Hello Ray,
I finished reading your book not long ago, and I had a question regarding your opinion of molecular assemblers.
Suppose molecular assemblers are indeed proven to be feasible on a large scale and we are given an infinite abundance to produce as much as we want — limited only by the amount of matter in our vicinity — with minimal effort.
If this scenario comes… read more
Dear readers,
Here is a study coming out of the large and well respected Women’s Health Initiative showing positive results for supplements and breast cancer.
Unfortunately, the media has largely ignored it.
It seems there is a strong media bias to headline studies suggesting negative or no benefit results and to ignore positive ones that do show benefit. For example, this study shows a 30% lower rate… read more
Dear readers,
I read this recent article: The Wall Street Journal | “Multivitamins found to have little benefit — no effect seen in preventing cognitive decline, heart disease”
Readers have asked, “What is your response to the recent ‘anti-supplement’ research study?”
The study quoted by The Wall Street Journal is misleading. It only looked at low potency (and low quality) supplement combinations and set a… read more
Dear readers,
I am reviewing the recent news on Amazon’s interest in using unmanned drones to make product deliveries.
There is public discussion about the feasibility of this logistically, and some concerns about using drones in public due to privacy and other issues.
You can read some background on Amazon’s plans in this report by 60 Minutes:
CBS News | “Amazon unveils futuristic plan… read more
Is it stressful to view life as a sort of race against the clock, in which it’s presumably — at least partly — in your power whether you die like all past humans have, or find a way to survive indefinitely?
It seems like a lot of pressure to live with, no? I’m speaking purely from a personal, psychological/emotional point of view here.… read more
Kindchenschema, or baby schema, shows the features of infant mammals, compared to adults. These features consistently encourage adults to respond. (credit: Spektrum)
Ray,
Your recent book on creating intelligence mentioned cuteness in passing, and it made me wonder: why are most baby animals so cute. Naked mole rat is a possible exception?
They can’t look cute so we become gaga,… read more
Dear readers,
This is a valuable study about supplements and health that I wanted to share with our readers.
American Journal of Managed Care | “Impact of oral nutritional supplementation on hospital outcomes”
The findings say “the use of oral nutritional supplementation decreases length of stay, episode cost, and 30-day readmission risk in the inpatient population of hospitals.”
That’s the conclusion of an eleven-year retrospective… read more
Dear Ray,
Should my brain be downloaded into a computer, my consciousness would not follow along? Since if it did, I — the conscious I that I know and love — would be in two different places at once, both in my body and in the computer, presumably a contradiction of some sort, and the I in the computer may think and react identically to me and it may… read more
Dear Ray,
After finishing reading The Singularity Is Near and How to Create a Mind I have a few questions about some higher level cognitive functions in regards to your theory of pattern recognizer construction of the brain.
First, you believe that all forms of organized information systems have some form of consciousness albeit at varying degrees of magnitude.
More importantly there seems to be a positive… read more
Dear Mr. Raymond Kurzweil,
How are you? My name is Noga, I’m a 16-year-old girl from Tel-Aviv, Israel.
First of all, I wanted to say that I’ve read one of your and it was fascinating. Secondly, I wanted to ask you a question. I’ll start from the beginning.
In my school, we have a course called “Human Rights.” It’s a course where we discuss many things that… read more
Dear Ray,
If the development of computer-based intelligence will become equivalent to that of human intelligence within the next twenty or thirty years, this computer-based intelligence will be able to build even better computers.
Such computer intelligence will, no doubt, find a way to enhance the thought process of the human mind.
No doubt it will supersede the capacity of the human mind. This leads me to… read more
Dear Ray,
Hi, I’m contacting you now and asking you to please consider the following scenario. AD 2060 or later:
Humans can simulate multiple universes. We do so, and eventually intelligent life evolves in one and achieves a civilization with roughly the same science and computation as Earth 2010. This life will be a completely alien species, on a (simulated) alien planet.
That species figures out that… read more
