Should 2012 really be 2045? Ray Kurzweil says yes!

[rudemonk]

well sort of! but 2045 is actually something relatively factual in essence, if not in it's exact date of prediction.

lifting this out of the other thread, it seems clear that humanity is approaching quickly, within some of our lifetimes- a major evolutionary threshold in which man and machine- specifically computer and biotechnological advances in robotics etc., that are going to so dramatically transform our way of life, that futurist Ray Kurzweil and others are borrowing a term from physics called a Singularity.

Once this Singularity reaches, and we are Post-Singularity predictions cease as we don't really have enough information, but conjecture does not.

although <span style="font-style: italic">exceptionally</span> dry, here is a recent TED video discussing the coming event horizon.
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for a lighter take, he was recently on the Colbert Report:

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/381488/april-12-2011/ray-kurzweil

The Transcendent Man is an upcoming documentary which will detail some of these cognitively dissonant concepts.

[Tulip]

Re: Should 2012 really be 2045? Ray Kurzweil says yes!

I know this is a serious thread, but as brown as things have been going, I think 2012 was about right.

[rudemonk]

Re: Should 2012 really be 2045? Ray Kurzweil says yes!

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Tulip</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I know this is a serious thread, but as brown as things have been going, I think 2012 was about right. </div></div>
I wouldn't sweat it Tulip. The same people who predicted 2012 as the end, used to think the Sun needed beating human hearts to keep going.

Nobody is running around cutting out people's hearts and stuffing them into stone edifices anymore, so I don't think we have to worry about their predictive powers when it comes to the calendar.

The approaching singularity Kurzweil is talking about however, is most definitely going to happen. We're not far off from designer babies, now that the genome is mapped.

[johnnycakes]

Re: Should 2012 really be 2045? Ray Kurzweil says yes!

Monk,
Tulip,

I do not think it is possible to grasp the enormity of the changes coming via the exponential (accelerated pace beyond what we've already seen) technological advances that Kurzweill and others have projected WITHOUT having read or listened to and understanding a great deal of what Kurzweil has to say.

It is a bit like trying to explain a television to a caveman.

The advances mean that there will be things happening that most of us cannot possibly imagine today and very much like a caveman being able to understand a television.

The more I think about the Singularity and what it means the less day-to-day troubles of the world seem important to me.

The world and humanity will be dramatically changed and for the best within 40 years or so regardless of all that happens between then and now and unless we, as a race, destroy the planet before then.


It sounds almost religious-crazy but there is absolutely no doubt of the exponential growth of knowledge and artificial intelligence that will bring on the change.

What is different about this belief is that it doesn't need to evangelize or seek new members because it will happen, IS HAPPENING regardless of who knows about it.

And no God is required.

[f0rTyLeGz]

Re: Should 2012 really be 2045? Ray Kurzweil says yes!

My 2¢s is that governments, and the uber-rich will be in charge of major breakthroughs. And we are talking about other country's governments too. And the military will be using these technologies for making new weapons, and surveillance techniques. We can't imagine the enemies and threats that new technology will bring.

But I agree that as computer speed and storage, nano tech, medical techniques and equipment, are surging ahead at exponential rates, and that we will soon reach a time when it is impossible to predict anything.

I'm hesitant on any thoughts about eternal life... I can't get my mind around that. To me, consciousness is a nowness that each one of us, who has language, enjoys. I can imagine, for example, our cellphones inside our mind, and the internet inside my brain too... and instant access to it, so I could just ask Google anything and have the answer spoken to me... but I can't imagine my nowness or your nowness as transferable.

[johnnycakes]

Re: Should 2012 really be 2045? Ray Kurzweil says yes!

40,

While I understand your guarded pessimism in thinking that the super-rich and the corporations would take advantage of the incredible technological breakthroughs heading our way, I don't think that you are taking into consideration that we, as a race, will also grow exponentially in societally moral applications of the new technology.
Kurzweil's predictions in this area are sure things and he says that the cost of the new technology per byte or whatever measurement they are using is also shrinking exponentially, making it nearly universally available as are cell phones today.

As for predicting what comes after 2045 when Kurzweil says that artificial intelligence will reach a billion times that of a human,you are correct that is impossible to say.


As for eternal life, Kurzweil sees humans living for 1000 years in their original bodies which will be fixed continuously by nanobots (microscopic robots) inside our bodies.

Within a hundred years some people think that we will have the ability to upload personalities, consciousness into a waiting mechanical/created brain and be able to live in a virtual and non-corporeal form forever if you so choose.

They envision a virtual reality which will surpass the best corporeal existence by a country mile. You can be whatever you want, wherever you want, whenever you want, with whomever you want.

It's still you, just a much much, much, much more improved you.

[f0rTyLeGz]

Re: Should 2012 really be 2045? Ray Kurzweil says yes!

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">40,While I understand your guarded pessimism in thinking that the super-rich and the corporations would take advantage of the incredible technological breakthroughs heading our way, I don't think that you are taking into consideration that we, as a race, will also grow exponentially in societally moral applications of the new technology. </div></div>
It seems to me that &quot;being smarter&quot; is similar to being more moral. And that having access to machines that &quot;know&quot; the answers, will translate into mankind being more generous and kind. I don't think that is necessarily true.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Kurzweil's predictions in this area are sure things and he says that the cost of the new technology per byte or whatever measurement they are using is also shrinking exponentially, making it nearly universally available as are cell phones today. </div></div>
I don't think that the actual price of things is why there are so many living in poverty. I think greed and avarice are the problem.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">As for predicting what comes after 2045 when Kurzweil says that artificial intelligence will reach a billion times that of a human,you are correct that is impossible to say. </div></div>
It probably means the end of game playing for one thing. I saw an article recently that there is a big market for poker bots. And that Full Tilt Poker dot Net spends a great deal of time bouncing them off the tables. I can imagine in the future that ALL the tables will be filled with bots. Can poker bots get a billion times better?

[johnnycakes]

Re: Should 2012 really be 2045? Ray Kurzweil says yes!

40:

&quot;It seems to me that &quot;being smarter&quot; is similar to being more moral. And that having access to machines that &quot;know&quot; the answers, will translate into mankind being more generous and kind. I don't think that is necessarily true.&quot;

40, It is my belief and the belief of all Singularitarians and I believe true communists that humans along with the machine intelligence will also evolve to a higher moral state. Once humanity's basic needs are met and guaranteed, a lot will change.

The very advanced technology will provide all that we all need. The oligarchic tendencies will fade and die as the obsolete, immoral and inefficient ways that they are are discarded .

40:
I don't think that the actual price of things is why there are so many living in poverty. I think greed and avarice are the problem.


40,
I believe you are correct. I also believe that greed and avarice will come to be universally regarded as immoral once our intellectual level is skyrocketed with the advent of super intelligences. Capitalism will not be around in 40 years.

40:
&quot;..........playing for one thing. I saw an article recently that there is a big market for poker bots. And that Full Tilt Poker dot Net spends a great deal of time bouncing them off the tables. I can imagine in the future that ALL the tables will be filled with bots. Can poker bots get a billion times better?

40,
Poker is a game of odds and a machine intelligence will not be any better at a game of chance except slightly over the long run as it will never go against the odds and I don't think robots bluff......... yet.

_________________________
Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness. ~Seneca~

[rudemonk]

Re: Should 2012 really be 2045? Ray Kurzweil says yes!

<span style="font-weight: bold">The Singularity Isn't Even Close

Why Ray Kurzweil's Predictions About the Future Are Flawed.


Read more: http://www.faqs.org/periodicals/2011...#ixzz1K25OnGYp</span>

Publication: Skeptic
Author: Edwards, Chris
Date published: January 1, 2011
IT IS TEMPTING TO COMPARE THE PHILOSOPHY OF Ray Kurzweil, detailed in his bestselling book The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology with that of the Jesuit theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, since both men noted that the evolution of humanity and society trends toward ever greater levels of complexity. Kurzweil's ideas about predicting&quot; the future based on the past are also similar to those of Karl Marx, who believed that by understanding history it becomes possible to predict an inevitable future outcome. But in fact, Kurzweil's philosophy has more in common with that of St. Thomas Aquinas, who was commissioned by the Catholic Church in the 13th century to &quot;prove&quot; the tenets of Christianity using newly discovered Aristotelian logic. Aquinas, as Bertrand Russell pointed out, was not a true philosopher since he already knew the conclusion and tried to blaze a trail of reason backward. When this proved impossible, Aquinas could simply use faith as a crutch. Although different in form, this is the same flawed approach to philosophy that Kurzweil takes.

Before pointing out Kurzweil's errors, it is first necessary to encapsulate his theory. Kurweil's major assertion is that human evolution should be divided into six epochs.

1. Epoch One involved Physics and Chemistry, which included the storing of information in atoms.

2. Epoch Two, titled Biology, included the transformation of matter into &quot;life,&quot; and thus of physics into biology.

3. Epoch Three, titled Brains, involved the evolution of the human brain.

4. Epoch Four, called Technology, involved the creation of information and hardware systems. The first four epochs are interesting, and Kurzweil is outstanding at describing a process that has already occurred.

5. Epoch Five is the Merger of Technology and Intelligence, which Kurzweil describes like this: &quot;The methods of biology (including human intelligence) are integrated into the (exponentially expanding) human technology base.&quot; (p. 15)

6. Epoch Six is even more dramatic, in that Kurweil predicts that all of the particles of the universe will be endowed with data processing capabilities and will also be able to store knowledge. This is the point where the universe will &quot;wake up.&quot; (Besides this, an awful lot of good things, including eternal life, are supposed come to humanity in the future.)

Unfortunately, this philosophy is built upon three major logical and scientific errors.

1. The icon of Kurzweil's techno-theology is the &quot;S&quot; curve, designed to show exponential growth in the power of technology. Kurzweil correctly sees technological evolution as being an extension of biological evolution, but does not take into account all of the aspects of this analogy. In nature, complexity comes at an energy cost, so organisms don't become complex just for the sake of it. Simple organisms such as worms are as abundant as simple inventions such as ink pens because sometimes complexity isn't worth the energy and simplicity is good enough. Technology evolves to survive in the market, not to be complex, and if the cost is too great to supply a return then the rate of complexity will slow down.

Exponential growth can slow, stop, or recede very quickly if the energy cost is too much or if the environment changes. Flight, for example, did evolve rapidly between Kitty Hawk and the first moon landing, but the cost of deep space exploration is simply too great to justify (especially without the motivation provided by the Cold War) so manned flight complexity settled into jet travel. Even the pinnacle of that stage - the Supersonic Transport, or the Concorde - went into reverse due to economic and political restraints on the upward sloping curve. Even when humans made it to the moon, we were, practically speaking, no closer to landing people on Mars than we were before leaving Earth.

2. If evolutionary history moves in a direction, then why hasn't Epoch Six, where the universe &quot;wakes up,&quot; already occurred in some alien civilization somewhere else in the universe? Here is Kurzweil's answer:

The conclusion that I reach is that it is likely (although not certain) that there are no such other civilizations. In other words, we are in the lead. That's right, our humble civilization with its pickup trucks, fast food, and persistent conflicts (and computation!) is in the lead in terms of the creation of complexity and order in the universe.

Now how can that be? Isn't this extremely unlikely, given the sheer number of likely inhabited planets? Indeed it is very unlikely, but equally unlikely is the existence of our universe, with its set of laws of physics and related physical constants, so exquisitely, precisely what is needed for the evolution of life to be possible. But by the anthropic principle, if the universe didn't allow the evolution of life we wouldn't be here to notice it. Yet here we are. So by a similar anthropic principle, we're here in the lead in the universe. Again, if we weren't here, we would not be noticing it. (p. 357)

The anthropic principle cannot be used to favor a prediction, only to explain an event that has already occurred. If one adds enough factors, then the odds of perfectly ordinary events can be made to sound outlandishly low. For example, the odds on a Wednesday afternoon that the workers in a certain office will all show up wearing clothes on Thursday morning are pretty good. However, if one tried to predict the color schemes and styles of those clothes (thus, adding factors) then the odds of being right drop dramatically because of the large number of different possible combinations. After everyone shows up on Thursday morning, dressed in one of those heretofore incredibly unlikely combinations, then one can invoke the anthropic principle to explain this ordinary event. . . after the fact. The workers had to be clothed in some possible combination, and this is how it randomly ended up. To simplify, I cannot buy a lottery ticket and say &quot;By invocation of the anthropic principle, I will win.&quot; (Well, I can say it, but everybody in the Seven Eleven would probably give me strange looks.) The future has to look some way, but not necessarily the way Kurzweil thinks it will. Just because the anthropic principle can be used to explain the occurrence of a highly unlikely event post Lieto, this emphatically does not mean that it can be used to confidently predict that a highly unlikely event will occur in the future.

Again, Kurzweil is reasoning in reverse, creating a syllogism that looks like this: A. The universe is destined to &quot;wake up.&quot; B. The universe has not yet &quot;woken up.&quot; C. Therefore, our civilization must be leading the charge.

3. Kurzweil's final major problem is more concrete. The speed of light isn't fast enough for the universe to wake up as quickly as he predicts. This is a major issue, since Einstein's theory of relativity predicts that it is not possible for anything to accelerate to the speed of light.

Kurzweil, however, claims that it is possible to go faster than light in that relativity does not forbid space from expanding faster than light, as may have occurred in the first nanoseconds after the birth of the universe, but it does forbid information carrying particles from accelerating to that speed. No matter, Kurzweil predicts that physicists will either figure out the problem, or that humans will use wormholes as a detour. Why does he think this is possible?

[L]imits are not always what they seem. New scientilic understanding has a way of pushing apparent limits aside. As one of many such examples, early in the history of aviation, a consensus of analysis of the limits of jet propulsion apparently demonstrated that jet aircraft were infeasible. (p. 138)

But sometimes limits are what they seem. Kurzweil offers no detailed explanation, no coherent theory, for how this &quot;limit&quot; can be surpassed, but merely calls on the reader to put his or her faith into an ever increasing power of technology and science. And faith, whether it is in gods, fairies, or techno logical advancement is never useful in the scientific sense. Like Aquinas, Kurzweil already knows the ending, and in both worldviews there is eternal life waiting for those who believe.

Excerpti-d from Spiritual Snake Oil: Fads and Fallacies in Pop ( 'ulture, due out in April of 2011 by See Sharp Press.

Author affiliation:

Chris Edwards is the author (under a pseudonym of S. C. Hitchcock) of Disbelief 101: A Young Person's Guide to Atheism (See Sharp Press. 2009) which is currently being translated into Polish. His new book, a skeptical take on the claims of New Age gurus, pop philosophers, intellectual Christians, and techie cultists is titled Spiritual Snake Oil: Fads and Fallacies in Popular Culture (See Sharp Press, April of 2011.) He is a frequent contributor to Free Inquiry magazine and his educational philosophy has been published by the National Council for Social Studies. He can be contacted at edwards [email protected]



Read more: http://www.faqs.org/periodicals/2011...#ixzz1K255bd5g

[johnnycakes]

Re: Should 2012 really be 2045? Ray Kurzweil says yes!

The author of the piece above ask why extraterrestrial intelligent life hasn't yet appeared as a way of shooting down one of Kurzweil's arguments.

I have thought this question out before and the answer is involved.
The Earth has been around for say a billion years. Whole civilizations could have been born, gone on to great glory for hundreds of millions of years and died out without getting close to our time in the universe. Never having a chance to drop in for any time after say two thousand years ago when there were the first large signs of man on Earth.


Now consider SPACE. It is endless. We cannot even imagine what endless means .
If there were a civilization on the other side of that endless universe-( supposing that in an endless universe you could have any sort of end to end anything) it would take that civilization billions, trillions, quadrillions of years to reach THIS/our side of the universe AND they would have to do it within the 100,000 year time span in which humans have been on the planet and advanced enough to know that the visitors were extraterrestrials

So on at least that point alone, the author seems to not understand some very basic things about time and space.

I did not find anything in his critique of Kurzweil to shake my confidence in what Kurzweil is predicting and when. As someone pointed out, Kurzweil goes out on a limb making specific predictions based on his magnificent grasp of technological progress where other futurists will stay safely to general trends.. Someone else said that even when he is incorrect it is usually by the amount of time that it takes for a articular prediction to come to pass and in THAT kind of predicting there can be a factor of plus or minus a few years.

As said, nothing negative on Kurzweil that I've come across has made him look bad.
I'll always keep some doubt in reserve but as of this moment, I think Kurzweil has it right. or so close that it doesn't matter.


Of course it is a lot easier to believe something you want to believe.

I do so want what he predicts to become fact.

[rudemonk]

Re: Should 2012 really be 2045? Ray Kurzweil says yes!

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
Now consider SPACE. It is endless. We cannot even imagine what endless means .
If there were a civilization on the other side of that endless universe-( supposing that in an endless universe you could have any sort of end to end anything) it would take that civilization billions, trillions, quadrillions of years to reach THIS/our side of the universe AND they would have to do it within the 100,000 year time span in which humans have been on the planet and advanced enough to know that the visitors were extraterrestrials

</div></div>

but kurzweil himself proposes worm holes.

[johnnycakes]

Re: Should 2012 really be 2045? Ray Kurzweil says yes!

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: monk</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
Now consider SPACE. It is endless. We cannot even imagine what endless means .
If there were a civilization on the other side of that endless universe-( supposing that in an endless universe you could have any sort of end to end anything) it would take that civilization billions, trillions, quadrillions of years to reach THIS/our side of the universe AND they would have to do it within the 100,000 year time span in which humans have been on the planet and advanced enough to know that the visitors were extraterrestrials

</div></div>

but kurzweil himself proposes worm holes. </div></div>


Monk,

I think Kurzweil allows for the possibility of wormholes but even were these in existence, the time and distances in discussion here are so vast that even wormholes would not greatly increase the chance of one intelligent civilization finding another across the boundless expanses of time and space.


it would require some sort of INTELLIGENT DESIGN to allow for the placement of many millions of wormholes in a manner that would facilitate inter-galactic transportation for us humans in the event that we are the first race to achieve the capability of travel across the universe.


&quot;Right this way Sir, this is Wormhole #978904: instantaneous travel to the Andromeda sector........
Whenever you're ready.&quot; .

[f0rTyLeGz]

Re: Should 2012 really be 2045? Ray Kurzweil says yes!

This is a delightful and measured reply... thanks for posting it. I too was surprised at Kurzweil's notion that the universe will &quot;wake up.&quot; Information carrying matter can't be propelled past... or to, the speed of light. The reason is the amount of energy to propel a baseball in the vacuum of space from 99.99% to 100% the speed of light is infinite.

Kurzweil's notion that since the universe isn't yet awake, so mankind must be in the lead, seems like religious faith to me... Man is once again at the center of the universe, and man... MAN, will not only become omniscient, omnipotent, but MAN will become omnipresent. I think the fact that it hasn't happened means that it can't happen.

[rudemonk]

Re: Should 2012 really be 2045? Ray Kurzweil says yes!

it's an interesting conundrum.

ostensibly or at least as near as anyone can tell, we have billions and billions of years of the universe existing.

light from stars millions and millions of lightyears away have hit us.

so at the very least, at the speed of light, it's at least <span style="font-style: italic">possible</span> for some post singularity entity to reach us...might be the trip would be exceptionally freaking boring...

i'm going to look around for some more conjecture from the likes of kaku and others and see what they are saying and repost.

[f0rTyLeGz]

Re: Should 2012 really be 2045? Ray Kurzweil says yes!

Sure... heck, light has reached us from 13 billion years ago, I believe. And out of those billions of galaxies, that have evolved during all those billions of years... and yet not one of them has come up with a omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient being. Go figure?!