Immortality only 20 years away

Admins, I ask that you don't close or combine this thread with the others. Although it's the same article, it is an independent source.

If we're lucky, someone will close the thread due to it being full of hooey.

Nanobots will replace blood cells and do their work thousands of times more effectively.

He said that within 25 years we will be able to do an Olympic sprint for 15 minutes without taking a breath, or go scuba-diving for four hours without oxygen. This will be handy because with global warming you will not be able to breathe the air.

Apparently nanotechnology will improve our brains to such an extent we will be able to write books within minutes.

Yeah, I'm such a grouch.

I read an article in popular science a few years back describing artificial red blood cells. They estimated a large increase in how efficient the body would work when doing exercise. Here's the wikipage.

http://en.wikipedia....iki/Respirocyte

Edited by bobscrachy, 26 September 2009 - 03:18 AM.

What's funny is these websites' needs to post these cheesy pictures along with Ray's ideas.

I know he has done some impressive stuff; but I suppose technically he is not a "scientist" in the usual sense of someone with a phd in a particular field of sceince and whose job involves research in academia or industry etc. But I suppose with all the things he has been involved in it is a bit meaningless to make the distinction. I guess "inventor" would be better

Agreed

Real accomplishments? What about successful inventor, entrepreneur, writer, and thinker. What else do you want? Maybe president of the United States would be enough for you?

As fascinating and brilliant as Kurzweil is, none of these qualify him as a scientist. The presidency of the US, considering some of the recent occupants of the office, might be a negative qualification.

i have ZERO degrees. i dont need any... I have aspergers.... with that said, i am still considered a SCIENTIST to plenty...

Edited by thestuffjunky, 27 September 2009 - 02:09 AM.

Hmmm....

From Wikipedia:

An honorary degree[1] or a degree honoris causa (Latin: 'for the sake of the honour') is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived the usual requirements (such as matriculation, residence, study and the passing of examinations). The degree itself is typically a doctorate or, less commonly, a master's degree, and may be awarded to someone who has no prior connection with the institution in question.

Usually the degree is conferred as a way of honoring a distinguished visitor's contributions to a specific field, or to society in general. The university often derives benefits by association with the person in question.

Give me some real degrees or better still real accomplishments if you want to impress.

His previous predictions have left me completly unimpressed. I hope he is right, but I wouldn't count on it.

maybe this might clear a few misconceptions about RAY KURZWEIL

Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters[30] Hofstra University 1982
Honorary Doctorate of Music[30] Berklee College of Music 1987
Honorary Doctorate of Science[30] Northeastern University 1988
Honorary Doctorate of Science[30] Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 1988
Honorary Doctorate of Engineering[30] Merrimack College 1989
Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters[30] Misericordia University 1989
Honorary Doctorate of Science[30] New Jersey Institute of Technology 1990
Honorary Doctorate of Science[30] Queens College, City University of New York 1991
Honorary Doctorate of Science[30] Dominican College 1993
Honorary Doctorate in Science and Humanities[30] Michigan State University 2000
Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters[30][31] Landmark College 2002
Honorary Doctorate of Science[30] Worcester Polytechnic Institute 2005
Honorary Doctorate of Science[30] DePaul University 2006
Honorary Doctorate of Science[30] Bloomfield College 2007
Honorary Doctorate of Science[32] McGill University 2008
Honorary Doctorate of Science[33] Clarkson University 2009

um, i think the above makes him a man with a FEW credentials in SCIENCE...

http://en.wikipedia....aymond_Kurzweil

i can be found live at

first off, by your name, you need to get off the NOOTS... just because you take brain drugs dosnt make you smarter than a man who is at least 100 fold more accomplished than you....

Ive been told to keep my calm sometimes, however, WE all understand that getting 1 hon.doc isnt easy(bet you dont even have your GED), let alone 15+. so, since the USER FRIENDLY WIKI seems to be the resource, here are some quotes from there about the man you are oh so IGNORANT about. right off the bat... "He is involved in fields as diverse as optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and electronic keyboard instruments. He is the author of several books on health, artificial intelligence (AI), transhumanism, the technological singularity, and futurism.","In 1963, at age fifteen, he wrote his first computer program. Designed to process statistical data, the program was used by researchers at IBM[2]. Later in high school he created a sophisticated pattern-recognition software program that analyzed the works of classical composers, and then synthesized its own songs in similar styles".

SO, i am not going to waste my time about the mans' "accomplishments" after his teens years. you need to grow up and stop looking at the fine print of things. and as your EDUCATED self should know, that the other side of what you are trying to dismantle is that the recipient MOST likely DOES have the prior credentials... and i think doing more in electronics and computers before the late 60s and before he could drive has a lot to say about him!!! as for you well, all you can do is make up derogatory comments about a man who is doing alot better for himself than you...

In the German language "kurzweilig" the opposite of boring ("langweilig") means.

That is also in this discussion like that.

Kurzweil (german) = pastime (english).

I am living in Austria, my language is "ausglish".

Kurzweil (german) = short while (ausglish).

In Austria are no kangaroos, but cows.

Edited by karl_bednarik, 27 September 2009 - 04:09 AM.

Funny, back in 1981, F.M. Esfandiary, the Ray Kurzweil of the 1970's and 1980's, said that we would have become immortal by that mysterious, far-future year 2010:

http://www.scribd.co...Wing-Priorities

Alan Brooks examines FM's record as a "futurist" in this piece published recently in Cryonics magazine:

http://www.scribd.co...rooks-on-FM2030

Edited by advancedatheist, 27 September 2009 - 05:04 PM.

Funny, back in 1981, F.M. Esfandiary, the Ray Kurzweil of the 1970's and 1980's, said that we would have become immortal by that mysterious, far-future year 2010:

http://www.scribd.co...Wing-Priorities

Alan Brooks examines FM's record as a "futurist" in this piece published recently in Cryonics magazine:

http://www.scribd.co...rooks-on-FM2030

You can't possibly compare Esfandiary to Kurzweil. Although it seems very convenient to do so, if you take a closer look at their materials (although all i've read about Esfandiary is this paper you posted) you'll see the wide gap in quality and reasonableness between them. Esfandiary wrote in very vague terms and you can see how fertile his imagination is, but he doesn't stick to facts. By the way, just 6 years later, in 1987, Kurzweil created a documantary which developed into his book in 1990 "The Age of Intelligent Machines". Read it and tell me if his predictions are as unreasonable as Esfandiary's.

We can simplify the question of whether Kurzweil's predictions will become true by considering just the follow:

Fact: Computers are getting more power in the magnitude of one thousand times every 10 years. This trend has been going on for decades. As long as it keeps going on, in a few decades it will be inevitable that computers will be millions and then billions of times more powerful than the human mind. If this process is discontinued in the next decades but indeed it will be very unlikely we'll reach the Singularity.

Speculation: Whether we will or won't be able to build a software to simulate the human brain. That's the only question. If you disagree in this point, then ok, but give me your arguments explaining why you disagree.

Edited by forever freedom, 28 September 2009 - 12:02 AM.

I think John Searle's "Chinese room" thought experiment and Gödel's two incompleteness theorems show us, that it is very doubtful that any kind of algorithmic computer can ever achieve consciousness.

http://en.wikipedia....ki/Chinese_room

i have ZERO degrees. i dont need any... I have aspergers.... with that said, i am still considered a SCIENTIST to plenty...

Derek, are you implying that because you have aspergers, you don't need a degree?

Because that's what it sounds like.

I do not mean to offend, nor was I offended.

Edited by Vgamer1, 29 September 2009 - 06:50 PM.

first off, by your name, you need to get off the NOOTS... just because you take brain drugs dosnt make you smarter than a man who is at least 100 fold more accomplished than you....

My name refers to resveratrol, not commonly considered a NOOT as far as I am aware.
I didn't claim to be smarter, I simply questioned your choice of 'accomplishments' used to judge someone.

Ive been told to keep my calm sometimes, however, WE all understand that getting 1 hon.doc isnt easy(bet you dont even have your GED)

What the F___ is a GED? we don't all live in North America ya know!!

, let alone 15+. so, since the USER FRIENDLY WIKI seems to be the resource, here are some quotes from there about the man you are oh so IGNORANT about. right off the bat... "He is involved in fields as diverse as optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and electronic keyboard instruments. He is the author of several books on health, artificial intelligence (AI), transhumanism, the technological singularity, and futurism.","In 1963, at age fifteen, he wrote his first computer program. Designed to process statistical data, the program was used by researchers at IBM[2]. Later in high school he created a sophisticated pattern-recognition software program that analyzed the works of classical composers, and then synthesized its own songs in similar styles".

Cool, so why not post that in the first place, instead of some rubbish about honary doctorates??

SO, i am not going to waste my time about the mans' "accomplishments" after his teens years. you need to grow up and stop looking at the fine print of things. and as your EDUCATED self should know, that the other side of what you are trying to dismantle is that the recipient MOST likely DOES have the prior credentials... and i think doing more in electronics and computers before the late 60s and before he could drive has a lot to say about him!!! as for you well, all you can do is make up derogatory comments about a man who is doing alot better for himself than you...

Why the personal attacks. Do it again and I'll request your account be suspended. I experssed my view that honary doctorates are not a good indicator of accomplishment or ability since they are not earned by study. I don't happen to believe that RK is correct, at least not in the timing, I think he focuses too much on the science and not enough on the real world. I may or may not be wrong, however I believe that I am entitled to express my view on this forum. You may choose to disagree with me, which is fine but drop the personal attacks please.

I think John Searle's "Chinese room" thought experiment and Gödel's two incompleteness theorems show us, that it is very doubtful that any kind of algorithmic computer can ever achieve consciousness.

I tend to agree on that point. I've written software applications for a living, and well... standard software is *dumb*
It does exactly what you tell it to and no more. I don't care how massively powered the hardware you have to run it on is, there is no "there" there. The internet will not just "wake up" no matter how many servers you hook in.


That said... I recall reading about some folks years ago basically "evolving" self-writing/self-organizing software. The result was a mess from the perspective of trying to pick it apart and understand it, but it was remarkably adaptive and resilient as I recall. I can see that approach working maybe. Though like Luna, I'm not certain of the relevance.

Edited by KalaBeth, 30 September 2009 - 01:57 AM.

I think the biggest difference between biological and software based evolution is that in biological evolution there is a unity between software and hardware. Evolution, mutation, selection means there is a constant correlation between "bio" hardware and "bio" software.

In "pure" software evolution there is no hardware selection and mutation. The hardware is changing because human minds are developing new hardware.

So software evolution is not an independent new phenomenon, it is part of the human evolution. In a way we are our software, even if they are acting like "independent" "lifeforms".

The person "Kurzweil" is not as important as the "Law of Accelerating Returns".

http://en.wikipedia....lerating_change

This law is valid for more than thousand years.

It exists a well effective synergy between molecular biology and computer science.

Computers with human intelligence are not necessary for biological immortality.

A model of the biological functions of the human brain is many simpler
than a model of the information functions of the human brain.

----------

Northern ausglish = Austrian english (with cows. here I am),

Southern ausglish = Australian english (with kangaroos).

In addition, it is like that no humans can three billion pairs of bases note.

----------

I experienced the "Law of Accelerating Returns".

I went into the school in the years 1952 to 1964.

At that time we used slide rules, graph paper, french curves, and pencils.

It can be that today nobody knows more, what all this is.

Today I use Excel, and which is most important question: which color is to have the curve.

i have ZERO degrees. i dont need any... I have aspergers.... with that said, i am still considered a SCIENTIST to plenty...

Derek, are you implying that because you have aspergers, you don't need a degree?

Because that's what it sounds like.

I do not mean to offend, nor was I offended.

No gamer, no offense taken. However, as for my level of hyper functioning aspergers, I learn to much and dont have the patience for 1 subject in school. So, I resort to learning from watching and reading. i choose not to pursue a degree for I dont see a reason to be vein and conform to society that says "Better go to school and get a degree(s) or you will be considered stupid for the rest of your life!"

first off, by your name, you need to get off the NOOTS... just because you take brain drugs dosnt make you smarter than a man who is at least 100 fold more accomplished than you....

My name refers to resveratrol, not commonly considered a NOOT as far as I am aware.
I didn't claim to be smarter, I simply questioned your choice of 'accomplishments' used to judge someone.

Ive been told to keep my calm sometimes, however, WE all understand that getting 1 hon.doc isnt easy(bet you dont even have your GED)

What the F___ is a GED? we don't all live in North America ya know!!

, let alone 15+. so, since the USER FRIENDLY WIKI seems to be the resource, here are some quotes from there about the man you are oh so IGNORANT about. right off the bat... "He is involved in fields as diverse as optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and electronic keyboard instruments. He is the author of several books on health, artificial intelligence (AI), transhumanism, the technological singularity, and futurism.","In 1963, at age fifteen, he wrote his first computer program. Designed to process statistical data, the program was used by researchers at IBM[2]. Later in high school he created a sophisticated pattern-recognition software program that analyzed the works of classical composers, and then synthesized its own songs in similar styles".

Cool, so why not post that in the first place, instead of some rubbish about honary doctorates??

SO, i am not going to waste my time about the mans' "accomplishments" after his teens years. you need to grow up and stop looking at the fine print of things. and as your EDUCATED self should know, that the other side of what you are trying to dismantle is that the recipient MOST likely DOES have the prior credentials... and i think doing more in electronics and computers before the late 60s and before he could drive has a lot to say about him!!! as for you well, all you can do is make up derogatory comments about a man who is doing alot better for himself than you...

Why the personal attacks. Do it again and I'll request your account be suspended. I experssed my view that honary doctorates are not a good indicator of accomplishment or ability since they are not earned by study. I don't happen to believe that RK is correct, at least not in the timing, I think he focuses too much on the science and not enough on the real world. I may or may not be wrong, however I believe that I am entitled to express my view on this forum. You may choose to disagree with me, which is fine but drop the personal attacks please.

make this short and sweet... if you cant accept a man that is a pioneer in computer science and that more than 10 institutions either by means of his accomplishments or their marketing contacted RK to issue him HON.DOCS per basis of his computer/science background, then so be it. HOWEVER, majority(and a vast at that) here will NOT bash RK. So, why? Because they dont look at the pessimistic idiosyncrasies of what makes him a person as these most see him as a visionary for the technological future. Furthermore, just because his dates and as so the years are off, dosnt make him an idiot as YOU are portraying him as because NO mother-Fr on this world can see the future only predict and do as RK does and FORECAST.

P.S. GED general equivalence diploma

PSS go ahead and report me to mind and BP or whoever the F you want.... i dont care... you see, i dont think they want BASHERS and haters on 1 of the 2 most important people in LE.

PSS go ahead and report me to mind and BP or whoever the F you want.... i dont care... you see, i dont think they want BASHERS and haters on 1 of the 2 most important people in LE.

If thinking someone is wrong in their anaylsis (specifically wrt timing) and not being impressed by arbitarily awarded 'qualifications' makes me a "BASHER and hater", then I guess you must be right............

If any of the directors or moderators think what I have written about RK is so unbelievably bad that they wish to ban me, that would be fine, but it would be entirely inconsistent with their desire for free speech and past behaviour. Nothing I have said has disparaged RK, I simply don't agree with his analysis.

You on the other hand have breached the terms of this forum by personally attacking another member, unprovoked. There is quite a bit of flexibility with this and they give people second chances, however don't abuse this, their patience will not last forever.

Try not to take forum discussions too seriously.

PSS go ahead and report me to mind and BP or whoever the F you want.... i dont care... you see, i dont think they want BASHERS and haters on 1 of the 2 most important people in LE.

If thinking someone is wrong in their anaylsis (specifically wrt timing) and not being impressed by arbitarily awarded 'qualifications' makes me a "BASHER and hater", then I guess you must be right............

If any of the directors or moderators think what I have written about RK is so unbelievably bad that they wish to ban me, that would be fine, but it would be entirely inconsistent with their desire for free speech and past behaviour. Nothing I have said has disparaged RK, I simply don't agree with his analysis.

You on the other hand have breached the terms of this forum by personally attacking another member, unprovoked. There is quite a bit of flexibility with this and they give people second chances, however don't abuse this, their patience will not last forever.

Try not to take forum discussions too seriously.

thank you. please come over sometime to my MEME science USTREAM channel and understand me, you'll see my passion for science. I WILL defend any person that has contributed to the sciences... Especially a man who my father told me about 20+yrs ago. I am 31 now. He is not my god nor mentor, however, some people(as you have seen) will defend their god(s), and so, that is what i did. Ones tact is different than their banter, the way RK boasts his technological intellect is not for the average joe, however, just as a reminder, he should still be honored as a contributor and martyr for life extension.

as for my behavior, again, we all know BP and i have my talks and chats with MIND, if they see me a little to abrasive, they have the trigger...

Resvhead had good points that where not personal attacks which this thread soon became. Here at ImmInst we have many different opinions who clearly don't agree with each other- one has to be ok with not being agreed with. Just say your opinions without trashing someone else :-)

Indeed, what does a terminator have to do with anything lol. Pure sensationalism.

20 years may be a bit of a stretch; it's more like in some 40+ years. But as long as Moore's Law stays alive, the outlook for the future is bright.

Why moores law? didn't kurzweil state in his book 'the age of spiritual machines' that moores law will soon be superseded by the law of accelerated return and that this will be good for organisms and machines alike?

Indeed, what does a terminator have to do with anything lol. Pure sensationalism.

20 years may be a bit of a stretch; it's more like in some 40+ years. But as long as Moore's Law stays alive, the outlook for the future is bright.

Why moores law? didn't kurzweil state in his book 'the age of spiritual machines' that moores law will soon be superseded by the law of accelerated return and that this will be good for organisms and machines alike?

Yes but i'm being conservative. If things happen faster than i expect, all the better.

But as long as Moore's Law stays alive, the outlook for the future is bright.


Why moores law? didn't kurzweil state in his book 'the age of spiritual machines' that moores law will soon be superseded by the law of accelerated return and that this will be good for organisms and machines alike?

In my opinion Moore's law has nothing to do with storing and maintaining consciousness.

Moore's law about playing Quake "n" faster.

Consciousness is not algorithmic.

But as long as Moore's Law stays alive, the outlook for the future is bright.


Why moores law? didn't kurzweil state in his book 'the age of spiritual machines' that moores law will soon be superseded by the law of accelerated return and that this will be good for organisms and machines alike?

In my opinion Moore's law has nothing to do with storing and maintaining consciousness.

Moore's law about playing Quake "n" faster.

Consciousness is not algorithmic.

First, without enough hardware there's no simulation of anything. Second, the bigger our hardware power, the more crappy our software can be and we still get AI. There are many ways to get smart AIs, some of them require bigger hardware power than others. The bigger our hardware power the bigger our options and the bigger the likelihood of we achieving strong AI.

Strong (?) algorithmic AI cannot be consciousness, just a clever software. I don't believe that any algorithmic AI can achieve consciousness.

Having more and more powerful software AI won't help saving our own consciousness in any direct way.

Of course it will help as a scientific tool but not as a concrete solution.

Having more and more powerful AI won't help us directly to save our consciousness, as building temples or holy statues in an accelerated speed won't help either.

Apples and oranges.

As was pointed out at the singularity summit. Each one of our neurons/synapses is basically a chinese room. Apparently enough of them organized in the right way do indeed give rise to consciousness and whatever qualia are. It doesn't matter if its counter intuitive. Its reality.

That doesn't mean we habe the programing knowledge to program consciousness given a sufficiently powerful computer. But its folly to dismiss it as impossible.

The philosophy of consciousness shows us that the main problem is materialism - a false metaphysics. It means that reality in its original form is not like our perception of it.

You cannot find consciousness in any form in any sense data. Not in the brain, not in anywhere.

The only logical explanation is that our perceptions of reality are really distorted and partial. I think quantum mechanics was the first clue that materialism is a false paradigm.

I think we simply cannot understand consciousness at the present time because our minds cannot even grasp the real form of existence.

Our spatial-temporal model of reality inside our consciousness is basically erroneous and probably too crude to successfully model every existing phenomenon.

What I mean is that we have no clue what consciousness is. This makes the task of creating artificial consciousness a little bit challenging.

But I'm not saying that this is impossible.

I think we will be able to create conscious machines using biological components within 30 years. Which is basically steeling the plans from mother nature.

But even then we won't understand consciousness.

Edited by Custodiam, 05 October 2009 - 03:05 PM.

The philosophy of consciousness shows us that the main problem is materialism - a false metaphysics. It means that reality in its original form is not like our perception of it.

You cannot find consciousness in any form in any sense data. Not in the brain, not in anywhere.

The only logical explanation is that our perceptions of reality are really distorted and partial. I think quantum mechanics was the first clue that materialism is a false paradigm.

I think we simply cannot understand consciousness at the present time because our minds cannot even grasp the real form of existence.

Our spatial-temporal model of reality inside our consciousness is basically erroneous and probably too crude to successfully model every existing phenomenon.

What I mean is that we have no clue what consciousness is. This makes the task of creating artificial consciousness a little bit challenging.

But I'm not saying that this is impossible.

I think we will be able to create conscious machines using biological components within 30 years. Which is basically steeling the plans from mother nature.

But even then we won't understand consciousness.

custodian, i think you are the first volunteer for the first experiments for AI consciousness.... hehe

very true and deep think... like my ustream picture and phrase is "we all look through different windows" meaning, nothing is clear, not even understood, just the fact we are seeing it. what is around us and how we percieve it may not even be the same...
as for AI, well, there is great improvements of that and ALL thanks to MOORES LAW. cell phones weighed 2 pounds and was the size of a brick in the early 80s! nearly 20 years later, well..... that is only one example. i am not going to foresight a man and his accomplishments because his predicted dates are OFF, point is, it will happen....

find me at

Well my problem with Moore's law argument is that my old Commodore 64 computer 25 years ago had the same type of AI than my multi-core PC has now.

To be honest, PCs and softwares are algorithmic logical tools and not AIs in my opinion.

I don't find my PC more intelligent now than my C-64 was 25 years ago.

It is much quicker and can store much more data, but is it really intelligent?

Edited by Custodiam, 15 October 2009 - 06:42 AM.