Free The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence by Ray Kurzweil Page B

second phase is actually their first phase, with time going in the reverse direction. So from their perspective, the Universe during this phase is expanding, not contracting. Thus, if the “Universe will eventually contract” theory is correct, it would be proper to say that the Universe is boudned in time by two big bangs, with events flowing in opposite directions in time from each big bang, meeting in the middle. Creatures living in both phases can say that they are in the first half of the Universe’s history, since both phases will appear to be the first half to creatures linging in those phases. And in both halves of the time span of the Universe, the Law of Entropy, the Law of Time and Chaos, and the Law of Accelerating Returns (as applied to evolution) all hold true, but with time moving in opposite directions. 6
    The End of Time
     
     
     
     
    And what if the Universe expands indefinitely? This would mean that the stars and galaxies will eventually exhaust their energy, leaving a Universe of dead stars expanding forever. That would leave a big mess-lots of randomness-and no meaningful order, so according to the Law of Time and Chaos, time would gradually come to a halt. Consistently, if a dead Universe means that there will be no conscious beings to appreciate it, the both the Quantum Mechanical and the Eastern subjective viwpoints 7 appear to imply that the Universe would cease to exist.
    In my view, neither conclusion is quite right. At the end of this book, I’ll share with you my perspective of what happens at the ends of the Universe. But don’t look ahead.
 
    Consider the sophistication of our creations over a period of only a few thousand years. Ultimately, our machines will match and exceed human intelligence, no matter how one cares to define or measure this elusive term. Even if my time frames are off, few serious observers who have studied the issue claim that computers will never achieve and surpass human intelligence. Humans will have vastly beaten evolution, therefore, achieving in a matter of only thousands of years as much or more than evolution achieved in billions of years. So human intelligence, a product of evolution, is far more intelligent than its creator.
    And so, too, will the intelligence that we are creating come to exceed the intelligence of its creator. That is not the case today. But as the rest of this book will argue, it will take place very soon—in evolutionary terms, or even in terms of human history—and within the lifetimes of most of the readers of this book. The Law of Accelerating Returns predicts it. And furthermore, it predicts that the progression in the capabilities of human-created machines will only continue to accelerate. The human species creating intelligent technology is another example of evolution’s progress building on itself. Evolution created human intelligence. Now human intelligence is designing intelligent machines at a far faster pace. Yet another example will be when our intelligent technology takes control of the creation of yet more intelligent technology than itself.
    NOW ON THIS TIME THING, WE START OUT AS A SINGLE CELL, RIGHT?
     
     
    That’s right.
     
    AND THEN WE DEVELOP INTO SOMETHING RESEMBLING A FISH, THEN AN AMPHIBIAN, ULTIMATELY A MAMMAL, AND SO ON—YOU KNOW ONTOGENY RECAPITULATES—
     
    Phylogeny, yes.
     
    SO THAT’S JUST LIKE EVOLUTION, RIGHT? WE GO THROUGH EVOLUTION IN OUR MOTHER’S WOMB.
     
    Yes, that’s the theory. The word phylogeny is derived from phylum ...
     
    BUT YOU SAID THAT IN EVOLUTION, TIME SPEEDS UP. YET IN AN ORGANISM’S LIFE, TIME SLOWS DOWN.
     
    Ah yes, a good catch, I can explain.
     
    I’M ALL EARS.
     
    The Law of Time and Chaos states that, in a process, the average time interval between salient events is proportional to the amount of chaos in the process. So we have to be careful to define precisely what constitutes the process. It is true that evolution started out with single cells. And we also