultural evolution. Technological advances to come are a result of biological evolution.
so what "need" did bilogical evolution satisfy?

All of this is still done as humans, and our required function. Why is it required? What is the "need" that propagates infinite evolution. To me it appears that the environmental need is not what is resulting in our technological evolution, rather, its a 'need' to replicate the system we already are in. That we are indeed still bound by the function in the universe to propogate inifinty. The need to understand self. We dont know why we are (f) functions, so we continuously look for how functions work, replicating the system infinitatly.
I am not saying anything is wrong with that, just important to consider WHY we evolve not just HOW we will.

EDIT to add, there is no destination? Our model of evolution is infinite .

[edit on 11-10-2009 by zazzafrazz]