From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Date: Tue Feb 08 2000 - 08:02:07 MST
Yes it was a decent article. Most people on this list expect that the Sing.
(for short) will transpire in the next 99 years (I guess!) however, I can see
much of the Uber Brains and hyper-intelligence stuff taking millennia.
Reason being is that the colonization of the galaxy by Hyper-Life will follow
evolutionary-biological trends and have bottle-necks and well as super-jumps
and maybe plateau's. Also in the article, how one defines the Sing. can vary
tremendously. Maybe Vinge or someone else here can set some goal posts
defining what constitutes the Sing.?
In a message dated 02/08/2000 9:03:36 AM Eastern Standard Time,
d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au writes:
> Soon, according to some
> futurists, the rate of change will
> become so quick that we will be
> totally unable to guess what
> tomorrow will bring - as if there
> were an opaque wall drawn
> across the future, confounding
> our most diligent attempts at
> prediction.
>
> This concept is known as the
> Singularity, a term borrowed
> from mathematics describing a
> point at which the rules fail,
> quantities become infinite, and
> the curve rips right through the
> graph paper and heads off into
> uncharted territory. The catalyst
> for this spectacular event,
> according to Professor Vernor
> Vinge of San Diego State
> University, is - you guessed it -
> the computer.
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