
10 Questions for Ray Kurzweil - barredo
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2033076,00.html
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TomasSedovic
This article is a perfect example of a bad design and why typography matters.

When you first look at it, there is nothing that suggests that this is an
interview.

The questions are in no way visually differentiated from the answers. As such,
it looks a lot like an essay where the author asks the questions and then
discusses them.

If they just made the questions bold, it would make all the difference.

~~~
Kilimanjaro
Came here to say the exact same thing. Glad to know I am not the only one.

Embolden the questions! It lets me skim right to the ones that interest me.

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pluies
> The consensus in the field is that there's somewhere between a thousand and
> a million technologically advanced civilizations just in our own galaxy.

Wait, _what_?

Admittedly I am no expert on the subject, but I'm pretty sure there is
absolutely no consensus in the number —or even the _mere existence_ — of other
advanced civilizations at all. Is there?

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anthonyb
There are between 100 billion and 400 billion stars in our galaxy, which puts
the odds of life developing at between 1 in 400 million and 1 in 100,000. That
doesn't seem wildly out to me - particularly now that we're finding more and
more extrasolar planets.

Would you prefer odds of 1 in a trillion? or 1 in 1000?

~~~
Avshalom
Implicit in that assumption is that life occurs at least once per galaxy. All
we can really say is that it has happened once in the universe which makes the
odds 1 in 10^21 to 1 in 10^24. Even then, just because life happened doesn't
mean the odds are at all related to life/# of stars. The odds of life
occurring could be 1 in 10^10^10^10 who knows. It's very difficult to figure
out the probability of an event if the only information you have is that it
happened.

Which isn't to say I think we're alone in the universe I personally assume
higher life is out there, but that doesn't make ridiculous statistical
optimism less ridiculous.

~~~
anthonyb
Saying that the chances are 1 in a 100,000 doesn't imply that life happens
once per 100,000 stars, just that that's what'll happen on average. You can
roll a dice 20 times and not have a six come up.

But yes, it's difficult to figure out the probability of life occuring if we
only have a sample size of one. On the other hand, nobody's found anything
particularly special about the Earth's placement or chemical makeup, other
than it's rocky and has liquid water.

This is why exploring the other planets in our solar system is important. If
we explore Titan and find weird, hydrocarbon-based fish which evolved
independently to life on earth, or under the ice on Europa, then it tells us
that the probability of life evolving is not that small, and we can up the
estimate of the probability of other civilisations in the galaxy.

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ced
For those interested about the possibility of life on other planets, there's a
_great_ essay by Michael Crichton:

<https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~scranmer/SPD/crichton.html>

He rails against Drake's equation, and the larger scientific damage it has
done. One important point he makes is that writing

number of cats in this house = average number of cats per room X number of
rooms

gives the illusion of science, but it gets you no closer to a final answer if
you can't estimate the density of cats or the number of rooms.

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hugh3
The first question was the most interesting:

 _Is it a mistake to use the events of the recent past as a method of
predicting the future?_

since this seems to be a veiled criticism of Kurzweil's entire methodology --
he sees an exponential trend and extrapolates it way out into the future with
no consideration for the fact that all exponential trends in the real world
eventually hit a wall _somewhere_.

Kurzweil, unfortunately, misses the point and uses it as a cue to go on about
exponential trends again.

