The post is short, so I’m ripping the whole thing.
The IEEE Spectrum “special report” on The Singularity] makes for interesting reading, but I’d like you to try something as you click through it. When you read these essays and interviews, every time you see the word “Singularity,” I want you to replace it in your head with the term “Flying Spaghetti Monster.”
(My personal favourite right now is “The Flying Spaghetti Monster represents the end of the supremacy of Homo sapiens as the dominant species on planet Earth.”)
The Singularity is the last trench of the religious impulse in the technocratic community. The Singularity has been denigrated as “The Rapture For Nerds,” and not without cause. It’s pretty much indivisible from the religious faith in describing the desire to be saved by something that isn’t there (or even the desire to be destroyed by something that isn’t there) and throws off no evidence of its ever intending to exist. It’s a new faith for people who think they’re otherwise much too evolved to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster or any other idiot back-brain cult you care to suggest.
Vernor Vinge, the originator of the term, is a scientist and novelist, and occupies an almost unique space. After all, the only other sf writer I can think of who invented a religion that is also a science-fiction fantasy is L Ron Hubbard.
Posted here on his blog.
11 responses so far ↓
1 tim // Jun 3, 2008 at 7:16 pm
he just owned you and everything you stand for.
2 zach // Jun 3, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Really? I consider that a fairly snarky and luddite response, honestly.
To deny the Singularity as a concept is to deny the advancements we’ve made since the day we fell out of the trees and started using stones as tools. We are already so far up the curve from where we started that some one back at the zero point wouldn’t be able to comprehend of how the world works today.
We’re already at the Singularity point for a caveman.
Do I think it will end in some sort of transcendence to a God-like state? Probably not.
But, like its namesake, that portion of the Singularity lies on an almost vertical curve. Much in the same way you fall for millions of years into a black hole, there would be a near infinite period of change before you reached the true “Singularity”.
I think the people who dismiss this as nerd fantasy are missing fact that this process is made up of innumerable small changes that push us down the path.
A dozen years ago nanotech was a pipe dream. Now it is used to assemble custom bacteria, cleaning products, even designer fabrics.
Twenty years ago cellular communication was a non-entity. Now I can call anywhere in the world on a device no bigger than a deck of playing cards.
Fifty years ago computers a million times less powerful than the laptop I’m typing this on took up an entire buildings. This one weighs less than four pounds and can fit in my satchel.
People are expecting a climatic change. But the reality is that one day you’ll wake up, blink twice check your email, be listening to a radio inside your head before you sit up fully, and be able to tell where a dozen of your friends are by their built-in GPS trackers.
That moment is what I’m calling the Singularity. When we internalize all of the external technology and information transfer.
3 Warren Ellis // Jun 3, 2008 at 7:46 pm
“That moment is what I’m calling the Singularity. ”
Well, that’s fine. But it’s not what Vinge or anyone else in the field calls the Singularity, really, is it? And, honestly, “la la la I can’t hear you I’ll call the Singularity what I like” makes me look like the old wise man of the techno-forest.
4 Dark Lurker // Jun 4, 2008 at 12:32 am
Pynchon talks about this in Against the Day. Humanity is constantly looking for a redeemer whether it be in science or religion.
Most of the quantum physics is theoretical, just like religion. While its true that religion is becoming increasingly harder to swallow, a lot of this string theory and galaxies time travelling stuff are largely assumptions as well. The truth is that atheism is a religion too.
5 zach // Jun 4, 2008 at 8:19 am
I think it’ll be a stair step.
We’ll have a moment of Singularity where we internalize technological communication.
We’ll have a moment of Singularity where we nanotech makes the physical limitations of our bodies irrelevant.
And so on and so forth.
But, after each major step, we’ll have a period where the curve doesn’t hold true to the x^2 pattern. Things will slow down, we’ll have to get used to the new world and how we’re going to sell it to each other. After a period, the pace will pick back up again and we’ll go hurtling into the next world-changing moment of Singularity.
6 wedge // Jun 4, 2008 at 9:53 am
Science fiction and fantasy ain’t exactly the healthiest starting point to find ‘belief’. Hubbard being the most obvious example.
Another contender for religious potential is Lovecraft’s mythos – lest we forget that the guy was psychotic proto-nazi. Fascinating in terms of fiction, not so cool for mobilising large numbers of people. Anyone trying to apply Philip K. Dick’s VALIS to everyday life is find themselves in a lot of trouble.
And may the gods forbid Jedi EVER being a ‘real’ religion.
It involves strength-through-blood war bonding, a sense of sexist entitlement (how come Leia never gets to join the ‘brotherhood’?), genetic determinism, anti-democratic theocracy, bogus bonged-out surfer wisdom, medaeval class relations, manifest destiny, stage tricks (mainly hypnosis and levitation) and tradition for its own sake.
It combines the worst aspects of every millenial cult, religious or otherwise!
it also encourages men well over thirty to get all worked up about a plagiaristic* kiddie movie that’s done more damage to cinema than the advent of TV.
*’A New Hope’ is almost a shot-for-shot remake of Kurosawa’s ‘Hidden Fortress’.
7 El Cacique // Jun 4, 2008 at 10:17 am
Silly Jedi
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_west/7360871.stm
8 tyler // Jun 4, 2008 at 11:00 am
Re: Definitions
I thought the whole point of the ‘Singularity’ was that the creation of self-improving technology would start a feedback loop.
All this talk of built-in GPS and contact computers of kind of confusing the symptoms with the cause, right?
9 tyler // Jun 4, 2008 at 11:02 am
oops. “of kind” == “is kind”
10 zach // Jun 4, 2008 at 11:18 am
The simplest definition of the Singularity that I’ve ever heard is that it is the moment when tomorrow becomes inconceivable because of the changes that will occur between now and then.
For me, going to sleep one day and then waking up a walking internet node the next is a pretty good example of that sort of thing.
11 tim // Jun 4, 2008 at 1:41 pm
The nerd lust for the “Singularity” (does it really deserve status as a proper noun?) seems remarkably similar to the Christian lust for the Rapture. Just throwing that out there.
Also, atheism is not a religion.
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