[extropy-chat] "The Spike" - Raymond Kurzweil

[Robert J. Bradbury]

On Thu, 30 Oct 2003, Damien Broderick wrote:

> What's more, it makes no allowance for the co-determination of evolved
> structure and context, let alone the contingencies (such as random
> intrusions like asteroid strikes or GRBs) that might produce the gross
> discontinuities of punctuated equilibrium.

I've been working on Amara Angelica to get Ray to address the potential
speed-bumps in "The Singularity is Near".  Whether he will or not I don't
know yet.

> But this is such an important issue that I really *do* hope some
> philosophically astute people here will throw in their 2 cents' worth. Max?
> Greg? Anders? Anyone?

Glad you didn't mention me in that list... :-)

At any rate, given your comments (which I would tend to summarize as
"Ray may be raising a philosophically dead horse" if I understand them
correctly, I'd like to draw your attention to the following:

"Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences,
800 B.C. to 1950" by Charles Murry (co-author of The Bell Curve).

/.:
http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/10/30/1441239&mode=thread&tid=134&tid=188&tid=192

Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/006019247X/

It might be interesting to compare the vectors that Ray and Charles select.

R.