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  • What concerns me is when nano techonlogy creates true AI and we introduce religion to AI.

    Can a computer be saved?

  • instead of curing cancer using nano tech to batlle an out right war with nano bots killing cancer outright lol

  • cool video..really great keep it up!

  • Those with the resources and money will be standing in the end. Heavily guarded. Oh maybe buy some stock in CAT because they'll be picking up the bodies.

  • Wow,  based on this rate of exponential growth, imagine what p0rn will be like in 2025?

  • @misterasmodeus who can say for sure it's our demise and not a rebirth? And why rebel? Did you rebel against the computer you are using?

  • @DurexDurpaneu2 If you can't beat them, join them. Conform or you will not be considered for the future. Just sayin'.

  • If we search world consumption of energy in 2005, we see that wind takes up only 0.3% In 2011, this has risen to 4% - a lot more than doubled. (about 1.5 years doubling). If this trend keeps up, by 2020 more than 50% (64% in fact) of the worlds energy can be produced by wind farming (admittedly, population and demand will increase, putting in more like high 30's, low 40's.) Peak oil has still not be reached, and oil will certainly continue until we can replace it. The Singularity is coming. Fast

  • to assume that humans can create a singularity is to assume we live in a infinite planet with infinite resources (which is false). Peak oil, or simply running out of fossil fuels, will affect the extreme growth we're seeing. look at human population growth since the use of fossil fuels. it might "look" like were approaching a human population "singularity" but really, we're all just riding the wave of fossil fuels. enjoy the ride.

  • @ThreeSC Wow, you really missed the point. Technological singularity has nothing to do with infinite quantities, oil or population. Try again.

  • Scary really that this will certainly make humans obsolete. We build our demise. We tie our own noose. Can we rebel? Can we, or will we become extinct?

  • @trulynot

    That's because, by all indications, though and self-awareness aren't anything at all. They occur only as a RESULT of systems functioning; they are not a functioning system in themselves.

    An analogy would be the global economy. It doesn't actually exist. You cannot find it; you can only map out the myriad systems that comprise it and give rise to it.

  • All these simulated and tested regions are related to perception and mapping the trail of thought - not what thought and self awareness actually is.

  • I wish this guy was a guest lecturer at my university.

  • Damn, Vernor Vinge is awesome.

  • If i am 21 and i live to lets a 90 then that means i have 69-70 years to live. Will i live to see this stuff??

  • @thetruth786110 The whole point of Ray Kurzweil's work is to feed on people's fear of death to sell his books. This whole talk of singularity is unfortunately a pipe dream for the 110-130 IQ. If Kurzweil's success is dependent on Moore's law, then I think it will wane as technology adheres to Amdahl's law instead.

    Ray Kurzweil just wants to live forever. If he had something to contribute, then be better sell me a better integrated chip, not a chart with some pretty pictures on it.

  • @DanceInYourRoom, you should watch the presentation before sharing your opinions. R.K.'s "success" (I think you mean "prediction accuracy") is NOT dependent on Moore's Law. Moore's Law only represents one technological paradigm--the transistor. When transistors reach their capacity (as suction tubes did in the 1950s), we'll move on to 3-D circuits.

    Did R.K. also build the K-NFB Reader (a computer that reads for the blind) in order to "feed on (sic) people's fear of death"?

  • he's a genious

  • I love getting thumbs up

  • Man, I hope I get to live to see the singularity happen.

  • @Nannirk we are both 21 so it is highly probable... If we survive for the next 40-50 years!

  • @thetruth786110 I'm pretty sure I will.

  • Big corporations will not allow for something like this to happen, or if it did happen they will be the ones ultimately producing and controlling those machines. So essentially you will be at their mercy to keep your worthless job and not be replaced by an AI machine. They prefer stupid/morons to reproduce through the means of welfare dysgenics so they are easily manipulated in buying the worthless crap that they produce. The movie Idiocracy portrays that very well.

  • Did he say,'entrepreneurship to bring these new technologies to the world' ?

    I want to bring new technologies to the world as an entrepreneur. super awesome.

  • Anyone else noticed how much Ray Kurzweil is aging more than most do on these videos over the years?

  • @aahuggett

    Unfortunately, aging is also kind of exponential.

    Each year we age to a higher degree than the we did in the entire year before. In other words, generally we age more from our 39th to 40th birthdays, than we did from our 38th to 39th birthdays.

    Sorry to break the news.

  • @aahuggett He has traveled at light speed.

  • @aahuggett The previous TED video with Kurzweil on this subject was recorded in 2002. This one was recorded in 2009. If you've seen this video: watch?v=6B26asyGKDo

    in which Noah Kalina takes a picture of himself every day for 6 years you might change your mind. He aged visibly. He's actually still doing it, ten years after he started the project.

  • *cognitive* intuition.

  • I JUST WANT HIM TO GET BACK TO DESIGNING SYNTHESIZERS! cause i will be dead by the time all that stuff comes to be!

  • 02:15 I love the way Kurzweil, because he is such as amazing polymath, matter-of-factly says that the 6th paradigm of exponential growth in computing will be "three dimensional, self-organizing molecular circuits." Of course, what else?!

    One of the best videos on YouTube for providing decades of research in cogent minutes of learning for easy assimilation.

  • Great concept... good work and looking forward to so much to come !

  • I disagree. Gun control, for example, was an issue in Franklin's day as it is now.

    I don't think you really need rules. You can have passive regulations where, for example, if you break one and someone dies, it's your fault and you get executed. But you don't need general laws against drunk, unlicensed flying etc.

    Politics will exist for a long time to come. Different AIs will have ideological differences as we do.

  • no you are for not realizing that the sun can meet all our energy needs a billion times over every day

    the tech just isn't there yet

    but it will be in 10 to 20 years

    an acquaintance of mine works on cars that run on solar energy and he pretty much conforms what ray here says

    they are progressing with leaps and bounds every year

    i also read about a new solar panel tech that uses carbon nanotubes

    also very promising

    and dude flying cars? grow the fuck up!

    controlled highways are the future imo

  • Flying cars are certainly possible. Just chuck a couple turboprops and a wind tunnel system under the bonnet.

    Controlled highways would be horrible. Do you even value freedom?

    Solar powered flying cars is a ridiculous concept. You get 0.6 kW/m^2 (best case). You need 50 kW for a normal car (10x for flying).

    You could use large solar arrays to produce fuel, but it's just not practical to power 100 million or 1 billion flying cars using such technology.

    Nuclear is available off the shelf now.

  • Of course i value freedom! But not at the expense of people's safety. If every fucker can pilot one of those flying cars it would all go to shit! You would have ridiculous amounts of accidents. I don't see that as freedom but chaos.

    Do you think traffic lights take away your freedom? That everybody should have the right to choose how to drive?

    We both know that wont work.

    Regulation isn't taking away freedom! Its providing safety to the masses.

    And where did I say flying cars are not possible?

  • You told me to grow the fuck up, as though it were a dream of someone who knows no physics.

    "Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither." - Franklin

    You don't consider being able to fly wherever you want in your own car freedom?! It wouldn't be chaos, it would in fact be quite safe.

    Every road owner should have the right to choose the rules, and all roads should be privatised. Some will be micro-controlled, but they'd go bankrupt 'cause it's a bad idea.

  • Quoting someone who lived in a totally different time is quite silly and pointless.

    In my opinion it would only work if there is a set of rules to it, just like with traffic today.

    And i seriously do not get how people like you believe that privatizing everything without any kind of regulation will work.

    Don't get me wrong I am all for privatizing certain sectors. It's just that too much will result in chaos. Humans need regulation! Today it's the job of politics. Tomorrow, it's the job of AI.

  • We would not fly cars, we would put them on auto pilot, pilots today rarely actually fly their planes. Im sorry to say it but, like it or not what is happening is that WE ARE SACRIFICING FREEDOM FOR SECURITY. Look at Americas Patriot act, people who lived during WWII would have revolted if it was enacted in their time. Not just controlled highways but controlled airspace is what we are heading towards.

  • He fails to mention that our energy usage will increase exponentially too (flying cars etc). So Solar ain't gonna cut it. Go nuclear!

  • really guy... think before you post, plz

  • I have thought about this, a great deal more than you have.

  • All i know is, you're arrogant and you know how to use a keyboard.

  • Seriously....are you fucking retarded?

  • No I'm not. If anything you are for not realising my statement is true.

  • also

    they say nuclear is about 40 years away

    they said the same thing 40 years ago to

    nuclear is not gonna go anywhere for a long while

    and we don't really need it in my opinion

    look up in the sky

    the cleanest biggest energy source available for us to use

  • Of the suns energy that hits the earth, if we could covert just 0.0003 into energy that would equal 30 trillion watts which would vastly exceed todays energy usage for the entire planet. The best application would be a nano technological paint that you could easily apply on houses in rural China or Africa rather than having to run power lines from the nuclear plant all the way out to the target area you want to get the power to.

  • Ray Kurzweil is either going to be proven stunningly, amazingly right, or he's going to be proven stunningly, laughably wrong. In making such epic predictions there's really no middle ground! If I had to put money on the table I'd bet against him on the grounds that extrapolation is not one of the exact sciences.

  • I'd say he's already been proven right through the most difficult predictions. All he's talking about now is the natural course of our evolution. What's so epic about it?

  • energy costs ray ? apply your graph to that ?

  • According to Kurzweil research in nano-solar technology is also becoming a exponentially growing information technology. The charts are looking good - 2050s-2060s.

  • well i hope we make it that far ?.. seems to me we are all doomed ..heres a prediction global catastrophy by 2020 !

  • 5:40

    Doubling every 2 years in solar. 8 doublings away from catching up with energy use.

    Can we make it 16 years?

    (Don't forget as solar increases... it's taking over some of the existing needs)

  • At 2:15: transistors, integratred circuits ... three dimensional self organizing molecular circuits. right, Ray, just around the corner ....LOL ;)

  • Yeah can you believe his other nonsense like the emergence of a global communication system in the mid 1990s, a computer beating a chess champion, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, all which seemed preposterous at the time. Wait a minute- So far his predictions have been fairly accurate. I recommend you read The Singularity is Near, if the data presented is true, many of the new circuits etc.. May actually be just around the corner.

  • Those predictions really weren't that hard to make and weren't preposterous. Most people could see them coming. I'm not saying that these kind of innovations will NOT come; It just going to be many centuries until they are realized. Transistor to self organizing programmable units is a pretty big leap. There were tubes before transistors; but where are the ancestors of his self organizing units, the mathematics for them or even any companies paying serious money to develop this kind of thing?

  • The book The Physics of Quantum Information - Quantum Cryptography, Quantum Teleportation, and Quantum Computation by Dirk Bouwmeester, Artur Ekert and Anton Zeilinger Published by Springer Publishing pages 93 through 293 has the mathematics and explains that while we can do it, we lack sufficient energy.

  • NASA, Goggle, and the U.S. Government mainly the C.I.A. are all very interested in progress towards this end and are cranking out thousands up to a million dollars per year to research its development and applications, like Markov models and neural nets that exist today for example. Singularity University is just a small branch of this. Reverse engineering the human brain which is self-organizing will also provide tools to achieve self organizing circuitry and computers.

  • Yes, but where is the remarkable new widget on my desk?

  • Where are the practical prototypes Turning science theory into a practical engineering discipline is still centuries away, I'm afraid. Contemporary tech companies look pretty glitzy but intact they are peddling 50+ year old technology. I just don't see the new paradigms emerging anyway in practical everyday terms.

  • 50 year old tech! Wow the internet, cell phones, and laptops have been around that long?

  • The Internet started at DARPA in 1969, TCP/IP in 1977, cell phone 1973, the processor architecture used in cells, laptops was developed by Von Neumann in the early 1950s. Claude Shannon digital communication 1940s. The core R&D/engineering technology for all that was pretty much established by the mid1970s. It just took years for it to be miniaturized and mass produced. Its a digital form analog communications that been around for almost 200 years. Where's the new paradigm?

  • Decentralization by the internet would be a example of a new paradigm. Being around doesnt mean ubiquitous, miniaturization and mass production have given way to hoards of new paradigms as follows

  • Carbon nanotubes and nano-tech, artificial intelligence, human genome project and cancer atlas project, reengineering genes, cybernetics, quantum string theory and computation, teleportation (only one atom at a time as of 2005), non invasive brain scanning, stealth and cloaking, laser weapons, intelligent weapons, wireless bandwidth, holographic imaging, Satellite GPS systems, cloning, vertical take off, unmanned aerial vehicles, virtual reality, new drugs, and 3 dimensional molecular computing

  • No doubt nanotechnology is a new clever spin on old technology and hopefully opens new windows into nature that we didn't have before. The rest of the stuff is just permutations on stuff thats being going on for decades. AI is a bust; no one has simulated consciousness in a computer. The first FAX was sent in 1848. I repeat where is the clever new widget on my desktop that will rock my world?

  • Size has shrunk, but processing speed, memory, and brain-power has all increased, computers ARE getting smarter, however they do still have a while to go. And with the advent of solar power communication is not going to be the only thing decentralized. AI is all around us, it is just more specialized than strong AI which will be around in the 2040s, like landing airplanes once this took humans, now it is done by AI. You threw your widget out the window once its remarkableness became mundane.

  • What you refer to as AI seems to me to be just rather simple data processing and unimaginative decision making. Landing a jet just doesnt require that much reasoning. My point is that after 50 years the Turing Test, demonstrated natural language processing by a computer program, has not been achieved. Thats the true test of AI and I still havent seen anything close to it.

  • Turning was very imprecise in setting the rules for his test, while it is true that no computer has come close to passing it (yet) they have been continually improving, if you were to define mathematics as a language computers are already smarter than us. Kurzweil estimates the threshold to be crossed around 2029- but this doesnt mean computers will be let off that easy, even when they do match human intelligence just which humans will it match- a 9 year old child, average Joe, or Einstein?

  • Shannon defined "information" as "a message the resolves uncertainty" The point of the Turing Test was that if I could carry out a conversation with a computer program and was convinced that it understood what I was saying and could make logical inferences - had consciousness - then we have achieved true AI . Computers are still just communication channels performing as human surrogates without out any conscious awareness.

  • Intriguing proposal about the need for a new paradigm and I agree with you. Computers now can perform genius calculations but cannot act with the intelligence of a child, business models may have overlooked or neglected certain key foundations on the low level as useless for their profits. Most people find it painstaking to teach children. Im reminded of Kurzweils chicken vs. egg question, will strong AI bring about full blown nano-tech or will full blown nano-tech bring about strong AI?

  • Most likely, like most things it will be a convergence of both and many other technologies. It would just be nice to make a good living off developing them! LOL

  • And when it exceeds one human intelligence it will steadily progress to match a room full of peoples intelligence, but a room full of random people is not the same a room full of physics professors. AI will sneak up on us just like Deep Blue crept up on Kasparov in chess in 1997

  • If you read Minskys Society of Mind, intelligence is a collective effort at both the neurological and society level. The chess board is a simple world compared to the world of natural language and common sense - of consciousness. Lenats Cyc project failed to codify common sense in symbolic AI. My point is that we need a new paradigm that involves self-organization at the lowest level up. Problem: it just doesnt fit the businesses model of any of the tech monopolies.

  • Ill look into the book it sounds informative, thank you. Information is good but it is only raw materials knowledge that we want -processed and refined information - and in this we are making progress, especially in the language department - think about simulated telephone operators who decipher words (despite dialects and accents) and respond to questions accordingly, give answers etc.. Humans just have a larger inventory of programmed responses to choose from.

  • Google Doug Lenat and the Cyc project at Cyc Corp. Their research in trying to codify common sense is really intriguing. :)

  • @linuxguru1968 cool thanx

  • Excellent point. I also might add, it doesn't fit the business model of major universities either. Nobody will study what you're proposing due to the way profits are doled out.

    We will need an economic paradigm shift in order to allocate resources to the proper research projects. We will get there, just not at the speed Kurzweil envisions.

  • Monopolies definately have that bad side effect. The good news is that a lot of the important reseach in brain/self-organization and life extension is in a more protected bio-tech/ healthcare niche. But, never forget, during the 1950s lobbyist for iron ling manufacturers tried to kill funding for polio vaccines. Greed and stupidity in DC can still be VERY dangerous.

  • Decentralized communication networks were around before e.g. shortwave radio. Shrining the mainframe down from the size of a wharehouse to my rist watch didn't make it smarted. I still can't hold a conversation with it. Conciousness has never been demonstrated on a computer.

  • If you could blow the brain up to the size of a mill and walk about inside, you would not find consciousness - G.W. Leibniz Can you offer me absolute proof of your existence? Scientists and philosophers have been arguing about consciousness since before Plato. Radio is nothing compared to the internet, which has opened up globalization to the entire planet.

  • You can say the same about any phenomenon - you cannot measure it directly merely see and measure its effects. You inter conscious awareness by communication with another entity. Despite all the glitzy technology, no computer has been able to demonstrate natural language processing to the point of fooling the Turing Tester.

  • Lol, I dont think ray is gonna make it to 2012 :p

  • ok .ITech, not all tehcnologies,,, that can make snese, all commerically explotable technlogies

  • Sorry that I have a silly question: what software makes those charts/diagrams in this presentation. They look so beautiful and professional. Don't think Microsoft Office can make them easily. Are they made by software from the world of Mac?

  • When Kurzweil speaks of immortality I don't think he means "living forever in this body," If we extrapolate the rate at which we are replacing biody parts with artificial materials - bones, hearts, lungs, kidneys, skin and soon, eyes and ears - we will not be subject to the same problems..

    Those who declare such things impossible assume technology will remain static. Ergo, we won't be able to achieve such speculative feats. Progress on many fronts is indeed increasing exponentially.

  • i prefer aubrey de grey's envisioning of life extension

    less artificial in nature, more naturally human

    i personally believe that a robot with the same "program" as our own psyche won't actually be us.

    kurzweil often seems to leave out the notion of the soul/self somehow, to me

  • Thanks for the response. Either approach is fine but I think Kurzweil's is more likely in the long run I see "soul" as synonymous with "mind" - nothing mystical dwells within us that makes us human. In a way, we are as mundane - and as fantastic - as a pattern recognition entities. I like the way we have dressed it up - emotions, choice, intellect, etc.

  • yeah but think about it

    lets see you have a fatal accident in the future

    but you have a few backups they boot one up and it lives on

    do you really think that would be you?

    i dont think so

    its someone else that is exactly like you but not you

  • no offense but he is getting very old.........he wont survive to see the singularity

  • i don't think so either

    his family has a background of early deaths

    he has some bad genes

    i think he wont make 80

    the 250 supplements he takes a day might kill him too very soon

  • I believe that much of the negativity that floods into so many forums regarding future technological progress is being funded with money.

  • He mentioned DNA sequencing but didn't mention DNA synthesis? That's a big hole there.

  • What happens when human pleasure and satisfaction becomes nothing more than an on/off switch - then what?

  • Then we live a satisfied life in eternal bliss.

  • there are lots to be thought of when our biology meets technology within the context of merging the two in a physical manner. People have the ability to do such wondrous things, yet there is so much to be mistrusting of and that compels one to take advantage of another that technology will bring forth a long and lengthy stage in human kind's history where folkies will deny one another their basic rights and such. I hope that logarithmically this moves towards being corrected.

  • Bullshit.

  • apparently youtube doesn't like to put my reply boxes in the right place...

  • I love this guy.

  • there's no stasis in nature. everything has to ripple.

  • Downloaded human consciousness - is that the goal?

    Fucking hope so, I'm getting on, and wish those science folks would get on with the immortality project.

  • how do you propose on going about achieving immortality.........why do we die...........? i mean mutations because of harmful rays? that is a muniscal part of the immortality problem. I just am not sure how scientists would go about it

  • Stem-cell generated body part replacements to increase life-span to sart with. Eventually downloading consciousness on to some kind of storage device - biological, digital, or a mixture.

    We consist of 2 kinds of information - our memories/personality/sense of self, and DNA. Once we learn how to save consciousness, then we have the leisure to create a body to house it.

  • lol stem cell generated body parts.................

    that sounds sick

    how about atp.....more atp ...a more efficient mitochondria.......that could repair damage at a faster rate?

  • ...or just use the old stand-bys like drinking the blood of virgins sacrificed at dawn.

  • uh huh..........as opposed to plastic surgery of every organ that composes our body

  • It may sound sick, but that's how you were grown.

  • I don't really think immortality is achievable - nor desirable in the grand scale of eternity... but we're talking practical immortality. Living for as long as you want, then choosing death. Biologically, we can extend life out several hundred years - but for the extra-long time spans, we're going to need to (and will have achieved) brain emulation on a viable scale.

  • don't think so...........ray kurzweil came up with his own patent of a nanobot which can efficiently take care of harmful mutations.........so we do not need stem cells.........to replace all the organs in our body....

  • Well, we'll still need stem cells and tissue engineering for organs and body parts damaged due to environmental factors - like car accidents or battlefield injuries.

    Eventually, our lifespans may stretch out far enough that we'll face environmental changes our bodies will need to adapt to. So we will have to actively and specifically mutate our own DNA to accommodate.

  • However, once we get to the point where we're no longer tethered to our physical bodies for the survival of our mind, what's the point really?

    Even if we do not have to bear brain death, we will have to institute some form of population control to prevent resource over-harvesting. For the long term, I can see "cyberspace" being the main residence for humanity - while real space may be a kind of timeshare deal.

  • *sigh* fuckin' malthusians.. So long as despotism isn't perverting every other aspect of life, population control will not be necessary.

    Read 'More Sex is Safer Sex: Unconventional Wisdom of Economics' and some Austrian Economists and you'll learn a lot. MSISS refutes malthusian BS and a bunch of other myths (he has some stupid shit in there too, but overall, a GREAT book)

  • Utterly fascinating. I strongly recommend his book, "The Singularity is Near". Really mindblowing stuff.

  • Woody Allen's less funny brother

  • what's the big deal about this guy? i dun get it

  • .....wait about ten years. You'll see.

  • Want to see what progress looks like. Check out Billy the Kid, Gasoline Vapor, here on You Tube.

  • If Photovoltaic production doubles every two years and we are only 8 doubling (16 years) away from meeting 100% of our energy needs, why should we worry about our current dependence on foreign oil? Let the oil producing nations do the worrying.

  • Or we could do what I did. Check out Billy the Kid, Gasoline Vapor, here on You Tube.

  • on the one hand you've got a point, but on the other, a lot can happen in 16 years.

  • Couldn't agree with you more. Thanks for pointing that out.

  • For one it makes the naive assumption that the graph will keep going the way it has. Not that I think otherwise but it is an assumption that doesn't hold true for all types of technologies.

  • Great comments. Good to see reasonable healthy sane polite debate.

  • Haha. I thought so at first as well! Buried under a few pages, are some nasty exchanges. Put on your rubber gloves and goggles before entering!

  • this guys is so bogus- his predictions are totally wrong- and I"M THE ROBOTAHOLIC!

  • when will it hack the universe

  • Comment removed

  • old billy crystal

  • Skynet..Has anyone seen Big Dog??....Its amazing but Bloody Scary!!.

    When I first saw that Robot/Creature thing and its Cousins I couldnt' belive what I was seeing and to think they have most probebly got far superior Prototypes in the works!!

    I dont know if its a good thing or a bad thing really?..I suppose it depends on whomever has control over the Technologys intentions,whether its used for our benifit or for more incideous ends.

    Anyways..Good short discussion from TED.

    Peace and all That.

  • Big dog is limited to a tether or whatever fuel it can carry, far from bieng a "terminator" or even field ready.

  • Impressive talk.

  • Mr. K, mentioned his idea of the next 'paradigm', he mentioned 'self organized, molecular circuits', in a very assured manner of voice. Will admit he seems to be more able to have access to the papers that leads him to this, than I ever dream to be able to see.

    Seemed far from the possible applications a woman who researched the speed of light through material chilled to the lowest kelvin, that I never imagine reached

    first TED for me, that had me question its intent

    TakeCare

    JC

  • ray kurzweil?

    i don't even have to watch it before i rate it 5 stars.

  • I LUUUURV RAY KURZWEIL !!

  • TEDsters. Watch Liz Coleman's video on liberal arts education. See what you think about a varying view on education.

  • when i first heard of morrs law from Ray, i would figure that mores law would have its own morrs law lol

  • Productivity is so great. There are now over 10 Million Americans unemployed.

  • There are more, the figures are seriously doctored.

  • Productivity 'per worker' is most definitely up, and up by a lot. That has nothing to do with the cause of unemployment. In a free market, money could be made by hiring those unemployed and putting them to productive work, so they would have job offers (though very likely at a lower wage than they might prefer). If they are not working it is because impediments have been put in place (for whatever reason) to inhibit the free market from functioning as it normally would.

  • In a way, it is kind of disturbing to see how visibly Ray Kurzweil has aged since his last TED talk a few years ago. Of course I do realize that people age as time passes, but it's just strange seeing him--the champion of the idea that clinical immortality is within our grasp and that he will live to see it--creep ever closer to what most people accept as inevitable. Shit I hope he is right, I don't want to die.

  • why not, exactly?

    of course no one wants to die in the immediate future (excepting suicidals and suchlike), but think on the following: If there was no death, would we know what being alive means?

  • What does being alive mean, exactly? Do you know right now?

  • No. I wouldt have posted a question, if i knew its answer. Still I think that polarity is intrinsic to physical existence, thus to understand death one must look at life, and the other way round.

    I know what the biological definition of life and death are, every human has an intuitive knowledge of being alive, but no one knows how to prove that one is, right now, alive.

    so, my question is, whether there is a definition of life can be possible without having to define death as well.

  • i would say that everyone has the intuitive knowledge of the Concept of being alive hehe. In my view ''grasping'' life and death is achievable if one does not view them as polar opposites...

  • I agree, except that id like to add a thought. intuition of a concept, as opposed to knowledge, is subjective. Therefore I need the polar approach. Because, and not in spite of, intuitive grasping of death is impossible.

  • polarity is not intrinsic to physical existence, duality is. you don't lose consciousness when your body dies, you gain new consciousness. life as being vs. death is an illusion, both are states of being.

  • How do you know?

  • I do not mean to be condescending, but ...

    If the only thing giving your life meaning is the fact that you are going to die, you need to get a life.

  • no offense taken, but you missunderstood my point. what i wanted to point out is, that life would not be discernible as something unique and valuable without its opposite.

    Then also the consequence of eternal life, given that a species achieves it, implies that the only way the population can keep from exploding is either stopping to breed, or starting to kill each other.

    My death, someday, will be my final contribution to humanities ongoing surival; but not at all what gives my life a meaning.

  • You seem to be asserting that because immortals wouldn't die, they would have no reason to live. I consider that notion to be so utterly preposterous that I am rendered speechless. It's like suggesting that someone prove that their nose is not a pimple.

    And I should point out your own contradiction; You state that your death is "not at all what gives" your life meaning. Yet you do not understand how the same would also be true for immortals.

  • My point has nothing to do with meaning. Alas, Immortals can have fulfilled lives for all they want, yet, as death would become unknown to them, they would loose their view on life as something precious in itself. Let me make an example: A person grown and raised in abundance will not notice how priviledged they are, if they dont know poverty.

    So, for a society of immortals, death would become something theoretic, abstract. Thus, an immortal society would ultimately lead to stasis.

  • "Thus, an immortal society would ultimately lead to stasis. "

    LOL, it seemed OK last time I had a chance to observe one.

    BTW you could make the same "argument" against any progress. What would happen to the work ethics of farmers if they start using machinery?! Large families would cease to exist, values would change, it would be the end of the world! ;) Age old logical fallacy.

  • And where do you fit in the grand scheme of life? Is Google backing any of your endeavors? have you written any influential books? Have you been invited to speak at an influential event like TED?

    Didn't think so.

    FAIL.

  • Ok, 1st, this was supposed to be a reply "FAIL" that didn't get posted correctly.

    2nd, as coincidence would have it yes, google is backing an endeavor of mine.

    3rd, whether or not someone has been invited to talk at TED or not has zero bearing on what they are or aren't accomplishing in life.

    slow your roll.

  • There's no guarantee that would happen.

    Maybe your immortals would have an innate drive to lead fulfilled, moral lives, rich with the joys of exploration, discovery, and invention. Or maybe they just highly value socail interactions.

    Just because you can't die doesn't mean you have to lose an appreciation for existence.

    I think your poverty example is flawed. Having something does not necessarily mean you can't comprehend having (or being) it's opposite.

  • Take out an insurance policy worth $200,000. on your life. Make the beneficiary of that policy Alcor(dot)org. If you start this policy while you are young and healthy, it won't cost much.

    Oh, and keep a diary. Write an autobiography. Write down in detail all your favorite memories. Make some videos of yourself. This will all help later with memory restoration.

    In the mean time, eat well, exercise, get regular check ups, and think positively. You will live longer. ;-)

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  • Youtube Project Natal ... we are living in the future ...today

  • cool. im so ready for the singularity

  • Legalize weed and shrooms = promotes non-linear thinking

    What to do with non-linear thinking?

    Well...help out the people and the planet of course!

  • I don't think you're taking into account how technology also slows down exponentially Ray. Just because you had a computer the size of a room, and your cell phone is 1000 times more powerful doesn't necessarily mean that in the same amount of time there will be something less expensive and smaller and also 1000 times better. We reach plateaus. You talk about the primitive mind not understanding exponential growth. The same primitve mind does not understand chaos.

  • so, the reason why technology "slows down" is because of money. for example, we don't have an abundance of solar panels, because once everyone got one in their home, you couldn't sell anymore, and you couldn't sell anymore electricity. technology is approaching a point where money is becoming obsolete, because we have the ability to create abundance for everyone. but we can't because in the monetary system, "profit" is the bottom line, and those that have the most money make all the rules.

  • You need to read at least one of his books (find on-line in PDF) before making judgements about his speech..

  • there are no plateaus ....plateaus are only in your head because you no nothing about technology..you probably live in Texas taking care of your cows. You reached your plateau

  • No you don't understand what he's saying: It's impossible to reach a plateau with technology, because technology is not just one thing, e.g. Chip size. For every advance it makes other advances possible.

    Read wiki's list of emerging technologies and you'll quickly see that this exponential growth is unstoppable. Read his Ray's predictions and he shows how it's going to happen.

    You share with many a human desire to have things remain the same, but that desire is never rewarded by reality.

  • Why cant we 'skip' the smooth exponential progression. why is a HDD or CPU not invented that eclipses the previous by 10x or 100x

  • Billion fold increase since he was a student... Ha.

    It's just amazing when to think about it.

    and 3 dimensional self organising molecular circuits? Woh.

    I have no idea what that is, but recently I read from a reliable