6 ms·
I really wouldn't expect this from Singularity U. I wonder if it a single rogue woo supporter or if Kurzweil has intentionally brought those kind of people in.
by jere 14y ago
I really wouldn't expect this from Singularity U. I wonder if it a single rogue woo supporter or if Kurzweil has intentionally brought those kind of people in.
Personally I think Kurzweil is the poster child for plausible sounding woo. Consider this. Kurzweil thinks he's going to be able to live forever and essentially reconstruct his dead father. He takes 150 (previously 250) supplements and 10 glasses of alkaline water per day. He wrote a nutrition book about avoiding fat, particularly butter, organ meats, and eggs. If you've read anything about nutrition in the last decade, you'll probably be aware these are some of the healthiest foods on the planet and the campaign against dietary fat was always lacking evidence. To be fair, he did backpedal on this point in a later book, but then again why would a computer scientist write two nutrition books in the first place?
His predictions have always seemed rather silly to me too (turing test passed in 17 years) but they are a bit more debatable at least.
- drcode 14y agoI'm ambivalent about Kurzweil because he has been a great early popularizer of empirically/scientifically-founded futurism. But at this point he is probably doing more harm than good, for the reasons you describe.
- jere 14y agoSure. Even Isaac Newton had some crazy beliefs ("wrote more on Biblical hermeneutics and occult studies than on science and mathematics" according to wikipedia).
- bluekeybox 14y agoSure, but Newton formulated Newton's laws, built the first reflective telescope, explained motion of planets, developed differential calculus, and wrote Principia.
- jere 14y agoExactly. Newton is seen by many as the smartest scientist who ever lived. So I'm saying even those who contribute the most can have crazy ideas. It's typical. Not sure we disagree. Or are you saying Kurzweil's contributions are very small in comparison?
- bluekeybox 14y agoI think what I'm saying is that Newton is remembered for his discoveries and inventions, not for his publicity campaigns.
- akiselev 14y agoHe is remembered for his discoveries which were confirmed by hundreds of years of experimentation. As a person he should be judged holistically, and that includes his affinity for the occult. If he were to be a professor of Stanford today, his beliefs on the supernatural should be taken into consideration and viewed as a lack of intellectual integrity(although with all that we know now versus what humanity knew during his time, his stance would most likely be different today).
- huxley 14y agoNewton had boatloads of crazy beliefs and --oddly enough for his future reputation-- was probably kept from publishing most of his esoteric work by the religious intolerance of the period. The Newton Project at University of Sussex and Cambridge University has collaborated with University of King's College in Halifax, Canada, and Indiana University to collect and transcribed his all of his writings. Their progress widget has them at 4,950,000 words so far. Alchemical writings: http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/prism.php?id=82&cat=Alchemy http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/prism.php?id=82&ca... Religious writings: http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/prism.php?id=44 http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/prism.php?id=44
- psykotic 14y agoKurzweil's second nutrition-oriented book was coauthored with Terry Grossman, a licensed homeopath. It does make you raise your eyebrows.
- natedsaint 14y agoI'm finding this stuff out a lot, lately. Especially about Kurzweil. Is it fair to say that the futurist movement is less about cynicism/skepticism and more about idealism and optimism for the future, or is this just the case for Kurzweil? Are there other members of the futurist movement who would disagree with this endorsement by the homeopathic community?
- kanzure 14y agoNone of the on-the-ground transhumanists take Ray very seriously. While he might genuinely be attempting to bring about advanced technology, I don't see how "get lots of publicity" is a viable method to reach his purported goals. He hasn't really worked on OCR since the 70s. Apparently, that's his claim to technological progress. Oh, also he did some electronic noisemakers. Still, I wonder about the 40 years between then and now. 40 years is a long time to work towards transhumanist technologies. But instead he has squandered it into publicity on top of his OCR accomplishments? There is a growing sentiment among transhumanists that his cheerleading and publicity campaigns aren't going to materialize advanced technology. We have to build it ourselves. But we already knew this, it's just that the "sit back and wait for it to happen" fairytale is very seductive. In fact, that's exactly what people want to hear. For somewhat-unrelated criticism regarding Ray Kurzweil, there are these emails from Paul D. Fernhout: http://heybryan.org/fernhout/ http://heybryan.org/fernhout/ But to be fair, you can still spot TSiN on random bookshelves when you go to hackerspaces. It's almost cute, really. Bias: irc.freenode.net ##hplusroadmap ("sponsored by George Church" just like everything else)
- ThomPete 14y agoHe made the Kurzweil synths and as far as I remember his OCR was for the disabled. Sometimes it's easy to disregard someone completely just because one think they take it too far. Imagine how a Davinci might look today. I do not buy Rays ideas on this matter either but there sure is a discussion worth having in there. Even despite some of the claims he makes.