The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology

  analog, 149–150, 442

  author’s early experience with, 2–3, 64, 497n

  autonomic, 284, 437

  biological cells as, 221

  biological evolution compared with, 47

  brain compared with, 149–153, 293, 444

  brain’s interfacing with, 194–195

  capacity of, 96, 127

  chaotic, 145, 173, 441, 475

  chess playing of, 8, 146, 274–278, 274, 441, 459, 498n

  consciousness of, 430, 458–469

  decentralization of, 351

  Dembski’s views on, 474–477

  design of, 40, 45, 62, 71, 434, 481, 499n

  digital, 148–151, 442, 461

  doubling of power of, 8, 16, 41–42, 56–66, 57–65, 145, 261, 498n, 506n

  dualism of, 444–445

  efficiency of, 136–138, 362

  exponential growth of, 25, 56–73, 57–65, 67, 69–71, 75, 75, 102, 112, 127, 128, 135, 276, 292, 432, 434, 436, 470, 498n, 514n

  hacking into, 406, 426, 594n

  invention of, 17, 18, 38, 40, 45, 86, 93–94

  invisible, 105, 136, 312

  inward vs. outward expansion of, 351

  mechanical, 93–94, 135, 228–229

  memory of, see memory, computer

  modular approach to, 481

  Moore’s Law and, 35–36, 41–42, 56–66, 57–65, 434

  nanotechnology and, 133–135, 139, 232–236, 233, 248–249, 349, 412, 434

  neuronal information processing compared with, 503n, 504n

  new universe created for, 405

  nonlinearity required by, 155

  optimal level of, 21, 29

  parallel processing in, 129–130, 135, 149, 150, 350, 461, 462

  price-performance of, 12, 41–42, 45, 56–71, 57–65, 67, 69–71, 100, 102, 125–128, 135–136, 142, 243, 261, 292, 432, 437, 506n, 514n

  productivity growth and, 100

  programmable, 445

  quantum, see quantum computing

  relay-based, 67, 67, 127–128, 434

  research budgets for, 25, 42, 259

  reverse engineering of, 157–158

  reversible, 130–135, 244–245, 350, 428, 534n

  self-healing, 151

  software programs for, see software

  speed of, 127, 261, 276, 436

  spread throughout entire universe, 45, 511n

  star-scale, 350

  symbolic, 460–461, 463–464, 468

  three-dimensional molecular, see three-dimensional molecular computing

  transistors in, 27, 42–43, 45, 63, 63, 67, 67, 150, 151, 153, 434, 498n

  Turing test and, 25, 263, 286, 292, 504n–505n

  typesetting on, 54

  universal, 91, 94, 139, 228, 523n

  universe-scale, 364–365

  vacuum tubes in, 45, 56, 67, 67, 434

  viruses for, see software viruses

  see also laptop computers; notebook computers; personal computers; supercomputers

  conditioning, 182–183

  Congress, U.S., 422, 594n, 599n

  connectionism, 155–156

  consciousness, 86, 190, 191, 326, 338, 369, 394

  criticism from ontology and, 458–469

  as emergent pattern, 463–464, 467–468

  of nonbiological intelligence, 376–380, 385, 475

  quantum computing and, 201, 429, 450–452

  Singularity and, 374–382, 384

  spindle cells and, 468

  spirituality and, 388

  subjectivity and, 378–380

  of universe, 375, 388, 390

  Consilience (Wilson), 195

  “constructive destruction” process, 114

  consumers, power of, 104

  contact lenses, 312, 472

  contraception, 321, 433

  contradiction, 152

  Cooley, J. W., 600n

  Copernicus, Nicolaus, 433

  Coren, R., 502n

  coronary artery disease, 302

  Correlogic Systems, 282

  cortex, cerebral, 27, 157, 179, 189–194

  architecture of, 68, 505n

  auditory, 124

  frontal, 176

  frontoinsular, 193

  inferotemporal, 186

  insula regions of, 166, 193, 314

  MEG and, 160

  motor, 175

  prefrontal, 170

  spindle cells in, 191–194, 192

  tactile input and, 174

  V5 region of, 156

  visual, 156, 172, 176, 181, 530n

  cosmological constant, 359, 361

  Cossman, J., 552n

  Coteus, Paul, 533n

  Coull, J. T., 543n

  Council of Europe, 471

  “Countdown to Singularity” chart:

  linear plot of, 18, 18, 501n

  logarithmic plot of, 17, 17, 501n

  Covey, Ellen, 545n

  Cowan, W. M., 532n, 538n

  CPEB protein, 176, 199–200, 543n

  Craig, Arthur, 193

  Cray 1 supercomputer, 535n

  C-reactive protein, 211

  creativity, 2, 128, 145, 476

  in GNR age, 340, 341, 398

  human intelligence and, 4, 9

  love and, 485

  recursive search and, 273, 577n–580n

  Singularity and, 21, 389

  credit-card fraud, 269, 276, 284

  Crick, Francis, 206, 207, 549n

  Cristofori, Bartolommeo, 53

  criticisms, 427–483, 599n–602n

  from analog processing, 428, 442

  from the Church-Turing thesis, 429, 453–456

  from the complexity of neural processing, 428–429, 442–450

  from failure rates, 429, 456

  from holism, 431, 479–483

  from incredulity, 432–433

  from likelihood of government regulation, 430–431, 470–473

  from lock-in, 429–430, 457–458

  from Malthus, 427–428, 433–435

  from microtubules and quantum computing, 429, 450–452

  from ontology, 430, 458–469

  panopoly of, 427–433

  from rich-poor divide, 430, 469–470

  from software, 428, 435–442

  from theism, 431, 473–478

  Crosby, Alfred W., 595n

  Crowley, Justin, 523n, 539n

  cruise missiles, 255, 279–280, 335

  cryonics, 384

  Cuban missile crisis, 401

  Cullen, Steve, 513n

  cuneiform, 536n

  curved surfaces, Bernoulli’s principle and, 265

  Cutcher-Gershenfeld, Joel, 472, 602n

  cybermirror, 315

  Cybernetics (Wiener), 86

  cybernetic totalism, 380, 435

  cyberwarfare, 333, 335

  cyberweapons, 300

  cyborgs, 309, 377

  CYC (enCYClopedic), 267, 291–292

  Cyclomatic Complexity Metric, 437–438

  cystic fibrosis, 549n

  Dahan, M., 586n

  DAISI (Document and Image Storage Invention), 328, 329

  Damasio, Antonio R., 193, 548n

  Dana Farber Cancer Center, 218

  Daptobacter bacteria, 297, 298, 583n

  “Dark Winter,” 398, 595n

  Darnell, James, 549n

  DARPA, see Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

  Darwin, Charles, 433

  “Darwin, Charles,” 31–33, 367, 381, 425–426

  “Darwin Among the Machines” (Butler), 205

  data-compression techniques, 36–38, 47, 507n–508n

  redundancy and, 36, 508n, 516n, 517n

  data mining, 265

  Dautenhahn, Kerstin, 548n

  Davis, Tamara M., 592n

  Dawkins, Richard, 440, 600n

  Dayan, Peter, 170, 542n

  death, 7, 9, 320–323, 373, 398, 470

  of author’s father, 211, 326

  biological evolution an
d, 320, 321

  of cells, 215, 218

  in gene-therapy trials, 416–417

  from heart disease, 211, 217, 373, 413, 418

  inevitability of, 320, 326

  mutations and, 219

  religious view of, 368, 372, 374

  from SARS virus, 402

  tragedy of, 329, 372

  in war, 330–331, 331, 409

  decentralization, 396, 420–421, 473

  of computation, 351

  democratization and, 406, 408

  of work, 105, 122, 340–341

  decision making, 8, 190, 191

  expert systems and, 266–267

  by unmanned spacecraft, 280–281

  decision (halting) problem, 453, 601n

  Deep Blue, 274–277, 441, 459

  deep brain stimulation, 195, 585n

  Deep Fritz software, 274–278, 441

  Deep Space One, 280–281

  Deep Thought machine, 275

  Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), 194, 284, 328, 333, 334, 588n

  Defense Department, U.S., 312, 331, 594n

  Defense Ministry, British, 594n

  defensive technologies for GNR age, 408–410, 416–426, 598n–599n

  deflation, 65, 101–108, 245

  DeGaspari, J., 584n

  de Grey, Aubrey, 212–213, 219–221, 321, 587n

  dehydrogenase, 247

  Dekker, Cees, 527n

  Delio, Michelle, 582n

  Dembski, William A., 431, 473–478, 483, 602n

  democracy, 20, 152, 395, 396, 406, 408, 498n

  dendrites, 145, 153, 170–173, 178, 180, 197, 202, 383, 428, 452, 530n

  apical, 191–192, 192

  basal, 192

  defined, 124

  morphology of, 155

  nonlinearities in, 124, 137, 148, 151

  spines of, 171–172, 173, 174

  dendritic cells, cancer and, 217–218

  Dennett, Daniel, 191, 467, 473, 548n

  Denning, Peter J., 167

  Denton, Michael, 431, 479–483, 599n, 602n

  depressions, 99, 102

  Derocher, Robert J., 582n

  DeRose, James, 515n

  Desai, T. A., 584n

  Desai, Tejal A., 568n

  Descartes, René, 173

  Desert Storm campaign, 284

  De Silva, H., 560n

  desktop cold fusion, 250, 567n

  developing countries, see underdeveloped countries

  development stage, 52

  De Vos, Alexis, 566n

  DeWan, George, 597n

  Dewey, David, 600n

  diabetes, 212, 303, 549n

  type 1, 223, 255, 557n

  type 2, 210, 211, 225, 302

  Diamond, M. C., 549n

  diamondoid assembler, 229–230, 234, 238, 239–240

  DiCarlo, James, 194

  Dickens, Charles, 396

  Diehl, Michael R., 528n

  digestive system, 234, 238, 301–305, 307, 386

  digital, digital operations:

  analog operations vs., 14, 126, 147, 149–150, 308, 428, 442, 461, 519n

  in author’s archive, 327

  in brain, 71, 85, 126, 147–151, 442, 483, 519n

  cameras, 113

  disks and tapes, 327–328, 588n

  pianos, 53

  as theory of physics, 86–87, 518n–522n

  Digital Biology Interest Group, 288

  digital divide, 95

  Dijkstra, E. W., 56

  Dingel, B. B., 516n

  dinosaurs, 222

  diodes, light-emitting, 245

  dioxins, 253

  disabled, 189, 195

  disaster zones, 286

  discount rate, 109–110, 526n

  disease, 100, 116, 209

  biological evolution and, 511n

  brain damage and, 177

  brain reverse engineering and, 144

  degenerative, reversal of, 210, 217–221, 553n–555n

  elimination of, 205, 206, 241, 259, 396, 424

  see also specific diseases

  disks, digital, 327–328

  disorder, 38, 40, 510n, 520n

  Dittmer, W. U., 560n

  diversity, 152, 225, 424

  chaos and, 40, 41, 45–46

  genetic, 402

  DNA, 11, 20, 45, 86, 218–223, 378, 386, 483, 551n

  complementary (cDNA), 551n

  computing with, 112, 117–118, 119, 529n–530n

  damaged, 397, 552n

  in Epoch Two, 15, 16, 47

  in Epoch Three, 16

  errors in, 207–208, 233, 254, 256, 300, 471

  fetal, 168

  in gene therapy, 215–216, 553n

  information in, 15, 16, 38, 40, 117, 207, 232, 518n

  junk, 510n, 516n, 517n–518n

  as life’s computer, 207–210

  military uses of, 334

  mutations of, 208, 219

  nanotechnology and, 232, 233, 235–236, 237, 242, 251, 397, 412

  physical constants compared with, 362

  RNA interference and, 214

  of SARS virus vs. HIV, 398

  self-replication of, 16, 47, 116, 117, 118, 207–208, 235, 529n

  sequencing, 73–74, 85, 470, 514n

  structure and behavior of, 207–208, 549n

  transdifferentiation and, 223, 471

  2–bit base pairs of, 85, 207, 209–210, 516n, 517n

  Doctorow, Cory, 271–272

  dogs, consciousness of, 467, 468

  Dolly the Sheep, 221

  Dombeck, Daniel, 163

  Domjan, Michael, 542n

  Donovan, 300

  dopamine, 303

  dorsal pathway, 175

  Dorus, Steve, 506n

  Doyle, Arthur Conan, 570n

  Drake, Frank, 344, 590n

  Drake equation, 342, 344–349, 590n

  DRAM (dynamic random access memory), 57, 58, 58, 59, 66

  Drexler, K. Eric, 111, 141, 236–240, 242, 245, 535n, 558n, 559n, 560n, 561n, 563 n, 564n, 568n, 595n, 598n

  as founder of nanotechnology, 139, 228–231, 395

  on MNT manufacturing safeguards, 400

  molecular assembler idea of, 228–231, 234, 236–237

  nanocomputer design of, 135, 228–229

  drugs, 371

  for AIDS, 95, 470

  antiangiogenic, 218, 222

  antirejection, 223, 557n

  antiviral, 417, 422

  biological evolution and, 511n

  cancer, 212, 303, 304

  cholesterol-lowering (statin), 217

  development of, 209, 213, 259, 282

  genetic profiling and, 214–215

  as information technology, 470

  nanotechnology and, 242–243, 303, 583n

  to prevent weight gain, 11–12, 303

  to promote neurogenesis, 177

  to reverse atherosclerosis, 217

  smart, 100, 212–215, 251, 256, 303–304, 323

  Dubois, Charles, 196

  Dudley, Gary, 538n

  Duke University, 117, 118, 194–195

  Dulberger, E. R., 512n

  Dumé, Belle, 536n

  Dutta, A. K., 516n

  DVDs, 54

  dynamite, 404

  dyslexia, 175, 337, 589n

  Dyson, Freeman, 350, 359, 591n

  Dyson Sphere, 350

  Dzegilenko, Fedor N., 562n, 563n

  ear, 123, 165

  Earth:

  asteroid collisions with, 20, 40, 398, 405–406

  biomass of, see biomass

  as center of universe, 342, 433

  comet collision with, 405–406

  hot core of, 246

  magnetic field of, 281

  mass of, 349

  meteor collisions with, 398

  NTT model of, 113

  water chemistry on, 239

  eating, 301–305, 307

  eavesdropping, 333, 354

  Eberhart, Russell C., 589n


  Echelon system, 280

  E. coli, 236, 551n

  e-commerce, 13, 103–105, 104, 263, 264

  economy, economic growth, 128

  GNR age and, 98, 230–231, 396–397, 406, 410

  information technology and, 65, 107, 107, 525n

  law of accelerating returns and, 96–110, 433, 524n–526n

  in World Bank report, 99, 338, 396, 470

  Edelman, G. M., 532n, 540n, 538n

  Edelman, Gerald, 201

  Edgar, B., 502n

  Edison, Thomas, 52, 53

  education, 202, 294, 336–337

  of AI, 202–203, 294

  exponential growth of, 108, 108, 525n

  software for, 175, 337, 341, 589n

  see also learning

  egg cells, 221–222, 553n

  Eighth Day of Creation, The (Judson), 550n

  Einstein, Albert, 133, 355, 361, 388, 521n, 570n, 592n

  general relativity theory of, 341, 355, 378, 500n, 503n, 520n

  parietal lobes of, 202

  on simplicity, 39, 519n

  special relativity theory of, 341, 354, 520n

  Einstein-Rosen bridges, 355

  Eisenach, J. A., 600n

  Eisenhower, Dwight D., 72

  Eldering, C., 600n

  Eldredge, Niles, 510n–511n

  electricity, 17, 18, 244

  nanotechnology and, 114, 230, 248, 249, 250, 252

  prions and, 116–117

  from solar power, 249, 250

  electrocardiograms (ECGs), diagnosing of, 8, 276, 281–282

  electromagnetic-coupling constant, 499n

  electromagnetic fields, 131

  electromagnetic force, 140

  electromagnetic radiation, communication with (radio transmission), 344–349, 590n

  electromagnetic technologies, 76, 434

  electromechanical paradigm, 67, 67, 127–128, 434

  electron-beam lithography, 113

  electronic circuits, 27, 71, 503n, 504n

  electronic neurons, 172

  electronics, 3, 53, 54–55, 73, 227, 242, 245, 347, 444

  communications bridge between biological information and, 308, 313

  contemporary process of, 122

  democratization and, 406

  disposal problems and, 251

  nanotechnology and, 227, 407

  portable, 56, 113, 247

  price-performance of, 111–112, 526n

  value of, 339

  Electronics, 111

  electrons, 114, 141, 355, 499n

  in atoms, 14, 85, 131

  computing with spin of, see spintronics as digital vs. analog phenomena, 519n

  movies of movement of, 138

  quantum effects and, 119, 238

  transistor travel times of, 56, 61

  elements, 14–15

  see also specific elements

  elimination process, 304–305

  Ellis, Havelock, 376

  e-mail, 30–31, 78, 255–56

  FBI snooping on, 413

  spam filters for, 267–68

  embryos, cloning and, 222, 555n–56n

  Emerson, J. J., 510n

  emotional intelligence, 8, 28, 124, 389

  machine, 28–29, 145, 377–379, 385