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When Humans Transcend Biology
by Ray KurzweilThe bestselling author of The Age of Spiritual Machines presents the next stage of his compelling view of the future: the merging of humans and machines.
The great inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil is one of the best-known
and controversial advocates for the role of machines in the future of
humanity. In his latest, thrilling foray into the future, he envisions
an event — the "singularity" — in which technological change becomes so
rapid and so profound that our bodies and brains will merge with our
machines.
The Singularity Is Near portrays what
life will be like after this event—a human-machine civilization where
our experiences shift from real reality to virtual reality and where
our intelligence becomes nonbiological and trillions of times more
powerful than unaided human intelligence. In practical terms, this
means that human aging and pollution will be reversed, world hunger
will be solved, and our bodies and environment transformed by
nanotechnology to overcome the limitations of biology, including
death.
We will be able to create virtually any physical product just from
information, resulting in radical wealth creation. In addition to
outlining these fantastic changes, Kurzweil also considers their
social and philosophical ramifications. With its radical but
optimistic view of the course of human development,
The
Singularity Is Near is certain to be one of the most widely
discussed and provocative books of 2005.
Prologue
The Power of Ideas
I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human
heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain
unfolding to success.
—Nikola Tesla, 1896, inventor of alternating current.
At the age of five, I had the idea that I would become an inventor. I had the notion
that inventions could change the world. When other kids were wondering aloud
what they wanted to be, I already had the conceit that I knew what I was going
to be. The rocket ship to the moon that I was then building (almost a decade
before President Kennedy's challenge to the nation) did not work out. But at
around the time I turned eight, my inventions became a little more realistic,
such as a robotic theater with mechanical linkages that could move scenery and
characters in and out of view, and virtual baseball games.
Having fled the Holocaust, my parents, both artists, wanted a
more worldly, less provincial, ...
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