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Trailer now available for Ray Kurzweil's movie, "Transcendent Man"

transcendentman.com

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Re: Trailer now available for Ray Kurzweil's movie, "Transcendent Man"

#51

Post by thepanister »

jimbokun wrote: post #48
thepanister wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About God, he has created you, me, and the whole world [the world of creatures]. And even if some people try to deny God, he is there and we need him. Well, advance of medicine and engineering? Did medicine help prevent people die at age 5 or 6 yrs old? There is something called "fate", and I guess you don't believe in it too.

It might be more productive if you argued why others should share your belief in fate or God, instead of just stating your belief without any justification. I do believe in God, but I do not find your statements very interesting without at least some attempt to persuade.

Thank you so much for making it clear to me what's wrong, and I will keep this in mind.

Re: Trailer now available for Ray Kurzweil's movie, "Transcendent Man"

#52

Post by velocity_wave »

jodrellblank wrote: post #35
endtime wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I guess. A kind of intro to the Singularity for your mom. I suppose that's worth knowing about.

My mom is extremely unlikely to watch a film called "Transcendent Man". I doubt if the technical people I know would be interested. Even the people here at HN are skeptical. This film has a feeling to me of a ... startup trying to launch on technical impressiveness. Only a few people will care, and they have probably already heard about it.

Actually my mother is the one who introduced me to Ray Kurzweil's "The Age of Spiritual Machines" and she bought me the book for Christmas.

My mother is not a scientist -- she only graduated from High School. She is also very religious and spiritual.

So you might be inclined to stereotype or judge her (or other people's Mothers) and assume that you know their points of view on Ray Kurzweil, or science in general.

But you might be surprised, if you actually got to know some of these people.

I really credit my Mother with inspiring my interest in computers and science. When I was younger she used to read me "science books for kids" and then bought all the Time-Life Science books (including the one on the "Universe") she could get her hands on, for me to read.

She even signed me up for a subscription to "Discover-Magazine" and "Popular Science" when I was a teenager!

Not bad for a "stay at home Mom" who has serious Catholic views, and "just a high school diploma".

Re: Trailer now available for Ray Kurzweil's movie, "Transcendent Man"

#53

Post by JabavuAdams »

scott_s wrote: post #27
randallsquared wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"no medical studies"? That seems like a very interesting claim, but the article you linked doesn't support it much, instead just listing a few studies which found that specific vitamins failed to improve health in specific areas.

Have you heard of any? I haven't. If taking vitamins regularly was something that improved our health, we should be able to measure that. But as far as I know, we haven't been able to.

What about the case where someone has an otherwise undiagnosed vitamin deficiency? E.g. B12 supplements to combat the neurological effects (like depression, distractibility) of B12 deficiency?

Re: Trailer now available for Ray Kurzweil's movie, "Transcendent Man"

#54

Post by whughes »

time_management wrote: post #32
ivankirigin wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cycles of peaks and troughs in growth rates are normal.

Right, but let's consider the difference between a recession and a depression. A recession is a contraction in a healthy economy. It's normal, and probably necessary. A depression is something worse. We don't know yet if this is a recession or a depression.

At worst, we're talking about a stagnation, a flatlining in the exponential curve for a few years. I doubt that we'll get to that point. To see growth completely stop we'd need a nuclear war or something to that end.

Life was still better during the Great Depression than it was only a few decades earlier. Progress will continue even if the political and economic landscape is unfavorable.

Re: Trailer now available for Ray Kurzweil's movie, "Transcendent Man"

#55

Post by biohacker42 »

snowbird122 wrote: post #12

More information about the movie here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1117394/ The book (The singularity is near), which serves as the basis for the movie is one of the most thought provoking reads I have had in a long time. He looks at various trends throughout history (like Moore's Law) which follow an exponential curve, and he extrapolates the curve into the future. There may be some arm waving here and there, but th…

Every sigmoid looks like an exponential curve early on.

Re: Trailer now available for Ray Kurzweil's movie, "Transcendent Man"

#56

Post by StrawberryFrog »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #53
scott_s wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you heard of any? I haven't. If taking vitamins regularly was something that improved our health, we should be able to measure that. But as far as I know, we haven't been able to.

What about the case where someone has an otherwise undiagnosed vitamin deficiency? E.g. B12 supplements to combat the neurological effects (like depression, distractibility) of B12 deficiency?

Sure. Vitamins fix vitamin deficiencies. That's a special case, and it does not apply to the rest of us. In fact, too much vitamins can damage health.

You could argue that breathing more air improves heath ... because it works for people who are underwater.

Re: Trailer now available for Ray Kurzweil's movie, "Transcendent Man"

#57

Post by bitwize »

sgk284 wrote: post #44
discojesus wrote: post #20

"[Kurzweil] says computers will have human consciousness in 25 years." Wait is this one of those 1980s AI-in-25-years predictions or is this a new 2009 We're Really Serious This Time, Guys prediction?

Kurzweil is one of the few guys whose predictions I take serious, simply because his track record is solid... in fact quite a few of is predictions he's directly made happen. If you look at the claims made in "The Age of Intelligent Machines", and the follow up a decade later in "The Age of Spiritual Machines", you realize the guy is pretty on the ball. Not 100% of the time, but even when he's wrong he usually got so…

Hey, the best way to predict the future is to (in|pre)vent it.

Re: Trailer now available for Ray Kurzweil's movie, "Transcendent Man"

#58

Post by GHFigs »

scott_s wrote: post #24
jksmith wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the universe is a closed system, but reaching the "Singularity" before we reach maximum entropy is probably more likely.

Our "plate" is probably not all of the known universe. We may never leave this solar system.

What makes you think that?

Re: Trailer now available for Ray Kurzweil's movie, "Transcendent Man"

#59

Post by scott_s »

GHFigs wrote: post #58
scott_s wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our "plate" is probably not all of the known universe. We may never leave this solar system.

What makes you think that?

Charles Stross, a science fiction writer, has an interesting essay about the difficulties involved: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the_high...

His conclusion is that it's unlikely, and I agree.

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