Great points … can’t very well solve a problem you cannot define. But like nature science and technology grows bit by bit putting things together as we understand them. The problem is that as we understand and exploit stuff we can never understand fully the parallel path that nature did not take and that was not conscious, nature is slower and more complete, we learn tricks, and try to put them together, but the many “lessons” nature learned by time trials, we cannot duplicate.

I wouldn’t say never, but we probably are more likely to kill ourselves and our planet off before we get close.

Things happen non-linearly, which is another thing that RK talks about and the human brain has a problem with truly understanding that.

My problem with much of these technologies is that we never understand things are well as nature because we can never know the many many “lessons” nature learned in building stuff, we just get a slow very coarse view of things, and when we implement the stuff we miss always bites us in the butt.

Evolution throws everything against infinity and goes with whatever remains, then when we look at it there is no way we can see how it all fits together. We learn some tricks … enough to screw ourselves! ;-)

Knowledge, but not much wisdom.

So anyway, if anyone is a supporter and fan of the book, it’s me, not to mention I bought the Audible and Kindle versions of the book.

Not enough graphs and pictures in my opinion. We need to see some block diagrams of this stuff so it makes more sense … but so far fascinating.

The thing is that a brain goes with a human body, a lot more engineering is going to be need to understand and place anyone’s backup brain in a machine because without a body we are not the same.

The thing about much of this line of thinking is that it relies on a kind of computer view of the human brain, much like the moving picture version of memory that Kurzweil dispels.

Then, knowing human nature, how long before these disembodied brains start to compete or attack each other, even finding ways to murdering each other and getting power over each other? We are still human. I don’t think most of this is so simple, or maybe even not doable – at least for a long time.

Lots of room for consumer products though as we all go charging mindlessly to the latest new thing that we think will give us value.

Meanwhile, I’d just like a place where people can live like people, and maybe have a chance to get that right. ;-)

Hawkin’s company for this was right above the bookstore when his book came out, now I don’t know what happened to it.

I came here looking for more figures or illustrations for the book. I got it on audipbook and Kindle and as descriptive as the prose it a few really good illustrations would be really nice, especially a kind of block diagram of the brain.

2. The last date to pre-order the book is October 26, 2012.

3. The books are shipping directly from a retailer. You will receive a separate package from Ray with the t-shirt and a self-adhesive bookplate signed by Ray to apply to the inside cover of the book.

2. What is the last date for pre-ordering the book ?

3. Will Ray Kurzweil actually hold each one of this pre-ordered books in his hands and signed on it individually ? (sorry if it’s a stupid question)

Thanks!

This is very frustrating….

Please let me know if you have an answer, Thanks very much.

The Kindle option (i.e. ebook) is listed on the Amazon page. The ebook will also be available through Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and other major ebook retailers.

Admin, thanks very much for your answer it’s really encouraging, but why when I’m looking at the book’s page on Amazon I see no clue about this option ?

http://www.amazon.com/How-Create-Mind-Thought-Revealed/dp/0670025291

The only options that I see are: Audio, CD, Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged. None of them is an electronic text of the book….

Where can I find an information about an eBook for this book ?

(again, I want a file with the text itself, not mp3 or audio)

I need it because I have a high quality TTS application (text to speech) and I want it to read the book for me, so I need it’s text…

Waiting for your answer, thanks!

What if people want to read it on their Kindle ?

Or read it on their Laptop as a PDF file ?

Any good reason for this decision ?

I’m not going there.

In the end, for us who are practically oriented, technological progress is much more important.

The changes in nature we observe are the result of purely physical processes.Chemistry I count as part of physics, since the division of them is a historical oddity.

It has already be seen that mixing simple ingredients brings about simple self-replicating pattern- which can exist under nice-enough conditions- they are primitive forms of life.

These pattern need to consume material from the environment for energy: especially for reproduction and then for repair.

Changes occur through entropy, other “errors” in the copying process, and natural selection through environmental factors (and other beings) weeding out less adapted “individuals” before they reproduce, and some other factors that change the ratio of reproduction between different “genes/attributes” in a species.

Local accumulated diversification can lead to entire new species.

You notice, we have inner species competition, between species competition, etc.

In general: Changes survive if they can reproduce in a way that is advantageous for further reproductions, often outproducing other changes in other individuals/groups.

Those patterns that are better at this than others will win out in the long run, if no single large event destroys them.The same goes for the subpatterns/ traits in a given population.

At this stages reproduction is primarily driven by replication, which means more efficent processes, faster consumption of energy etc are mainly “selected” for, while physics constantly destroys large quantities of these patterns.

Over time these pattern and subpattern become more complex while others fade away, since in general your survivability and the changes in reproductional efficency are highly dependent on being adapted to your environment.

More specific algorithms and a bigger variety mean more information, therefore higher complexity.But they also mean being better at important things.

Hm, anyway I don’t want to lecture you, and a more accurate and deeper description (going into the development of sexes etc) would need many pages, and if I wanted to be specific I’d throw in maths (which you probably don’t like much)^^

The main caveat here is that progress in technology may resemble some sort of exponential, but scientific progress is linear.

Looks like you don’t really appreciate what exponential progress might do. Your thinking is linear :D

And the later should be convinced, if we are right about what we think and present it in a proper way.Either the risks are acceptable or they are not.

If we can’t make a convincing case, it may means we are not right.The consequences would be obvious: We should change our minds.

On the other hand, someone who simply has a natural tendency to scorn at any sort of advancement in tech, especially intelligent machines because it upsets the natural tendency to place humanity at the top of, well, everything….to have this sort of behavior aggressively and irrationally…..that’s the sort of person I would say has a technophobia aka is a luddite.

The irony is….if humans really do merge with machines in the coming decades, we will still be keeping our place at the top of the food-chain — vastly more then we were before, actually.

It really is easy to label others and throw them all into the same category, especially when we are enthusiastic about something and other persons voice concerns that are critical of our own views.They just stand in the way (of progress).Why even bother with them?

I think we as humans should not shy away from critic that’s honest and could be true -as far as we know- instead we should be able to explain why we think a good outcome to be more likely than a bad one.

If we can’t do this easily, this alone means we should give more thought to the critic.If this sounds unpractical to you, you are right.

I think we’d need a singularity FAQ, one to which we then easily can point after having answered a concern once and it should feature prominent where visitors can see it (in form of a link).I have already written about the core story concept, so I won’t repeat myself here, but a FAQ could take on that role.

It could have the most obvious concerns and objections at one place, so that common people are not overwhelmed when seeing the FAQ while their standard cultural objections get answered at once.This also shows that transhumanists are humanistic; care about others.

It would also have to be shorter and simpler, instead of being one of the tomes which clog the internet and are read only by those with special needs (like atheists afraid of death) or those are already hooked on the idea.

I have googled around and most presentations of transhumanism I saw tickle my “too long won’t read” reflex- which many people have, especially those with lower education, while telling me I learned 40% of Latin’s vocabulary and some Greek through the acquisition (^^) of my English alone:

“Emerging technologies – contemporary advances and innovation in various fields of technology, prior to or early in their diffusion. They are typically in the form of progressive developments intended to achieve a competitive advantage.”

Wouldn’t be something like this better for those who are unfortunate enough to have suffered bad education (like me, I am not judging anyone):

Emerging technologies: The words “emerging technology” stand for the idea of improvements in technology that have not yet spread through society.Usually, these improvements are the result of ongoing development in their fields and hold the promise to give a competitive advantage to anyone who uses them.

Well, I am not that good at writing and especially not in English, but I hope you get the idea.Another advantage of simplyfing explanations is that doing so makes them more accessible to the youth.

All this does not have to be completely accurate, it has to entice “Joe Average” to read further, to make these ideas sound in a way that makes sense for them and shows them they are relevant to the betterment of his live.

That way transhumanist ideas could gain acceptance in mainstream culture.People can pound the tomes and ponder about them later.

Have a nice day.

Entire dystopian concepts are based around fundamentalist fears…we would avoid a huge amount of strife if people are truly being, not just open, but eager for more and more intelligent machines nowadays.