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===What is new about technology=== | ===What is new about technology=== | ||
{{Author|Ray Kurzweil}} will tell you we are at an inflection point where our technology is so good, and developing so quickly, it is about to become self-aware. Not only that, the ''universe itself'' is about to wake up and become self aware.<ref>See {{br|The Singularity is Near}}. Now there is [https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24632800-900-is-the-universe-conscious-it-seems-impossible-until-you-do-the-maths/ a view that the universe is ''already'' self aware], only it operates at level of abstraction so far above our own mortal plane that we can’t see it — we are to its consciousness as our brain’s individual neurons are to ''our'' consciousness — and this idea has force (even if it ios a shade unfalsifiable). But that is not what Kurzweil is saying.</ref> Now that particular cup of Kool-Aid hasn’t made it to the [[JC]] yet — it seems to be going the other way around the circle as a matter of fact — so | {{Author|Ray Kurzweil}} will tell you we are at an inflection point where our technology is so good, and developing so quickly, it is about to become self-aware. Not only that, the ''universe itself'' is about to wake up and become self aware.<ref>See {{br|The Singularity is Near}}. Now there is [https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24632800-900-is-the-universe-conscious-it-seems-impossible-until-you-do-the-maths/ a view that the universe is ''already'' self aware], only it operates at level of abstraction so far above our own mortal plane that we can’t see it — we are to its consciousness as our brain’s individual neurons are to ''our'' consciousness — and this idea has force (even if it ios a shade unfalsifiable). But that is not what Kurzweil is saying.</ref> Now that particular cup of Kool-Aid hasn’t made it to the [[JC]] yet — it seems to be going the other way around the circle as a matter of fact — so let him hold forth on what ''he'' knows, and that is this: the startling developments in technology in the last forty years hail from three interconnected places: | ||
*'''The [[analog/digital transformation]]''': The discovery that information can be abstracted from the [[substrate]] in which it is usually embedded, so that data can be transferred from place to place ''without'' being buried in an analog medium of some kind. A letter, as an informational construct, can exist without ink, paper or an envelope. | *'''The [[analog/digital transformation]]''': The discovery that information can be abstracted from the [[substrate]] in which it is usually embedded, so that data can be transferred from place to place ''without'' being buried in an analog medium of some kind. A letter, as an informational construct, can exist without ink, paper or an envelope. | ||
*'''Moore’s law''': Now we have liberated data from its substrate, we need the kit to process it. This finally came good when the [[vacuum tube]] — still a think of great beauty, especially when being over-driven in a Fender amplifier — gave way to the transistor. Transistors suddenly got smaller, and cheaper. The smaller and cheaper they got, the more you could pack on a chip, and the faster they got. Moore’s law documents the exponential increase in processing power through that decrease in size and cost of processors themselves.<ref>Though it may now, after 60 years, be approaching its logical limit.</ref> The information in a letter can be automatically, quickly and cheaply copied, augmented, processed, changed, . | *'''Moore’s law''': Now we have liberated data from its substrate, we need the kit to process it. This finally came good when the [[vacuum tube]] — still a think of great beauty, especially when being over-driven in a Fender amplifier — gave way to the transistor. Transistors suddenly got smaller, and cheaper. The smaller and cheaper they got, the more you could pack on a chip, and the faster they got. Moore’s law documents the exponential increase in processing power through that decrease in size and cost of processors themselves.<ref>Though it may now, after 60 years, be approaching its logical limit.</ref> The information in a letter can be automatically, quickly and cheaply copied, augmented, processed, changed, . | ||