$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', '
')To be a doomer, you have to believe that this basic human drive will somehow stop working in the service of invention, adaptation, new insight, etc.
PeakOil is You
You 2.0
Re: You 2.0
by Carlhole » Tue 01 Dec 2009, 18:19:48
But this has happened before, with the decline of past civilizations there is usually a loss of accumulated knowledge. So it's not like we're just making this up.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', '
')This impetus creates an evolutionary pressure on mankind - which responds using science/technology.
And which ultimately comes up a day late and a dollar short.
If that were true, we wouldn't be here. Because evolutionary pressure has already worked for millions of years. Knowledge, awareness, anticipation -- these are gifts of a long, proven evolutionary history. It has become a basic drive of the species because it has been so successful an adaptation.
Rome's collapse didn't stop anything.
- Carlhole
Re: You 2.0
by Carlhole » Tue 01 Dec 2009, 19:07:32
Did Jules Verne accurately portray his future - the 20th century? Did he get a couple of things right and was he more or less on the right track? I think we remember him as such.
So it is, when anyone makes forecasts about the future. You only get a hazy idea of it even when you're guessing pretty good. So it is with anything in human affairs. So it is with peak oil.
With that in mind, Kurzweil puts his forecasts down in print for all the world to see "In The Age Of Spiritual Machines". I have to agree with him about the operations of evolution he talks about in the book - not only in the natural world, but in labs on computers and such.
Look for it at the library. "In The Age Of... Machines" is older than his most recent book "The Singularity Is Near", but I like it better. Right up front, Kurzweil says that making long-range forecasts about human affairs is fraught with peril, but he wanted to have the same courage as Jules Verne did. So he wrote the book, which is his description of what the rest of the century will look like given his certainties about the progression towards machine intelligences and other advents.
Verne was probably just looking at what was likely to come down the pike given the amazing technology trends he was seeing in the early 20th century. This time around, it looks increasingly like nano-technology, advanced computing, AI and bio sciences will change the world.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Amazon Reviewer', 'W')OW, what a book, what a magnificent book. There are very few people in the same league as Ray Kurzweil... You read it for the ideas, the unique, fabulous thought provoking ideas that the author presents.
So it is, when anyone makes forecasts about the future. You only get a hazy idea of it even when you're guessing pretty good. So it is with anything in human affairs. So it is with peak oil.
With that in mind, Kurzweil puts his forecasts down in print for all the world to see "In The Age Of Spiritual Machines". I have to agree with him about the operations of evolution he talks about in the book - not only in the natural world, but in labs on computers and such.
Look for it at the library. "In The Age Of... Machines" is older than his most recent book "The Singularity Is Near", but I like it better. Right up front, Kurzweil says that making long-range forecasts about human affairs is fraught with peril, but he wanted to have the same courage as Jules Verne did. So he wrote the book, which is his description of what the rest of the century will look like given his certainties about the progression towards machine intelligences and other advents.
Verne was probably just looking at what was likely to come down the pike given the amazing technology trends he was seeing in the early 20th century. This time around, it looks increasingly like nano-technology, advanced computing, AI and bio sciences will change the world.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Amazon Reviewer', 'W')OW, what a book, what a magnificent book. There are very few people in the same league as Ray Kurzweil... You read it for the ideas, the unique, fabulous thought provoking ideas that the author presents.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') mention this because the ideas that Kurzweil is presenting are so COMPELLING, that they reach out and grab you. Every page has something new and important that you need to know if you are into Futurology, and who isn't. The book basically lays out a chronological timetable of the future of computers, artificial intelligence and when you really come right down to it, MACHINE INTELLIGENCE.
Kurzweil believes that eventually machine intelligence will overtake human intelligence, and he lays it out step-by-step, and decade-by-decade. He also gives the reader an overview of the growth of computer power via Moore's Law since the inception.
Reverse engineering the human brain and running various kinds of virtual brains on supercomputers...
Implanting intellectual aids in the brain which temselves are controlled by thought...
- these things are beginning to happen now. It's not as if I am referring to something in a 1960's sci-fi novel.
- Carlhole