Books

The Singularity Is Near by Ray Kurzweil

James Williams has a singularily good time.

Although promoted as science, Ray Kurzweil’s writing will appeal to readers of philosophy as well. The word ‘singularity’ was first applied to the transformative impact of technology by mathematician John von Neumann. In The Singularity is Near, Kurzweil defines the ‘Singularity’ as “a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed.” Kurzweil insists that once this Singularity arrives, the answers to the questions ‘What does it mean to be human?’ and ‘What are the limits of human knowledge?’ will be answered in ways as-yet-unimaginable. For instance, Kurzweil believes that we will eventually permeate the Universe with intelligence, causing the Universe itself to ‘awaken’.

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