The Singularity

Ray Kurzweil was raised Unitarian. Now he's Singularitarian. Captain Kirk and Stevie Wonder are co-congregants.

young at heart

The fictional Thomas Kurton, part Ray Kurzweil ("Humans Are So Yesterday")and Aubrey de Grey, part Craig Venter, part Jean-Paul Sartre ("existence precedes essence") thinks aging is a disease. He's desperate to cure it. His rival colleague is closer to the mark, I think: the disease  is desperation itself, the cure is generational. There are qualities of childhood that can make us better, if we don't kill them first. If we don't kill ourselves.

Aging is not what's really killing us. That's an immature equation. But we can still reasonably hope to die before we get old. Generosity again:

final reports begin

We had a great start today with final report presentations. Alex M. offered a thoughtful comparison of Tolkien's Ring with Plato's (Gyges'). Alex S. presented a very thorough and, to some, chilling peek at the brave new world of transhumanism and "living long enough to live forever." Both prompted calm, civil, instructive discussion. So did Kimberley's "Office" report.

But Chris's "Boondock Saints" report and his discussion question-- Do we need people like this [vigilantes who storm a courtroom to murder a defendant, convinced that they're doing God's work] in the world today?"-- provoked a degree of heat that I hope will cool to a reflective glow. I admit I got a bit heated myself.

Do we need armed vigilantes? Like a hole in the head. But we've got 'em in spades. Hobbes would've called them agents of the bellum omnium, representatives of the state of nature and destroyers of the social contract. Some of us think the best name for them is simply "terrorist."

Commenting on Alex's transhumanist report, I mentioned Ray Kurzweil's teenage game show debut in 1965. Was he already thinking about living forever?

Times notes

Of note in today's Times:

* Henry Louis Gates is a repeat victim of high-profile racial profiling, says Stanley Fish. It happened at Duke ("the plantation") years ago. If the police entered my home under the same circumstances I might very well find myself taking a belligerent stance, too, and decline to produce identification immediately upon demand.

* Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man

“Something new has taken place in the past five to eight years,” Dr. Horvitz said. “Technologists are replacing religion, and their ideas are resonating in some ways with the same idea of the Rapture.”

The Kurzweil version of technological utopia has captured imaginations in Silicon Valley. This summer an organization called the Singularity University began offering courses to prepare a “cadre” to shape the advances and help society cope with the ramifications.

I taught "Biotechnology and Ethics" last year, we read and discussed "the Singularity." Like other unthinkable things, it may not happen... or it may not happen when Ray Kurzweil and others think it will. But neither is it a mere sci-fi fantasy. Kurzweil may be crazy but he's now on the radar of serious and sober people. We'd better be thinking about how to "cope."

* Dr. George Tiller is only the latest in a long line of tragic victims assaulted or murdered by lunatics who've been stoked by right-wing talk radio hate speech, as Bill Moyers documents. Those of us who preach tolerance must recognize its limits: we must not give the hate-mongers (including all those fairly unbalanced Fox shills) a free pass. They devalue free speech.

* And more happily, it was a pleasure watching the Hall of Fame induction ceremony this afternoon. The Henderson and Rice induction speeches were not that impressive, clearly having been ghosted. But as usual the so-called second-tier inductees stole the show. Joe Gordon's daughter touchingly observed that her Dad, who'd not had a proper funeral, had at last reached his final resting place. Tony Kubek, another warm Voice of the Game from my youth, garrulous as ever, took me back to all those Games of the Week. He and Curt Gowdy were the only game in town, in those pre-ESPN/-Fox Sports days.

Gotta get back to Cooperstown. Mark it: July 25, 2010.