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From The Maze Where Realities Converge - the psychedelic encyclopedia of reality from The Ultimate Comment
The singularity (or technological singularity) is an event that some hypothesise will happen in The future. As technology advances, the rate at which we can create new technology advances. If we are twice as advanced, we can make progress twice as fast. Therefore, as mankind becomes more and more advanced, the time taken to make technological advances becomes shorter and shorter, until it reaches a point where this time approximates zero. This point is the singularity. In the graph to the right, it is the point in time where the line becomes almost vertical.
Moore's Law states that the processing power of microchips will double every 18 months. This prediction has held true since the invention of the microchip. What would happen if computers, rather than people, were doing the research? In the first 18 months, the speed of the computers would double, so the rate at which they can advance would double. In the 9 months after that, they would double again, then again in 4 and a half months, then about 67 days, 34 days, 17 days, 8 days and 12 hours, 4 days and 6 hours, 2 days and 3 hours, 25 and a half hours... Within about three years, you'd have reached a point where the speed of computers reaches infinity. (Note that this example is not an actual prediction of how computer technology will develop, as there is probably a limit to how fast microchips can be. Rather it is a numerical illustration of the snowballing rate of progress - the law of increasing returns - as applied to technological progress. Rather than building ever-faster microchips, we will move on to something faster than microchips, possibly quantum computers.)
It is impossible to overstate the importance of the singularity. If the predictions are true, the singularity will be the most important event since the evolution of consciousness. Man's power will, in an instant, become infinite. It will be like the birth of God.
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