Singularity is Near #1

Welcome to Day 3 of the Feast of Tabernacles. Today we're going to cover something a little different, but we have to realize one of the most important things that is in the Bible, especially in the book of Revelation. The book of Revelation is not only interpreted by what comes first in the Bible, but also it interprets going back to the beginning, so we can understand what it was in the beginning and what happened. Then we're going to find out what is it that is taking place today, and what are men doing in seeking to reject God, yet attain everlasting life.

Rev. 1:3—here's something that takes place every time you read it, every time you hear it preached, every time you study it, because it is 'a little here, a little there; line upon line; precept upon precept,' and you build it and put it together. As you do that, when we look out into the world today we can understand what is happening, because one of things that Revelation reveals is that Satan the devil has been deceiving the world from the beginning, and also is on an active campaign to deceive the whole world at the end-time.

We're going to see that he is going to offer mankind everlasting life, his way! Now that really sounds far-out. We're living in times that are, from a hundred years ago, definitely far-out. But these things were broached in the past.

Revelation 1:3: "Blessed is the one who reads, and those who hear the words of this prophecy…" That means specifically this book, but also you can tie into it all the rest of the Bible as it is interpreted by Revelation.

"…and who keep the things that are written therein; for the time is at hand" (v 3). Everything that has to do with the plan of God:

• the commandments of God
• the faith of Jesus Christ
• the testimony of Jesus Christ
• overcoming Satan the devil
• what is going to happen at the end-time
• the finality of God's plan

Those things cannot be understood in focus without the Holy Days.

That's why the Feast of Tabernacles becomes very important for us to understand, because here in the end-time, we are being given the knowledge of what we need to know. But more important than the knowledge is the understanding of the character that we need so we can rule and reign with Christ! Some of the things that I'm going to discuss today will be kind of over some of your heads, but I'll try and make it understandable so you realize what is going on.

Verse 4: "John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace and peace be to you from Him Who is, and Who was, and Who is to come; and from the seven spirits that are before His throne; and from Jesus Christ, the faithful Witness, the Firstborn from the dead, and the Ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him Who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood" (vs 4-5).

We're going to see—and as we already know—the two biggest problems in the world are:

• Satan the devil
• sin!

Verse 6: "And has made us kings and priests to God and His Father… [showing what we're going to be] …to Him be the glory and the sovereignty into the ages of eternity. Amen. Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye shall see Him, and those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth shall wail because of Him. Even so, Amen" (vs 6-7).

Now here's the key: Jesus talks about Himself, since He is the Beginner of the creation of God, everything came into being through Him, and there wasn't anything that came into being that didn't come into being through Him.

Verse 8: "'I am the Alpha and the Omega… [the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet] …the Beginning and the Ending'…" This tells us that one of the ways we understand the end is by understanding the beginning!

"…says the Lord, 'Who is, and Who was, and Who is to come—the Almighty'" (v 8).

Let's see what it tells us in Matt. 24, because this becomes important for us to understand what has happened in the past; because they are beginning to find out that many of the technologies we have today were understood to a good degree—perhaps even greater than a good degree—in the past. I don't believe for one minute that Leonardo DiVinchi invented all of these things of himself. Maybe he had access to ancient documents, which then he took and refined.

Matthew 24:37: "Now as it was in the days of Noah…" There are two parts of the days of Noah:

• before the Flood
• after the Flood

"…so shall it also be at the coming of the Son of man. For as in the days that were before the Flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage… [other places say 'building and planting'] …until the day that Noah entered the ark; And they were not aware until the Flood came and took them all away; so shall it also be at the coming of the Son of man" (vs 37-39).

Let's look and see the description in Gen. 6. Here we have the end, which is the return of Christ. He refers to the beginning because that's how human beings are going to behave, because after all Satan hasn't changed and human beings haven't changed, so it's no great thing to realize that, yes, we'll do the same thing; we will repeat the same thing. And Satan still has his master plan:

• that he is going to conquer God
• that he is going to overcome Christ when He returns
• that he is going to offer everlasting life to human beings, technologically

So, you see the counterfeit that is there!

Genesis 6:5: "And the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth…" I want you to think about what it is today!

• Is that not a true statement?
• Is that not happening?

and multiplying, too, because it says, v 1: "…when men began to multiply..."

When they multiplied not only were they increasing the population, but they were increasing knowledge. There is no reason to believe that they didn't have the same technologies back then that we have today. They lived longer and they all spoke one language and they were able to pool all of these things together. Now, I'm going to talk about the increase of technology today and why it's increasing at such a rapid rate.

Here's the key; "…and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (v 5).

Every plan that man has for longevity or living extended life, or to have everlasting life—as we will see presented by one author here, who thinks that he and others are going to revolutionize technology. So, he is dealing at the top level of the intellectuals in this world, the great, super ultra-elite.

Remember what it was that Satan told Adam and Eve: 'If you eat of this fruit you shall become like God.' That is what man has been trying to do, while rejecting God! Satan comes along and says, 'Yes, I can help you with that,' because Satan thinks that he's going to succeed. Here's what happened because it was so bad:

Verse 6: "And the LORD repented that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. And the LORD said, 'I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the crawling thing, and the fowl of the air; for I repent that I have made them'" (vs 6-7).

There's another thing that's very important, which is generally hidden here, v 8: "But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD." So, there's always been grace!

The Protestant argument of law vs grace is nothing but stupidity and lack of knowledge of the Bible and rejection of the Old Testament and rejection of much of the New Testament as well. That's why they are in a death spiral.

Verse 9: "These are the generations of Noah…. [physical, genealogical generations (Gen. 5)] …Noah was a righteous man and perfect in his generations…"—or perfect in his genealogy!

Today you can't talk about race, because you become a racist. God made the races! You can talk about race. But the one race they don't want you to talk about are the Anglo-Saxon whites, that's dirty and nasty. Well, God made them! They are the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the modern-day Israel today. But you can talk about every other race, as long as you exalt every other race. The reason that Noah and his family was selected, was because he was perfect in his genealogy. What does this tell us? We can look at what's going on today!

• Are they genetically modifying food? Animals? Cloning? Yes, they are!
• Don't you think they were doing that back then?
• Don't you think that the same spirit of Satan the devil—which was leading men in their scientific and technological revolution back then—is doing exactly the same thing that is happening today? Yes!

Let's think a little bit more on this. That means there was an awful lot of interracial marriage. Well now, God didn't make the races different so they can intermarry and obliterate all the races! Some people get greatly upset over that. Well, I'm sorry if you get upset over that. That is not a racist statement. That is an actual fact!

Does that mean that God rejects people because they have married interracially? Not necessarily! It depends on whether they are called of God or not. But you need to understand that that was a vast problem then, and it's a vast problem today. To ignore it and be politically correct and to shut my mouth to please people who don't like what is said is not what God wants us to do. That'll never happen!

There is no salvation in racism, whether it's white, black, yellow, brown or whatever. Salvation comes from God, and God made us all of one blood so that we might seek God! We need to keep that in mind, and we need to understand the proper proportion of it. God loves everyone regardless of race when they come to Him and He calls them. We need to keep that in perspective, too. I don't want someone to feel bad; or someone to think that I'm being racist; or someone to think that I'm condemning you. No way! I'm just explaining what the facts were here, and what they are today; you need to realize that.

"…for Noah walked with God…" (v 9)

Verse 11: "Now the earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence…. [perfect description today] …And God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth" (vs 11-12). This is exactly where we're coming today!

Now let's look at some of the days after Noah and see what is said, because, as we will understand later, that man's potential is so vast. His abilities are far greater than we have understood. That man is able to think in terms beyond his physical life, and think in terms of living forever. Almost all societies in the world have some form of belief of living forever, or an afterlife.

Genesis 11:1: "And the whole earth was of one language and one speech." The predominate language today is English, as far as the spoken word goes, and is the predominate language between all languages and peoples: computer language, technological language.

Verse 2: "And it came to pass, as they traveled from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar. And they settled there. And they said to one another, 'Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.' And they had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar" (vs 2-3).

All of this was under the aegis of Nimrod, who was the first great despot in rebellion against God. Yet, to set up a society that was going to be in competition with God.

Verse 4: "And they said, 'Come, let us build us a city and a tower, with its top reaching into the heavens. And let us establish a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered upon the face of the whole earth.'" This is exactly what man is doing today!

• we're trying to go out into the further frontiers of the solar system and the universe
• they are working on technology to go faster than the speed of light
• they are working on how to perpetuate human life as it travels in space
• they are working on how they can take the resources from the different planets and use them, refine them, bring them back to earth

It's even been suggested: Why can't we just take one of these asteroids that's coming to the earth, land on it and redirect it to the earth because it's filled with iron and nickel? Almost pure!

They have some vast and fantastic plans that they are doing. They also have the earth satellite that is up there: the space station for all the world. They're building it, they're making it, they're adding on to it, they're conducting experiments. So, they want to go to heaven.

Verse 5: "And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men had built. And the LORD said, 'Behold, the people are one and they all have one language. And this is only the beginning of what they will do—now nothing, which they have imagined to do, will be restrained from them'" (vs 5-6). That is a key and profound statement!

Whenever men multiply on the earth and knowledge increases on the earth, then men begin to put their minds and technologies together to imagine some of the most unbelievable things, and they see it within their grasp today.

Verse 7: "Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they cannot understand one another's speech."

God said, 'Ok, we're going to delay this whole thing,' so they couldn't understand one another.

Verse 8: "So, the LORD scattered them abroad from that place upon the face of all the earth. And they quit building the city. Therefore, the name of it is called Babel, because the LORD confused the language of all the earth there. And from there the LORD scattered them abroad upon the face of all the earth" (vs 8-9).

That's what the whole book of The Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop explains concerning the religions of the world and the worship of Nimrod and Simaramis.

Now we're beginning to see that there were many technologies that they had. There's a book by Rene Noorbergen called The Secret of Lost Races. It shows that they had airplanes, atomic bombs and all of those things. We're dealing with some pretty profound abilities of human beings.

We know that God made us in His image and made us for a great purpose, but Satan wants to take that purpose and use it for Himself to create his great society. That's why we have the one-world government coming. That's why we have the world the way that it is, the way that the leaders are conducting themselves, etc. All of that is all worked into the plan of God, and God knows this, God knows what's happening! He knows that men are doing this, and so today, we are going to cover: What is it that man is really planning and can it succeed?

I want to read to you from this book called The Singularity is Near—I'll explain what that is by the definition of the author, shortly—by Ray Kurzweil. Ray Kurzweil is a genetic Jew, brilliant, perhaps ahead of his time in a lot of things that he and other scientists have brought up. He is in contact with the ultra-elite intelligencia of this world.

I came to hear about him, see him, on Glen Beck's program. He had him on for a one-hour interview about how mankind is going to live as long as he wants to, IF they follow his plan called singularity. It's amazing what man can imagine, so let me read a little from his book so that you understand:

• what he's talking about
• where he's coming from
• what is being planned for mankind
• what the technology is that they are working on
• what they are going to do with this technology

I have selected things out of his book from the book The Singularity is Near. In seeing this interview, this man is an agnostic, which means he doesn't believe in God, which means that if doesn't believe in God, he's inspired by Satan the devil! Could be since Satan deceives the whole world.

This is not an attack upon him, or a judgment upon him. If you're not with God, you're against God! If you're against God, it doesn't matter how nice you are. He's a very nice appearing man, very gentle, but also very intellectual and his thinking is way out beyond any of the thinking that we have. However, not beyond the thinking of God, and not beyond the thinking of the Word of God!

From : The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil
{http://stargate.inf.elte.hu/~seci/fun/Kurzweil,%20Ray%20-%20Singularity%20Is%20Near,%20The%20%28hardback%20ed%29%20%5Bv1.3%5D.pdf}

To this day, I remain convinced of this basic philosophy (that we have the power to overcome a seemingly overwhelming challenge): no matter what quandaries we face—business problems, health issues, relationship difficulties, as well as the great scientific, social, and cultural challenges of our time—there is an idea that can enable us to prevail….

That's his idea, singularity!

…Furthermore, we can find that idea….

Now this is an expansion beyond what Satan told Adam and Eve: that if you eat of this Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil then you will become like God. Also, it means not only deciding good and evil, but also, through experimentation, to be able to come to the knowledge of good and evil.

…there is an idea that can enable us to prevail. Furthermore, we can find that idea. And when we find it, we need to implement it. My life has been shaped by this imperative. The power of an idea—this is itself an idea.

He talks about how at age 12 he discovered the computer and so forth. He's an inventor, and an inventor of many things. He's even invented quite a portable hand-reader for the blind, that you can just take a book and go across the letters and it will read it out to you. So everyone says, 'Well, that's good.' Yes, that's good, that's fine, nothing wrong with that. But we need a world where there are no blind, and only Christ can do that! So, while this is helpful, this is good, he has other inventions. One of his best friends is Bill Gates of Microsoft, so it shows you the technological level that he is at.

As an inventor…I began to develop models of how distinct technologies—electronics; communications, computer processors, memory, magnetic storage, and others—developed and how these changes rippled through markets and ultimately our social institutions. I realized that most inventions fail not because the R&D department can't get them to work but because the timing is wrong. Inventing is a lot like surfing: you have to anticipate and catch the wave at just the right moment.

My interest in technology trends and their implications took on a life of its own in the 1980s, and I began to use my models to project and anticipate future technologies, innovations that would appear in 2000, 2010, 2020, and beyond. This enabled me to invent with the capabilities of the future by conceiving and designing inventions using these future capabilities. In the mid-to-late 1980s, I wrote my first book, The Age of Intelligent Machines. It included extensive (and reasonably accurate) predictions for the 1990s and 2000s, and ended with the specter of machine intelligence becoming indistinguishable from that of its human progenitors within the first half of the twenty-first century.

Stop and think about all the automatic devices we have today. They almost build cars by using robots. Yes, they need some human beings to do it. You go to the airport and you think nothing of it, but you get on this tram, the door opens automatically. You get on, it tells you where it's going and it tells you the places that you can get off. These are just very simple, little technologies that we are used to today. We have telephones, we have television, we have cell phones, we have iPods and all of those things. He says that all of these are just precursors of greater and greater things to come. So, he said here, concerning this:

It included extensive (and reasonably accurate) predictions for the 1990s and 2000s, and ended with the specter of machine intelligence becoming indistinguishable from that of its human progenitors within the first half of the twenty-first century.

That's what this book is all about!

It seemed like a poignant conclusion; and in any event I personally found it difficult to look beyond so transforming an outcome.

Over the last twenty years, I have come to appreciate an important metaidea: that the power of ideas to transform the world is itself accelerating.

The reason I'm bringing this during the Feast of Tabernacles is because this is projecting a human-oriented, perfect society. He wrote another book called:

The Age of Spiritual Machines (ASM), which I wrote in 1998, I sought to articulate the nature of human life as it would exist past the point when machine and human cognition blurred.

In other words, machines would be smarter than humans! He explains how they're going to that!

…Indeed, I've seen this epoch as an increasingly intimate collaboration between our biological heritage and a future that transcends biology.

We can control the biology and live as long as we want!

Since the publication of ASM, I have begun to reflect on the future of our civilization and its relationship to our place in the universe.

Now he's getting into God's business here! After all, what is the Bible? The Bible explains exactly what he's trying to find!

…[The coming] future of our civilization…
which comes from God
…and its relationship to our place in the universe….
which is in the Kingdom of God
…Although it may seem difficult to envision the capabilities of a future civilization whose intelligence vastly outstrips our own, our ability to create models of reality in our mind enables us to articulate meaningful insights into the implications of this impending merger of our biological thinking with the nonbiological intelligence we are creating….
hook up to a computer
…This, then, is the story I wish to tell in this book. The story is predicated on the idea that we have the ability to understand our own intelligence…

One caveat there, Mr. Kurzweil, you don't understand God and you don't know where sin comes from and you have no solution for sin.

…to understand our own intelligence—to access our own source code, if you will…

We are genetically numbered the way that God created us, he says that we can access our own source code!

…and then revise and expand it.

Make human beings better! The way that they do this, he says:

However, we have already succeeded in modeling portions of our brain—

Isn't it interesting, all of the things coming out about the human brain. {Note sermon series: Controlling the Human Mind—#3 is Change Your Brain, Change Your Life; how you can use your brain as it is, with God's Spirit, and why God made our brains the way that He did.}

Aside from Kurzweil's proposal, we're going to make it greater and better; that will never happen! He cannot overcome death, and he cannot overcome the evil of human nature! We will see that's the Achilles' heel in his thinking, though his thinking is spectacular on a human level, when you view it apart from the Bible… Glen Beck was just entranced with listening to Kurzweil. Well, I read his book. It's like Patton said of Rommel, when he first met him and blew his tanks off the desert, he said, 'I read your book, you s.o.b.'

[In] substantial neural regions—and the complexity of such models is growing rapidly.

But even if they model it:

• Do they have it right?
• How are they going to account for the spirit of man?

Fundamental, basic question, because our brain cells are not much different from the brain cells of animals, when just examined. Men have never been able to figure it out! So, the last frontier that Satan wants to do is to captivate and change the human mind. For control! What are the ramifications of this with the mark of the beast? I think that they get pretty profound.

Our progress in reverse engineering the human brain, a key issue that I will describe in detail in this book, demonstrates that we do indeed have the ability to understand, to model, and to extend our own intelligence. This is one aspect of the uniqueness of our species:

He believes in evolution, by the way. He thinks what he is proposing here are the epical evolutionary steps to the perfect man, to the perfect society, for total control and total knowledge.

…our intelligence is just sufficiently above the critical threshold necessary for us to scale our own ability to unrestricted heights of creative power—and we have the opposable appendage (our thumbs) necessary to manipulate the universe to our will.

These are some pretty heady words, but he means what he says.

In my teen years…

and he dabbled in magic, too

…I replaced my parlor magic with technology projects. I discovered that unlike mere tricks, technology does not lose its transcendent power when its secrets are revealed. I am often reminded of Arthur C. Clarke's third law, that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic:"

Guess what I happened to watch: The Third Reich and the Occult. What were they into? The Nazis? The same thing that Kurzweil is into: How do you make a superior species? An elite? So much for the Jews being different than the Germans.

Consider J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter stories from this perspective.

And those are all about witchcraft! Inspired by top principalities and Satan himself!

These tales may be imaginary, but they are not unreasonable visions of our world as it will exist only a few decades from now. Essentially all of the Potter "magic" will be realized through the technologies I will explore in this book. Playing quidditch and transforming people and objects into other forms will be feasible in full-immersion virtual-reality environments, as well as in real reality, using nanoscale devices.

More dubious is the time reversal (as described in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban), although serious proposals have even been put forward for accomplishing something along these lines (without giving rise to causality paradoxes), at least for bits of information, which essentially is what we comprise.

Muriel Rukeyser says that "the universe is made of stories, not of atoms." …I describe myself as a "patternist' someone who views patterns of information as the fundamental reality. For example, the particles composing my brain and body change within weeks…

We're nothing more than just codes and numbers. The physiology that we have in ourselves all change and re-make themselves within weeks.

…someone who views patterns of information as the fundamental reality. For example, the particles composing my brain and body change within weeks, but there is a continuity to the patterns that these particles make.

Of course, God made it that way!

A story can be regarded as a meaningful pattern of information, so we can interpret Muriel Rukeyser's aphorism from this perspective. This book, then, is the story of the destiny of the human-machine civilization, a destiny we have come to refer to as the Singularity.

Isn't that amazing? So there are six epics of this evolutionary, increasingly technological thrust-forward that Kurzweil brings in his book. I want to show you a chart, taken from his book and then we will examine some of these things and see what they are projecting. Here are the six epics on the chart that he has created.

DNA Evolves:

• Physics and Chemistry: Information in atomic structures
• Biology: Information in DNA

we already have some of that

Brains Evolve:

• Brains: Information in neural patterns

Then we put this into machines so that then machines will think like we think

Technology Evolves:

• Technology: Information in hardware and software designs.

it increases and becomes more and more human

Technology masters the methods of biology (including human intelligence)

now a machine controls us

• Merger of Technology in Human Intelligence:

And this is where he thinks that we are right now, which is probably accurate according to the chart that he has given.

The methods of biology (including human intelligence) are integrated into the (exponentially expanding) human technology base

into computers, and computers so powerful that they will just be miniscule

Vastly expanded human intelligence (predominantly nonbiological) …

now the machines control us

…spreads through the universe.

• The Universe Wakes Up: Patterns of matter and energy in the universe become saturated with intelligent processes and knowledge.

So the knowledge of man is going to boot God out of the universe, take over and fill it with man's evil, little knowledge—supposedly done by computers. So there is his god! Very interesting to note, this looks like a serpent.

(go to the next track)

I'm going to be reading where he explains how he came to understand the six epochs. I think it's interesting, six is the number of man. When we come to Rev. 13, we have the mark of the beast, his name and his number, and his number is 666, which is the perfection of man's political system, religious system and economic system, which then is all tied together with what we're putting together here.

It was very interesting how that the main thrust coming down through the six epochs looked like a serpent. I don't know if that was intended or not—whoever came up with it—but it was very interesting to see that in spite of themselves, people reveal about themselves things that they know not, because they don't understand the Bible. So, Kurzweil writes:

I am not sure when I first became aware of the Singularity. I'd have to say it was a progressive awakening….
evolution
…In the almost half century that I've immersed myself in computer and related technologies, I've sought to understand the meaning and purpose of the continual upheaval that I have witnessed at many levels….
changing technologies

…Gradually, I've become aware of a transforming…

Isn't that interesting? Pick up many of these words in Obama's campaign: transforming, transcending, evolving, etc.

…event looming in the first half of the twenty-first century.' Just as a black hole in space dramatically alters the patterns of matter and energy accelerating toward its event horizon…
being sucked into the black hole

…this impending Singularity in our future is increasingly transforming every institution and aspect of human life, from sexuality to spirituality.
Oh, ho!
What, then, is the Singularity? It's a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will, be irreversibly transformed.

Well now, the only way that's going to happen is not with what he's saying, but with the resurrection and the return of Christ. As well intended that this is, this is really utopian, human civilization without God! Or, under the auspices of Satan the devil!

Although neither utopian nor dystopian, this epoch will transform the concepts that we rely on to give meaning to our lives, from our business models to the cycle of human life, including death itself. Understanding the Singularity will alter our perspective on the significance of our past and the ramifications for our future….

Parallel with the Bible, the beginning and the ending!

…To truly understand it inherently changes one's view of life in general and one's own particular life. I regard someone who understands the Singularity and who has reflected on its implications for his or her own life as a "singularitarian?"
very interesting word

The key idea underlying the impending Singularity is that the pace of change of our human-created technology is accelerating and its powers are expanding at an exponential pace….

Now, what does 'an exponential pace' mean? He gives an example of how a man had a lake that he lived on and he didn't want a small patch of water lilies to spread to the whole small, little lake, so he would go out there and rip them out, rip them out and he kept them under control. Then he went on vacation and when came back after 28 days the whole lake was covered with the lilies, because it increases and doubles and doubles, just like you'd take 'exponential' could be defined this way: you take a penny and double it every day and at the end of a month you'll have well over a million dollars. That's what he's talking about here.

This book will argue, however, that within several decades information based technologies will encompass all human knowledge and proficiency, ultimately including the pattern-recognition powers, problem-solving skills, and emotional and moral intelligence of the human brain itself.
to put it all in a machine

Although impressive in many respects, the brain suffers from severe limitations.
God, You didn't make it right!

We use its massive parallelism (one hundred trillion interneuronal connections operating simultaneously)…

They, unfortunately, were so stupid they only run in massive parallelisms instead of trillions together multiplied.

…to quickly recognize subtle patterns. But our thinking is extremely slow…
we're dinosaurs
…the basic neural transactions are several million times slower than contemporary electronic circuits. That makes our physiological bandwidth for processing new information extremely limited compared to the exponential growth of the overall human knowledge base.

In other words, he's talking about taking the human mind and with a machine and make it possible to have all human knowledge put into this computer and then you can have access to it with your brain, because you're hooked up to it. Of course, those computers would be very, very small.

Our version 1.0 biological bodies…
the ones we have now
…are likewise frail and subject to a myriad of failure modes, not to mention the cumbersome maintenance rituals they require.

He doesn't know anything about a spirit body at the resurrection. If he did, he would stop all this foolishness and find out about God.

While human intelligence is sometimes capable of soaring in its creativity and expressiveness, much human thought is derivative, petty; and circumscribed.

There becomes the problem. How are you going to get rid of the evil of human nature? You got all these grand and glorious plans to expand us and make us better, and encompass all human knowledge and technology, and have our brains access to it; and that we can understand it, we can transform ourselves, but he has no answer to the depravity of human nature!

So, let's go to the Bible and let's look at a few basic Scriptures. I don't think we even have to turn to it, you know it:

Jeremiah 17:9: "The… [human] …heart is desperately wicked… [deceitful and] …desperately wicked above all things, who can know it?"

Kurzweil doesn't know it. He thinks he knows it. He thinks he's wiser and smarter than most every man in the world, though he may humbly tell you that that's not so.

Now this is important for us to understand. What did Jeremiah say? He said, 'Lord, the way of man is not in himself to direct his paths.' Really, without being able to get rid of the sinful nature of men, which we read in Gen, 6, was 'in every imagination of the thought of man'! Now he's going to multiply it trillions of times! No wonder that Jesus said that if Jesus didn't return there would be no flesh saved alive!

Unless you can answer the question: How you eliminate sin and human depravity? you cannot contemplate a future any different than the one we have now, regardless of the technology that may be there, regardless of the computer assisted brain-thinking that people can come up with.

The Singularity will allow us to transcend these limitations of our biological bodies and brains. We will gain power over our fates….
Whooo!
…Our mortality will be in our own hands. We will be able to live as long as we want (a subtly different statement from saying we will live forever). We will fully understand human thinking and will vastly extend and expand its reach. By the end of this century, the nonbiological portion of our intelligence will be trillions of trillions of times more powerful than unaided human intelligence.

Eat of this tree, because it will make you wise, and you'll understand good and evil!

We are now in the early stages of this transition. The acceleration of paradigm shift (the rate at which we change fundamental technical approaches) as well as 'the exponential growth of the capacity of information technology are both beginning to reach the "knee of the curve"…

It's linear, then exponential starts out nearly linear and then it takes a curve and goes up like into infinity and the knee of the curve is right there. So he says that's where we are.

…which is the stage at which an exponential trend becomes noticeable.

That's why we say information is doubling. It used to be every 100 years, then 25 years, then 10 years, then 5 years, then 2 years, then 1 year, then 9 months, then 6 months, then 5 months, 4 month, 2 months and down to a week. All because of faster computers. This is what he's talking about.

Shortly after this stage, the trend quickly becomes explosive. Before the middle of this century, the growth rates of our technology—which will be indistinguishable from ourselves…
because we will be part of it

…—will be so steep as to appear essentially vertical….

We're going to accelerate and become absolutely great!

…From a strictly mathematical perspective, the growth rates will still be finite but so extreme that the changes they bring about will appear to rupture the fabric of human history. That, at least, will be the perspective of unenhanced biological humanity.

That is if you're so stupid to not get on board and accept this.

The Singularity will represent the culmination of the merger of our biological thinking and existence with our technology, resulting in a world that is still human but that transcends our biological roots….
no longer human

…There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine or between physical and virtual reality.

You can make yourself become someone else, and then become yourself again. Sounds like a little 'angel' manifestation, doesn't it? So what is he trying to do? He's trying to be God!

If you wonder what will remain unequivocally human in such a world, it's simply this quality: ours is the species that inherently seeks to extend its physical and mental reach beyond current limitations.

Isn't that what Satan offered Adam and Eve? Yes!

Many commentators on these changes focus on what they perceive as a loss of some vital aspect of our humanity that will result from this transition. This perspective stems, however, from a misunderstanding of what our technology will become.

You've got to understand it. Without the Bible you don't know what is right. You don't know what is wrong. You don't know what is good. You don't know what is evil.

All the machines we have met to date lack the essential subtlety of human biological qualities….
we're going to make the machines almost human

…Although the Singularity has many faces, its most important implication is this: our technology will match and then vastly exceed the refinement and suppleness of what we regard as the best of human traits.

Hummmmmm! Doesn't say how you're going to take care of the evil!

Today, we anticipate continuous technological progress and the social repercussions that follow. But the future will be far more surprising than most people realize, because few observers have truly internalized the implications of the fact that the rate of change itself is accelerating.
So he says to express it another way.

To express this another way, we won't experience one hundred years of technological advance in the twenty-first century; we will witness on the order of twenty thousand years of progress (again, when measured by today'srate of progress), or about one thousand times greater than what was achieved in the twentieth century.
super men, super brains, nearly god-like

Another error that prognosticators make is to consider the transformations that will result from a single trend in today's world as if nothing else will change. A good example is the concern that radical life extension will result in overpopulation and the exhaustion of limited material resources to sustain human life, [and he says] which ignores comparably radical wealth creation from nanotechnology and strong AI….

artificial intelligence, we're going to solve all the problems

…For example, nanotechnology-based manufacturing devices in the 2020s will be capable of creating almost any physical product from inexpensive raw materials and information.
Put in dirt, out comes a car. Viola!

Epoch 5…
that's what we're entering right now

…The Merger of Human Technology with Human Intelligence. Looking ahead several decades, the Singularity will begin with the fifth epoch….
we're almost there

…It will result from the merger of the vast knowledge embedded in our own brains with the vastly greater capacity, speed, and knowledge-sharing ability of our technology.

He even said in the interview with Glen Beck that we will have our brains so hooked up to the computer that we can come home that day and back-up every thought that we had. What if you had thought of murder toward someone and that's backed-up? Think on that!

The fifth epoch will enable our human-machine civilization to transcend the human brain's limitations of a mere hundred trillion extremely slow connections.'
fast is always better

The Singularity will allow us to overcome age-old human problems…

We're going to solve the world's problems! Now he becomes Christ! That's His job!

…and vastly amplify human creativity. We will preserve and enhance the intelligence that evolution has bestowed on us while overcoming the profound limitations of biological evolution. But the Singularity will also amplify the ability to act on our destructive inclinations, so its full story has not yet been written.
Yes it has!

We can read it right here in Matt. 24, the full end has been written. As I've mentioned, there is nothing that he has done to say we're going to eliminate evil by circumcising it out of the mind, which only God can do, by the way. Here's what its going to represent; here's what's going to happen; this is what's going to bring all of this to a sudden and absolute end as a result of what they are planning and thinking and doing and want to do.

Besides, when you think about all of this, who is to say who gets hooked up to what computer and what information is in the computer that that person can have, which may not be as great as someone else can have. So, you automatically create a tiered society of the super ultra-elite, and all of you dumb, little human robots down here that we need for you to do manufacturing and run little machines for us. We will sit up here with a longer life-span and we won't give you the technology down here, so you can live longer. Because after all, you're expendable and we want you to die because we don't want you to use up the resources.

Matthew 24:21: "For then shall there be Great Tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until this time, nor ever shall be again. And if those days were not limited… [Ray Kurtzweil, God's going to cut it short] …there would no flesh be saved…" (vs 21-22).

In spite of all their good, high, lofty, idealistic expectations, they don't know how to get rid of sin and the destructiveness of human nature! But its full story has been written: the return of Jesus Christ!

Epoch Six: The Universe Wakes Up….
he discusses this in chapter six

"…on the Intelligent Destiny of the Cosmos?" In the aftermath of the Singularity, intelligence, derived from its biological origins in human brains and its technological origins in human ingenuity, will begin to saturate the matter and energy in its midst….
it's going to permeate everything

…It will achieve this by. reorganizing matter and energy to provide an optimal level of computation (based on limits we will discuss in chapter 3) to spread out from its origin on Earth….
we're going to fill the earth with it

…We currently understand the speed of light as a bounding factor on the transfer of information. Circumventing this limit has to be regarded as highly speculative, but there are hints that this constraint may be able to be superseded. If there are even subtle deviations, we will ultimately harness this superluminal ability. Whether our civilization infuses the rest of the universe with its creativity and intelligence quickly or slowly depends on its immutability. In any event the "dumb" matter and mechanisms of the universe will be transformed into exquisitely sublime forms of intelligence, which will constitute the sixth epoch in the evolution of patterns of information. This is the ultimate destiny of the Singularity and of the universe.

Isn't that amazing! Going to fill the universe—make all of these things part of the human knowledge that men have created.

It's just like it says there in Gen. 11, "…Now nothing that they imagine to do will be restrained from them." What this is, this is a counterfeit of God's plan. Yes, we are going to transcend all of these things he discusses here: at the resurrection and only through the power of God and by His permission! And only through conversion and yielding to Him now! Not because we are so great! Not because we are so smart! That's why God has chosen us, the weak of the world. Look at the great, the strong, the intelligent of the world, and what they intend to do with God's creation.

From my perspective, the Singularity has many faces. It represents the nearly vertical phase of exponential growth that occurs when the rate is so extreme that technology appears to be expanding at infinite speed. Of course, from a mathematical perspective, there is no discontinuity, no rupture, and the growth rates remain finite, although extraordinarily large. But from our currently limited framework, this imminent event appears to be an acute and abrupt break in the continuity of progress. I emphasize the word "currently" because one of the salient implications of the Singularity will be a change in the nature of our ability to understand. We will become vastly smarter as we merge with our technology.
hooked up to your computer

Can the pace of technological progress continue to speed up indefinitely? Isn't there a point at which humans are unable to think fast enough to keep up? For unenhanced humans, clearly so….

Now we have the class of enhanced humans. And who are they going to be? Well, the ones we deem we that we want to be enhanced.

…But what would 1,000 scientists, each 1,000 times more intelligent than human scientists today, and each operating 1,000 times faster than contemporary humans (because the information processing in their primarily nonbiological brains [computers] is faster) accomplish? One chronological year would be like a millennium for them. What would they come up with?

Well, for one thing, they would come up with technology to become even more intelligent (because their intelligence is no longer of fixed capacity). They would change their own thought processes to enable them to think even faster.

Biology has inherent limitations. For example, every living organism must be built from proteins that are folded from one-dimensional strings of amino acids. Protein-based mechanisms are lacking in strength and speed. We will be able to reengineer all of the organs and systems in our biological bodies and brains to be vastly more capable.
Replace them all! How about that!

By using nanotechnology-based designs, their capabilities will be far greater than biological brains without increased size or energy consumption.

Machines will also benefit from using very fast three-dimensional molecular circuits. Today's electronic circuits are more than one million times faster than the electrochemical switching used in mammalian brains. Tomorrow's molecular circuits will be based on devices such as nanotubes, which are tiny cylinders of carbon atoms that measure about ten atoms across and are five hundred times smaller than today's silicon-based transistors….
it'll just be a little, tiny thing

…Since the signals have less distance to travel, they will also be able to operate at terahertz…
Have you ever heard of 'terahertz'? That is:

…(trillions of operations per second) speeds compared to the few gigahertz (billions of operations per second) speeds of current chips.

The rate of technological change will not be limited to human mental speeds. Machine intelligence will improve its own abilities in a feedback cycle that unaided human intelligence will not be able to follow.
Better get on board, you're going to be left behind!

Along with the accelerating improvement cycle of nonbiological intelligence, nanotechnology will enable the manipulation of physical reality at the molecular level.

You'll be able to change who you are, what you are and where you are, just like that!

Nanotechnology will enable the design of nanobots: robots designed at the molecular level, measured in microns (millionths of a meter), such as "respirocytes" (mechanical red-blood cells)….

Oh, we're going to replace life. Life is in the blood, is it not? Yes!

…Nanobots will have myriad roles within the human body, including reversing human aging… [how about that!] …(to the extent that this task will not already have been completed through biotechnology; such as genetic engineering)….

They also have plans to go in and change your genes.

…Nanobots will interact with biological neurons to vastly extend human experience by creating virtual reality from within the nervous system. Billions of nanobots in the capillaries of the brain will also vastly extend human intelligence….
Come here and get filled in, right!
Once nonbiological intelligence gets a foothold in the human brain (this has already started with computerized neural implants)…

Leading to what? the mark of the beast. Remember what I have said for years: The mark of the beast is not just to buy and sell. The mark of the beast is to control. And here it is, total control.

…the machine intelligence in our brains will grow exponentially (as it has been doing all along), at least doubling in power each year….

Just think of that! If you live to be a hundred, you're going to double it so that you are so intelligent at the end of a hundred years—Wow!

…In contrast, biological intelligence is effectively of fixed capacity. Thus, the nonbiological portion of our intelligence will ultimately predominate. Nanobots will also enhance the environment by reversing pollution from earlier industrialization. Nanobots called foglets that can manipulate image and sound waves will bring the morphing qualities of virtual reality to the real world. The human ability to understand and respond appropriately to emotion (so-called emotional intelligence) is one of the forms of human intelligence that will be understood and mastered by future machine intelligence….

How about the spontaneity of human beings? You can't do that. You're hooked up to the machine!

Some of our emotional responses are tuned to optimize our intelligence in the context of Our limited and frail biological bodies. Future machine intelligence will also have "bodies" (for example, virtual the nature of life after the Singularity Most important, the intelligence that will emerge will continue to represent the human civilization, which is already a human-machine civilization. In other words, future machines will be human, even if they are not biological. This will be the next step in evolution, the next high-level paradigm shift, the next level of indirection. Most of the intelligence of our civilization will ultimately be nonbiological….
not in the human brain

…By the end of this century, it will be trillions of trillions of times more powerful than human intelligence…. [We bow down to the machine.] …However, to address often-expressed concerns, this does not imply the end of biological intelligence… [Oh! Thank you!] …even if it is thrown from its perch of evolutionary superiority. Even the nonbiological forms will be derived from biological design….
copycatting God

…Our civilization will remain human—indeed, in many ways it will be more exemplary of what we regard as human than it is today, although our understanding of the term will move beyond its biological origins.
Amazing, isn't it?

Many observers have expressed alarm at the emergence of forms of nonbiological intelligence superior to human intelligence (an issue we will explore further in chapter 9). The potential to augment our own intelligence through intimate connection with other thinking substrates does not necessarily alleviate the concern, as some people have expressed the wish to remain "unenhanced"…
oh, poor little slobs

…while at the same time keeping their place at the top of the intellectual food chain.

What they plan to do is this: use genetics, nanotechnology and robotics. They are going to replace almost everything within the human body. Isn't that something! I know I've gone a long ways in this, so we need to look at a few Scriptures. We'll come back at it tomorrow and we will look at some other things that are important for us to realize.

Now, let's expand the Psa. 2 even more, to give us more understanding, because all of what Kurtzweil is talking about, is taking man away from God! Taking man and try to create him into an ever-living being and ignoring the plan of God on how we can become as God is through God's plan. That's why this book right here [the Bible] is greater than 20 million computers that Kurtzweil can hook himself up to. Because when the resurrection takes place, we're going to be superior to anything that he can think of. And we're not going to supplant God!

Psalm 2:1: "Why do the nations rage and the people plot in vain?…. [this is vain plotting] …The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the LORD and against His Christ, saying, 'Let us break Their bands asunder and cast away Their cords from us'" (vs 1-3).
Let's go beyond our human bodies. Let's become so enhanced with computer knowledge that is so fast; trillions and trillions of times faster than the way we think.

• that will make us greater
• that will make us better
• that will make us as God
• this will create such a fantastic society that everything will be perfect
• this intelligence will seep through the entirety of the universe

Not so! Not so!

What is the motivating spirit behind this? No doubt, the motivating spirit is to live forever the way that Satan is trying to inspire it to be! For man to throw away the Word of God, and to create his own salvation—by cutting all ties with God—which only results in total disaster.

Isaiah 14:12—let's read the spirit of this: "How you are fallen from the heavens, O shining star, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart…'" (vs 12-13).

This is the philosophy here: we're going to take this information and expand it through the whole universe and make the whole universe intelligent; because of our efforts and the machines that we devise.

"…'I will ascend into the heavens, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High'" " (vs 12-14).

Just like he told Adam and Eve: 'You shall become gods.' And this is the super-modern technology that men want to enact and bring upon this world, which if they do, and how far they will go. God said, 'anything that they imagine' they are able to do. Unless God intervenes and cuts it short, it will destroy everything on this planet.

So tomorrow we will pick up and continue with the rest of the story with Kurzweil and his plans for a utopia and a super, super, super human race, of those chosen few that will be allowed to be trained and then eventually hooked up to the super-computers, which will probably be so small it will be almost inconspicuous.

Scriptural References:

• Revelation 1:3-8
• Matthew 24:37-39
• Genesis 6:5, 1, 5-9, 11-12
• Genesis 11:1-8
• Jeremiah 17:9
• Matthew 24:21-22
• Psalm 2:1-3
• Isaiah 14:12-14

Scriptures reference, not quoted:

• Genesis 5
• Revelation 13
• Genesis: 6:1

Also referenced:

Books

• Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop
• The Secret of Lost Races by Rene Noorbergen
• The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil {http://stargate.inf.elte.hu/~seci/fun/Kurzweil,%20Ray%20-%20Singularity%20Is%20Near,%20The%20%28hardback%20ed%29%20%5Bv1.3%5D.pdf}

Sermon Series: Controlling the Human Mind (#3 Change Your Brain, Change Your Life)

FRC:bo
Transcribed: 7-27-08
Reformatted/Corrected: 11/2019