Civilization

People are rather transient. But civilizations last a little longer.

And hopefully our current global civilization will last a long time indeed.
According to Ray Kurzweil and others, civilization might even have a purpose...

Waking up the Universe.

According to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881 - 1955) the universe is evolving towards an Omega Point,
a place with a maximum level of complexity and consciousness.

Some might think that this is somewhat ''out there''. But, well, futurulogists tend to be that way... :-)

Ray Kurzweil and others certainly agree:

Cosmologists argue that the world will end in fire (a big crunch) or ice (the death of stars as they spread out into an etrnal expansion), but this does not take into account the power of intelligence.
...
Waking up the universe, and then intelligently deciding its fate by infusing it with our human intelligence in its nonbiological form, is our destiny [Kurzweil: How to Create a Mind, p. 282].

But whatever the final destination, the immediate next steps for our civilization are certainly going to be super interesting!

Sure, the Silicon Sirens (and others) are calling (for a dystopian future).
So, we better come up with a clever plan to stay the course (towards a great new dawn for humanity).

Read more on these pages about the next steps!




From: Simon Laub
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.science
Sent: Sunday, December 30, 2012 8:49 PM
Keywords: The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke
Subject: Waking up the Universe - What might actually happen?