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Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
Why does it matter if baby boomers are alive for this event or not? Whatever generation is alive will allow for 'reaching the same conclusions' unless his conclusions include some sort of 'self-obsession'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.22.58.46 ( talk) 03:29, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
The following (blockquoted) is a single sentence. I have edited it to make it somewhat understandable, but I am worried I may be removing some aspect of the article in editing it. It definitely needs to be reformed to not have so confusing a structure. Parenthetical remarks, three comma breaks, a dash, words like 'ameliorate', and obtuse phrasings make this a wall of impenetrable text. If my fix appears crazy, please revert or merge.
Original: (only showing the problem area)
In a rebuttal paper at KurzweilAI.net, Hameroff asserts that the quantum processing power required for consciousness is at an order of magnitude greater than what can be expressed through conventional systems of processing measurement - an argument that seems again to ignore Kurzweil's premise that accelerating returns in development of present technologies (as well as the inevitable paradigm shift by advent of another periodically) could ameliorate even such a barrier, a relevant example being more advanced a form of quantum computing capable of full neural emulation, at a scale and with accuracy of computation equivalent to the biological human brain.
I believe that 'ameliorate' was misused. It means "to aid" or "to improve", and is here said "to ameliorate even such a barrier", when it appears to be intended to read "help to bring down such a barrier". I have replaced "ameliorate" with "overcome".
Also, the final statement about "a more advanced form of quantum computing" doesn't have a reference. Did whoever wrote this just bullshit it? It really doesn't feel like anything beyond a vague, speculative bit of inanity.
Broke this enormous two-story paragraph into two smaller, more readable pieces.
Revised: (showing the whole subsection)
Kurzweil asserts that the functionality of the brain is quantifiable in terms of technology that we can build in the near future. Kurzweil's earlier books showed cerebral processing power as primarily the number of computations in a square inch multiplied by the area of the brain. In this update, however, he acknowledges the possibility of Penrose- Hameroff Microtubule quantum processing ( Orch-OR) and states that if his calculations of the processing capability of the brain are off by a factor of a billion, the double-exponential growth of technology will still catch up to it twenty-four years after his original projections. The Orch-OR theory is generally discredited among neuroscientists.
In a rebuttal paper [1], Hameroff asserts that the quantum processing power required for consciousness is at an order of magnitude greater than can be expressed through conventional systems of processing measurement. This argument seems to ignore Kurzweil's premise that accelerating returns in development of present technologies could, in a nominal period, overcome such a barrier. Additionally, other technologies could emerge which greatly lower the time required to reach the Singularity. A notable example would be more advanced forms of quantum computing capable of full neural emulation, which on a large enough scale, could function equivalently to the biological human brain.
One last thing - "processing power required for consciousness is at an order of magnitude greater than can be" - does this mean that the power required is precisely an order of magnitude greater than what can be expressed, or simply that it is beyond present expression? This is ambiguous, and I've decided to leave it that way - if someone knows the actual meaning, please make it concrete. Thanks!
99.225.15.55 (
talk)
10:29, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
I deleted 5-6 paragraphs under the sufficient medical advancements section. Its entirety was comprised of a book review lifted from: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17557088%255E5001986,00.html
Whomever edited that section previously failed to credit the original author, failed to paraphrase any of it (i.e. plagiarism) and much to the chagrin of the Wikipedia community: failed to hyperlink keywords.
At any rate, I have not read the book personally (only various chapters and reviews) -- however, to answer the questions raised below, it has been published as a couple of my friends own it. And for the record, the article still doesn't seem NPOV. If you want to criticize certain parts of it, create a Criticism section. - Tejano 05:32, 28 Dec 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia is about things/beliefs that exist or have existed, not that MIGHT exist in the future. There are a bazillion-and-one books in the process of being written - they don't deserve articles except in the most extraordinary of circumstances, and none seem to exist in this case. Once "Singularity" actually exists, we can write an article on it. - DavidWBrooks 17:11, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I believe the book is either finished, or just about finished, and there's no reason to believe that it'll be behind schedule in its release. Amoffit 17:25, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)
But it doesn't actually exist yet. The publisher could decide to not print it until, say, the Christmas season, or next spring due to obscure business reasons. Or the publisher could go out of business tomorrow and the book get lost in legal limbo. Or the title could be changed at the last minute. In any case, we should wait until the book actually exists before writing a story about it! - DavidWBrooks 18:49, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)
But it's such an anticipated release :) Andrew 19:24, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Ziff-Davis (the publishing company) doesn't even mention the book in a press release about a Kurzweil speech earlier this month (June) - in fact, I can't Google any news about its upcoming publication at all. He's been giving talks with that title for years - can you point me to some evidence that it is actually coming out? - DavidWBrooks 00:22, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Truth be told I just took the information from the wikipedia Ray Kurzweil page, which mentioned it was to be released in 2004. It looks like you've removed mention to this book from that entry.. But it was highlighted and I thought there would be an entry and when I found that there wasn't it was, I believed, my duty to add it.. There must be a lot of people awaiting this release and so little mentions on the internet, it's baffling actually!
On this webpage; http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0235.html?m%3D1 the first video is an interview with Ray Kurzweil that mentions The Singularity is Near is due in 2003. So I guess it's behind schedule at this point. (I didn't have time to listen to the whole thing or even much of it) Andrew 4:24, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I don't mean to be so pompous and annoying about this, but wikipedia is getting close to the point where some people use it as source material - and so we need to be careful about putting in material that may not be true. There are enough ULs floating around the Net! ... anyway, how about re-writing this article to talk about the singularity idea he's been talking about, and just put a sentence at the end saying that he has long had a plan to turn it into a book, or something like that? - DavidWBrooks 12:33, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I've modified the entry to indicate that it is not to be taken as 'gospel'. Here's another link that mentions kurzweil talking about his book (in 2003 though). http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0476.html here's a wired article from a little over a year ago mentioning it: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.04/start.html?pg=12 -- Andrew 19:33, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I turned the article around: The talks are definitely real, so I started with them. The book is possible, so I moved it to the end. - DavidWBrooks 13:35, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)
But is it here? It's sept 22 in Europe, for hours. What's holding it up? GangofOne 05:11, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
Is the title a parody of apocalyptic prediction, or is he serious. If he is, it will be an easy shot for opponents Reply to David Latapie 20:14, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
On page 265 Kurxweil makes the very common mistake of attributing flight to the Bernoulli Effect while the Coanda Effect is more pertinent. If flight really depended on the shape of the wing as Bernoulli advocates believe, then airplanes could not fly upside down. But they can. Karpinski 19:29, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
I moved it here, as it should be discussed and wikified. Besides, anything writtin in the first person (I personally would not bet...) is not encyclopedic.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:57, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Ray's book has several errors with regard to his claims about the increases in human life expectancy. His table on page 324 backed up by endnote 40 for chapter 6 on pages 587-588 is worrisome.
" "Because their book did not mention the average life expectancy of an ancient Egyptian, I wrote to Ms. Janssen and asked for her opinion. She returned, "The average life expectancy FROM BIRTH was 25 for men, and 21 for women – but these are figures obtained from Graeco-Roman census lists. However, in the New Kingdom I think that it would not have been much different. Obviously if you exclude the high infant mortality, and go to life expectancy at 1 year, then the figures would be much higher - at least 33 for men and 30 for women - the figures given in a recent general book by Teeter and Brewer." [10] [11] "
"It would be nice to compare the life expectancies for Europe in the years after 1300 with those of communities before 1300, to test further the claim made above that material conditions did not improve between the Neolithic and 1800. Unfortunately while it is possible to estimate the age at death for skeletal remains no reliable way has been found to translate these estimates into estimates of life expectancy at a given age. Skeletal material from the very young and very 4 old does not seem to survive well in the ground, so that the surviving remains are unrepresentative of the population as a whole."
See Life Expectancy and notice that large changes occur with the reduction of infant mortality since the term usually is interpreted as life expectancy at birth. -- Karpinski 19:31, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
From the article:
This is true of any exponential growth, always. If the rate of return was less than exponential, the growth cannot be exponential. CRGreathouse ( t | c) 12:50, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't believe this is correct. "rate of return" is the first derivative, and an exponential return could be x^2, while the RoR is therefore x, thus linear. -- TimOertel 18:28, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
x^2 is a quadratic, not an exponential. Exponential growth: f(x)=a^x. df/dx (the derivative of a^x) = ln(a) * a^x, thus also exponential.
I came to the discussion to page specifically to see if anyone else had noticed that. I agree: the rate of change of a function is exponential if and only if the function itself is exponential. 94.101.145.114 ( talk) 10:50, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
In the article and the work itself. Wrt. to the former, the book has nine chapters and more than 600 pages of which chapters one and two are only a hundred pages. The various arguments and predictions could be picked apart critically as I have done on my user page for Ch. 6. Lycurgus ( talk) 18:16, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Since when is "luddite" synonymous with "green anarchism?" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.4.181.41 ( talk) 02:48, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
One of the postulates claimes Acceptance and striving for the idea of living forever. There is the problem of generalization here. Who is it that have to accept and strive? In practice, it isn't everyone. As soon as someone will do it, it is enough. Because of that, this is unavoidable?
What does that prediction mean? 1013 bits roughly is one terabyte, and that's the capacity of your average hard disk drive today. So what is supposed to be in 2018? -- bender235 ( talk) 23:45, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
The article says that in 2045, $1000 buys a computer with the computational power of 1 billion people. Is this $1,000 in today's dollars, or in whatever the worth $1,000 will be in 2045? -- Let Us Update Special:Ancientpages. 21:29, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
As we have no real way of predicting the state of the economy in 2045, we would have to assume that his is not adujusted for inflation/deflation, and is $1,000 in modern day dollars. -Nova —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.12.34.197 ( talk) 16:35, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
Does anyone else think that User:74.66.129.192's contributions (such as [1]) are worthwhile? I don't want to break 3RR here, but come on. I don't think Kurzweil ever used this kind of language. — Keenan Pepper 18:46, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
To me it seems like this article is more like a reprinting of the book in a condensed form, not an encylopedia article about the book. Can some of the detail be taken out and more info added, from reliable secondary sources, about the importance and influence of the book? Borock ( talk) 05:20, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
I propose that DNA error be merged into The Singularity Is Near. On my reading of DNA error, that article is almost entirely a summary of a portion of the theories set out in this book. Otherwise, it seems speculative and does not read as a stand-alone subject. Agent 86 ( talk) 01:55, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
This is a good overview of the book, but by lacking any criticisms of skeptics, it comes across as too accepting and non-impartial.
For example, in the Predictions section, after mentioning Kurzweil's prediction that by 2010 "Computers will disappear as distinct physical objects" this article added "meaning many will have nontraditional shapes and/or will be embedded in clothing and everyday objects."
Kurzweil didn't write that MANY computers will have "nontraditional shapes;" he said that "computers will disappear as distinct physical objects." That's a very different claim. After all, many computers have had nontraditional shapes, having been built into coffeemakers, exercise machines and so on, for a very long time now, so that wouldn't be a "prediction" at all.
Kurzweil's overly-optimistic claim that by 2010 "Displays built into our eyeglasses will provide full-immersion audio-visual virtual reality" was watered down in this article to "Full-immersion audio-visual virtual reality will exist." Well again, depending on how you define "full-immersion," audio-visual virtual reality has existed for over twenty years now, so that obviously was not Kurzweil's actual prediction.
Kurzweil's critics don't say that the things he claims are impossible, just that he has the time frame wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TimMagic ( talk • contribs) 16:09, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
If there is no objection I will add MiszaBot with the same parameters as was done on Talk:Ray Kurzweil. -- Silas Ropac ( talk) 21:20, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
I have added MiszaBat with to archive thread > 90d old. -- Silas Ropac ( talk) 21:18, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
It seems to me that this article, along with a lot of similar pieces, use different definitions of singularity. This article has a link to technological singularity (when machines become superintelligent), but the author seems to be more referring to biological singularity (when technology advances far enough to download human consciousness into machines, allowing people to become immortal). 143.229.6.149 ( talk) 18:30, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Per the merger proposal that's been in the article for over a week, I plan to real soon now delete the predictions in this page. Instead like in The Age of Intelligent Machines we'll direct the reader to the main predictions article, and then include a small paragraph of highlights.
The reason for doing this is right now the book article and predictions article completely overlap. This duplication is very unhealthy for reader and editor alike. Eliminating the duplication is the first step, then focusing on cleanup of the predictions in the prediction article is next.
Any comments or better ideas please post to the merger proposal. Thanks. Silas Ropac ( talk) 15:10, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
This page is a rather detailed summary of the book, which is fine, but shouldn't there also be some criticism somewhere? Or at least a link? It's just that people who subscribe to his ideas deserve to also be exposed to careful outside analysis of them. Personally, I think many of his assumptions and assertions are deeply unjustified and much of his reasoning is false... but I don't want to do OR here, does anyone know of a solid body of criticism of this work? -- Jonathan Stray ( talk) 11:13, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
The rate of expansion of the universe is increasing which may make it difficult for the machines to convert the universe (maybe the universe is going into self preservation mode) and even so faster than light travel is not really possible. -- Good luck bots —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.21.195.230 ( talk) 03:03, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
"He expands on Moore's Law with models showing that not only the return, but the rate of return is increasing exponentially." Some one more mathematically inclined, can maybe answer this question, can the rate of return be exponential if the return is exponential too? -- Lightenoughtotravel ( talk) 21:43, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
In 2030 I might be able to download my brain into a computer, but I bet I still won't have my rocket car. As a molecular biologist, I think the biology in this article is way too optimistic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.67.255.152 ( talk) 21:24, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
The idea of a Universal singularity is just downright silly... What is the purpose of converting all material in the universe into nanomachine super-computers once all the laws of physics are understood as observable truths... It would just be wasted power, serving no purpose and learning nothing... Do we need to know the exact extent of all matter in the universe or is that just useless knowledge... Must we map every planet and star of every galaxy, every crack in every surface of every planet? Besides that, what about the limits of communication being the speed of light, (even if light was not constant, which as far as we know it is) having a giant brain computer spanning the distance of Earth to Mars would create a communication gap of nearly two hours. Such a being, even a very smart one, would not be able to react quickly to external stimuli, and could be easily destroyed, as each particle could not possibly hold all the necessary information needed for the survival of the whole. In such a case, multiple copies and versions of itself would have to be created and replicated so that it could efficiently communicate with all the parts of itself. This would mean creating individual super computers as each one's experience would be essentially different, thus IT WOULD NOT BE A SINGULARITY BUT INDIVIDUAL COMPUTERS COMMUNICATING AS A LARGER NETWORK. Fin. (unsigned)
I agree that a 'criticism' section is well-warranted. The article as-is reads like an advertisement and summary of the book, and many of the claims seem ludicrous to me. Is there an existing, reasoned critique that we can point to? Several, preferably. 152.51.56.1 ( talk) 14:55, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
A review that's not very critical, but maybe some some usable stuff: Abou Farman, The Mode of Prediction: Review of The Singularity is Near, Anthropology Now, Vol 2 No 3 Dec 2010. I found the full text of this via google, at an unofficial site I won't link to. Silas Ropac ( talk) 16:12, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
The predictions section in this article duplicates The Singularity is Near section of Predictions made by Ray Kurzweil. There are slight incidental differences, but it is 95% the same. We should not have the same predictions recounted, slightly differently, in two different places. Either this article should defer to Predictions made by Ray Kurzweil or vice versa. Silas Ropac ( talk) 16:17, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
This is resolved see "deleting predictions from this article" below. Silas Ropac ( talk) 06:00, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Today we have long summaries of Postulates, Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. And nothing on Chapters 3-9. We should cut down the existing there, and add something for the rest. Probably should not be 1 section per chapter, but needs to touch on them. Silas Ropac ( talk) 16:33, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
Structure is in place to get rid of chapter-by-chapter summaries. Now last chapters should be summarized and then stuff should be smooshed together and re-ordered to be a cohesive whole-book summary. Then new content should be added such as a Background (mention other singularity books like Moravec) and much more reception/criticism bring in as many outside realiable sources as possible. Silas Ropac ( talk) 05:58, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
The "Postulates" section should go away. First 4 were added in Nov 2005 by banned user User:Zephram Stark with the heading "All four of Kurzweil's primary postulates must be correct in order for Kurzweil's assertion that he will live forever to be true." see this diff. The book is not about Kurzweil's assertion that he will live forever, so it is weird to build a summary around the idea. I don't think they serve as a very good summary of the book or of Kurzweil's arguments. It's kind of just this random section at the start of the article. The DNA errors section perhaps should be salvaged in some form, looks like a lot of work went in it. Likely that is from Chapter 3: GNR. I will just move it to Chapter 3 probably. Any comments? Silas Ropac ( talk) 19:41, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
This is done, it is away. Did not save the DNA errors part, way too details. Silas Ropac ( talk) 05:59, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Maybe some worth using? Silas Ropac ( talk) 16:04, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
The content section of the article has completely changed in the last 2 weeks. Please read the old and new and compare, make sure it is heading in the right direction. I have made a lot of changes with no input, I want some validation I'm not making things worse.
The goals for the new version were:
Let me know how things read now. What can be added or changed or improved? Or please just have it and make changes. I stubbed in a Background and Reception section which are next goals, after content is settled. Silas Ropac ( talk) 04:12, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for your work here: 2 tips on my first reading (note these may have been a problem before your edits, so I'm not blaming you):
In general, using an WP:INUNIVERSE style, in my understanding, is not suitable for theoretical/scientific/historical/speculative content, as it blurs the line between fact and opinion. There are many examples of both issues. I'd be happy to provide more examples and/or check any progress you make on addressing them. Thanks again for your improvements! Ocaasi t | c 03:24, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 |
Why does it matter if baby boomers are alive for this event or not? Whatever generation is alive will allow for 'reaching the same conclusions' unless his conclusions include some sort of 'self-obsession'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.22.58.46 ( talk) 03:29, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
The following (blockquoted) is a single sentence. I have edited it to make it somewhat understandable, but I am worried I may be removing some aspect of the article in editing it. It definitely needs to be reformed to not have so confusing a structure. Parenthetical remarks, three comma breaks, a dash, words like 'ameliorate', and obtuse phrasings make this a wall of impenetrable text. If my fix appears crazy, please revert or merge.
Original: (only showing the problem area)
In a rebuttal paper at KurzweilAI.net, Hameroff asserts that the quantum processing power required for consciousness is at an order of magnitude greater than what can be expressed through conventional systems of processing measurement - an argument that seems again to ignore Kurzweil's premise that accelerating returns in development of present technologies (as well as the inevitable paradigm shift by advent of another periodically) could ameliorate even such a barrier, a relevant example being more advanced a form of quantum computing capable of full neural emulation, at a scale and with accuracy of computation equivalent to the biological human brain.
I believe that 'ameliorate' was misused. It means "to aid" or "to improve", and is here said "to ameliorate even such a barrier", when it appears to be intended to read "help to bring down such a barrier". I have replaced "ameliorate" with "overcome".
Also, the final statement about "a more advanced form of quantum computing" doesn't have a reference. Did whoever wrote this just bullshit it? It really doesn't feel like anything beyond a vague, speculative bit of inanity.
Broke this enormous two-story paragraph into two smaller, more readable pieces.
Revised: (showing the whole subsection)
Kurzweil asserts that the functionality of the brain is quantifiable in terms of technology that we can build in the near future. Kurzweil's earlier books showed cerebral processing power as primarily the number of computations in a square inch multiplied by the area of the brain. In this update, however, he acknowledges the possibility of Penrose- Hameroff Microtubule quantum processing ( Orch-OR) and states that if his calculations of the processing capability of the brain are off by a factor of a billion, the double-exponential growth of technology will still catch up to it twenty-four years after his original projections. The Orch-OR theory is generally discredited among neuroscientists.
In a rebuttal paper [1], Hameroff asserts that the quantum processing power required for consciousness is at an order of magnitude greater than can be expressed through conventional systems of processing measurement. This argument seems to ignore Kurzweil's premise that accelerating returns in development of present technologies could, in a nominal period, overcome such a barrier. Additionally, other technologies could emerge which greatly lower the time required to reach the Singularity. A notable example would be more advanced forms of quantum computing capable of full neural emulation, which on a large enough scale, could function equivalently to the biological human brain.
One last thing - "processing power required for consciousness is at an order of magnitude greater than can be" - does this mean that the power required is precisely an order of magnitude greater than what can be expressed, or simply that it is beyond present expression? This is ambiguous, and I've decided to leave it that way - if someone knows the actual meaning, please make it concrete. Thanks!
99.225.15.55 (
talk)
10:29, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
I deleted 5-6 paragraphs under the sufficient medical advancements section. Its entirety was comprised of a book review lifted from: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17557088%255E5001986,00.html
Whomever edited that section previously failed to credit the original author, failed to paraphrase any of it (i.e. plagiarism) and much to the chagrin of the Wikipedia community: failed to hyperlink keywords.
At any rate, I have not read the book personally (only various chapters and reviews) -- however, to answer the questions raised below, it has been published as a couple of my friends own it. And for the record, the article still doesn't seem NPOV. If you want to criticize certain parts of it, create a Criticism section. - Tejano 05:32, 28 Dec 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia is about things/beliefs that exist or have existed, not that MIGHT exist in the future. There are a bazillion-and-one books in the process of being written - they don't deserve articles except in the most extraordinary of circumstances, and none seem to exist in this case. Once "Singularity" actually exists, we can write an article on it. - DavidWBrooks 17:11, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I believe the book is either finished, or just about finished, and there's no reason to believe that it'll be behind schedule in its release. Amoffit 17:25, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)
But it doesn't actually exist yet. The publisher could decide to not print it until, say, the Christmas season, or next spring due to obscure business reasons. Or the publisher could go out of business tomorrow and the book get lost in legal limbo. Or the title could be changed at the last minute. In any case, we should wait until the book actually exists before writing a story about it! - DavidWBrooks 18:49, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)
But it's such an anticipated release :) Andrew 19:24, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Ziff-Davis (the publishing company) doesn't even mention the book in a press release about a Kurzweil speech earlier this month (June) - in fact, I can't Google any news about its upcoming publication at all. He's been giving talks with that title for years - can you point me to some evidence that it is actually coming out? - DavidWBrooks 00:22, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Truth be told I just took the information from the wikipedia Ray Kurzweil page, which mentioned it was to be released in 2004. It looks like you've removed mention to this book from that entry.. But it was highlighted and I thought there would be an entry and when I found that there wasn't it was, I believed, my duty to add it.. There must be a lot of people awaiting this release and so little mentions on the internet, it's baffling actually!
On this webpage; http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0235.html?m%3D1 the first video is an interview with Ray Kurzweil that mentions The Singularity is Near is due in 2003. So I guess it's behind schedule at this point. (I didn't have time to listen to the whole thing or even much of it) Andrew 4:24, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I don't mean to be so pompous and annoying about this, but wikipedia is getting close to the point where some people use it as source material - and so we need to be careful about putting in material that may not be true. There are enough ULs floating around the Net! ... anyway, how about re-writing this article to talk about the singularity idea he's been talking about, and just put a sentence at the end saying that he has long had a plan to turn it into a book, or something like that? - DavidWBrooks 12:33, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I've modified the entry to indicate that it is not to be taken as 'gospel'. Here's another link that mentions kurzweil talking about his book (in 2003 though). http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0476.html here's a wired article from a little over a year ago mentioning it: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.04/start.html?pg=12 -- Andrew 19:33, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I turned the article around: The talks are definitely real, so I started with them. The book is possible, so I moved it to the end. - DavidWBrooks 13:35, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)
But is it here? It's sept 22 in Europe, for hours. What's holding it up? GangofOne 05:11, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
Is the title a parody of apocalyptic prediction, or is he serious. If he is, it will be an easy shot for opponents Reply to David Latapie 20:14, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
On page 265 Kurxweil makes the very common mistake of attributing flight to the Bernoulli Effect while the Coanda Effect is more pertinent. If flight really depended on the shape of the wing as Bernoulli advocates believe, then airplanes could not fly upside down. But they can. Karpinski 19:29, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
I moved it here, as it should be discussed and wikified. Besides, anything writtin in the first person (I personally would not bet...) is not encyclopedic.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:57, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Ray's book has several errors with regard to his claims about the increases in human life expectancy. His table on page 324 backed up by endnote 40 for chapter 6 on pages 587-588 is worrisome.
" "Because their book did not mention the average life expectancy of an ancient Egyptian, I wrote to Ms. Janssen and asked for her opinion. She returned, "The average life expectancy FROM BIRTH was 25 for men, and 21 for women – but these are figures obtained from Graeco-Roman census lists. However, in the New Kingdom I think that it would not have been much different. Obviously if you exclude the high infant mortality, and go to life expectancy at 1 year, then the figures would be much higher - at least 33 for men and 30 for women - the figures given in a recent general book by Teeter and Brewer." [10] [11] "
"It would be nice to compare the life expectancies for Europe in the years after 1300 with those of communities before 1300, to test further the claim made above that material conditions did not improve between the Neolithic and 1800. Unfortunately while it is possible to estimate the age at death for skeletal remains no reliable way has been found to translate these estimates into estimates of life expectancy at a given age. Skeletal material from the very young and very 4 old does not seem to survive well in the ground, so that the surviving remains are unrepresentative of the population as a whole."
See Life Expectancy and notice that large changes occur with the reduction of infant mortality since the term usually is interpreted as life expectancy at birth. -- Karpinski 19:31, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
From the article:
This is true of any exponential growth, always. If the rate of return was less than exponential, the growth cannot be exponential. CRGreathouse ( t | c) 12:50, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't believe this is correct. "rate of return" is the first derivative, and an exponential return could be x^2, while the RoR is therefore x, thus linear. -- TimOertel 18:28, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
x^2 is a quadratic, not an exponential. Exponential growth: f(x)=a^x. df/dx (the derivative of a^x) = ln(a) * a^x, thus also exponential.
I came to the discussion to page specifically to see if anyone else had noticed that. I agree: the rate of change of a function is exponential if and only if the function itself is exponential. 94.101.145.114 ( talk) 10:50, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
In the article and the work itself. Wrt. to the former, the book has nine chapters and more than 600 pages of which chapters one and two are only a hundred pages. The various arguments and predictions could be picked apart critically as I have done on my user page for Ch. 6. Lycurgus ( talk) 18:16, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Since when is "luddite" synonymous with "green anarchism?" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.4.181.41 ( talk) 02:48, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
One of the postulates claimes Acceptance and striving for the idea of living forever. There is the problem of generalization here. Who is it that have to accept and strive? In practice, it isn't everyone. As soon as someone will do it, it is enough. Because of that, this is unavoidable?
What does that prediction mean? 1013 bits roughly is one terabyte, and that's the capacity of your average hard disk drive today. So what is supposed to be in 2018? -- bender235 ( talk) 23:45, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
The article says that in 2045, $1000 buys a computer with the computational power of 1 billion people. Is this $1,000 in today's dollars, or in whatever the worth $1,000 will be in 2045? -- Let Us Update Special:Ancientpages. 21:29, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
As we have no real way of predicting the state of the economy in 2045, we would have to assume that his is not adujusted for inflation/deflation, and is $1,000 in modern day dollars. -Nova —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.12.34.197 ( talk) 16:35, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
Does anyone else think that User:74.66.129.192's contributions (such as [1]) are worthwhile? I don't want to break 3RR here, but come on. I don't think Kurzweil ever used this kind of language. — Keenan Pepper 18:46, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
To me it seems like this article is more like a reprinting of the book in a condensed form, not an encylopedia article about the book. Can some of the detail be taken out and more info added, from reliable secondary sources, about the importance and influence of the book? Borock ( talk) 05:20, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
I propose that DNA error be merged into The Singularity Is Near. On my reading of DNA error, that article is almost entirely a summary of a portion of the theories set out in this book. Otherwise, it seems speculative and does not read as a stand-alone subject. Agent 86 ( talk) 01:55, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
This is a good overview of the book, but by lacking any criticisms of skeptics, it comes across as too accepting and non-impartial.
For example, in the Predictions section, after mentioning Kurzweil's prediction that by 2010 "Computers will disappear as distinct physical objects" this article added "meaning many will have nontraditional shapes and/or will be embedded in clothing and everyday objects."
Kurzweil didn't write that MANY computers will have "nontraditional shapes;" he said that "computers will disappear as distinct physical objects." That's a very different claim. After all, many computers have had nontraditional shapes, having been built into coffeemakers, exercise machines and so on, for a very long time now, so that wouldn't be a "prediction" at all.
Kurzweil's overly-optimistic claim that by 2010 "Displays built into our eyeglasses will provide full-immersion audio-visual virtual reality" was watered down in this article to "Full-immersion audio-visual virtual reality will exist." Well again, depending on how you define "full-immersion," audio-visual virtual reality has existed for over twenty years now, so that obviously was not Kurzweil's actual prediction.
Kurzweil's critics don't say that the things he claims are impossible, just that he has the time frame wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TimMagic ( talk • contribs) 16:09, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
If there is no objection I will add MiszaBot with the same parameters as was done on Talk:Ray Kurzweil. -- Silas Ropac ( talk) 21:20, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
I have added MiszaBat with to archive thread > 90d old. -- Silas Ropac ( talk) 21:18, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
It seems to me that this article, along with a lot of similar pieces, use different definitions of singularity. This article has a link to technological singularity (when machines become superintelligent), but the author seems to be more referring to biological singularity (when technology advances far enough to download human consciousness into machines, allowing people to become immortal). 143.229.6.149 ( talk) 18:30, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
Per the merger proposal that's been in the article for over a week, I plan to real soon now delete the predictions in this page. Instead like in The Age of Intelligent Machines we'll direct the reader to the main predictions article, and then include a small paragraph of highlights.
The reason for doing this is right now the book article and predictions article completely overlap. This duplication is very unhealthy for reader and editor alike. Eliminating the duplication is the first step, then focusing on cleanup of the predictions in the prediction article is next.
Any comments or better ideas please post to the merger proposal. Thanks. Silas Ropac ( talk) 15:10, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
This page is a rather detailed summary of the book, which is fine, but shouldn't there also be some criticism somewhere? Or at least a link? It's just that people who subscribe to his ideas deserve to also be exposed to careful outside analysis of them. Personally, I think many of his assumptions and assertions are deeply unjustified and much of his reasoning is false... but I don't want to do OR here, does anyone know of a solid body of criticism of this work? -- Jonathan Stray ( talk) 11:13, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
The rate of expansion of the universe is increasing which may make it difficult for the machines to convert the universe (maybe the universe is going into self preservation mode) and even so faster than light travel is not really possible. -- Good luck bots —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.21.195.230 ( talk) 03:03, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
"He expands on Moore's Law with models showing that not only the return, but the rate of return is increasing exponentially." Some one more mathematically inclined, can maybe answer this question, can the rate of return be exponential if the return is exponential too? -- Lightenoughtotravel ( talk) 21:43, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
In 2030 I might be able to download my brain into a computer, but I bet I still won't have my rocket car. As a molecular biologist, I think the biology in this article is way too optimistic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.67.255.152 ( talk) 21:24, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
The idea of a Universal singularity is just downright silly... What is the purpose of converting all material in the universe into nanomachine super-computers once all the laws of physics are understood as observable truths... It would just be wasted power, serving no purpose and learning nothing... Do we need to know the exact extent of all matter in the universe or is that just useless knowledge... Must we map every planet and star of every galaxy, every crack in every surface of every planet? Besides that, what about the limits of communication being the speed of light, (even if light was not constant, which as far as we know it is) having a giant brain computer spanning the distance of Earth to Mars would create a communication gap of nearly two hours. Such a being, even a very smart one, would not be able to react quickly to external stimuli, and could be easily destroyed, as each particle could not possibly hold all the necessary information needed for the survival of the whole. In such a case, multiple copies and versions of itself would have to be created and replicated so that it could efficiently communicate with all the parts of itself. This would mean creating individual super computers as each one's experience would be essentially different, thus IT WOULD NOT BE A SINGULARITY BUT INDIVIDUAL COMPUTERS COMMUNICATING AS A LARGER NETWORK. Fin. (unsigned)
I agree that a 'criticism' section is well-warranted. The article as-is reads like an advertisement and summary of the book, and many of the claims seem ludicrous to me. Is there an existing, reasoned critique that we can point to? Several, preferably. 152.51.56.1 ( talk) 14:55, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
A review that's not very critical, but maybe some some usable stuff: Abou Farman, The Mode of Prediction: Review of The Singularity is Near, Anthropology Now, Vol 2 No 3 Dec 2010. I found the full text of this via google, at an unofficial site I won't link to. Silas Ropac ( talk) 16:12, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
The predictions section in this article duplicates The Singularity is Near section of Predictions made by Ray Kurzweil. There are slight incidental differences, but it is 95% the same. We should not have the same predictions recounted, slightly differently, in two different places. Either this article should defer to Predictions made by Ray Kurzweil or vice versa. Silas Ropac ( talk) 16:17, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
This is resolved see "deleting predictions from this article" below. Silas Ropac ( talk) 06:00, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Today we have long summaries of Postulates, Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. And nothing on Chapters 3-9. We should cut down the existing there, and add something for the rest. Probably should not be 1 section per chapter, but needs to touch on them. Silas Ropac ( talk) 16:33, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
Structure is in place to get rid of chapter-by-chapter summaries. Now last chapters should be summarized and then stuff should be smooshed together and re-ordered to be a cohesive whole-book summary. Then new content should be added such as a Background (mention other singularity books like Moravec) and much more reception/criticism bring in as many outside realiable sources as possible. Silas Ropac ( talk) 05:58, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
The "Postulates" section should go away. First 4 were added in Nov 2005 by banned user User:Zephram Stark with the heading "All four of Kurzweil's primary postulates must be correct in order for Kurzweil's assertion that he will live forever to be true." see this diff. The book is not about Kurzweil's assertion that he will live forever, so it is weird to build a summary around the idea. I don't think they serve as a very good summary of the book or of Kurzweil's arguments. It's kind of just this random section at the start of the article. The DNA errors section perhaps should be salvaged in some form, looks like a lot of work went in it. Likely that is from Chapter 3: GNR. I will just move it to Chapter 3 probably. Any comments? Silas Ropac ( talk) 19:41, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
This is done, it is away. Did not save the DNA errors part, way too details. Silas Ropac ( talk) 05:59, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Maybe some worth using? Silas Ropac ( talk) 16:04, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
The content section of the article has completely changed in the last 2 weeks. Please read the old and new and compare, make sure it is heading in the right direction. I have made a lot of changes with no input, I want some validation I'm not making things worse.
The goals for the new version were:
Let me know how things read now. What can be added or changed or improved? Or please just have it and make changes. I stubbed in a Background and Reception section which are next goals, after content is settled. Silas Ropac ( talk) 04:12, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for your work here: 2 tips on my first reading (note these may have been a problem before your edits, so I'm not blaming you):
In general, using an WP:INUNIVERSE style, in my understanding, is not suitable for theoretical/scientific/historical/speculative content, as it blurs the line between fact and opinion. There are many examples of both issues. I'd be happy to provide more examples and/or check any progress you make on addressing them. Thanks again for your improvements! Ocaasi t | c 03:24, 19 February 2013 (UTC)