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Exponential factor in technology progress: does it apply to Spiritual Science?From: Michael Winn
Subject: Philosophy
Date/Time 2008-05-05 08:11:55
Remote IP: 66.32.112.203
Messagenote: this article expands on the idea in the article on apes - how scientific ideas feed its own growth with exponential factors of expansion. The real question facing humanity: can we multiply spiritual consciousness by the same factor of growth? This is where sharing of spiritual "tools" , ie. methods of expanding and stabilizing awareness - are so crucial to maintaining balance and harmony on the planet. Even the spread of a simple technology like the Inner Smile can revolutionize the rate of spiritual growth. The challenge is to find spiritual methods that are universal and yet simple in their application. I've found that Taoist spiritual technology fits the bill, but has to unwrap the secrecy its been held in. - Michael
EXPECT EXPONENTIAL PROGRESS
RAPID GAINS IN TECHNOLOGY POINT TO A BRIGHT FUTURE
By Ray Kurzweil
Christian Science Monitor
April 18, 2008
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0418/p09s01-coop.html
Massachusetts Institute of Technology was so advanced in 1965 that it
actually had a computer. Housed in its own building, it cost $11 million (in
today's dollars) and was shared by all students and faculty. Four decades
later, the computer in your cellphone is a million times smaller, a million
times less expensive, and a thousand times more powerful. That's a
billionfold increase in the amount of computation you can buy per dollar.
Yet as powerful as information technology is today, we will make another
billionfold increase in capability (for the same cost) over the next 25
years. That's because information technology builds on itself -- we are
continually using the latest tools to create the next so they grow in
capability at an exponential rate. This doesn't just mean snazzier
cellphones. It means that change will rock every aspect of our world. The
exponential growth in computing speed will unlock a solution to global
warming and solve myriad other worldly conundrums.
Thanks to its exponential power, only technology possesses the scale to
address the major challenges -- such as energy and the environment, disease
and poverty -- confronting society.
Take energy. Today, 70 percent of it comes from fossil fuels, a 19th-century
technology. But if we could capture just 1/10,000th of the sunlight that
falls on Earth, we could meet 100 percent of the world's energy needs using
this renewable and environmentally friendly source. We can't do that now
because solar panels rely on old technology, making them expensive,
inefficient, heavy, and hard to install. But a new generation of panels
based on nanotechnology is starting to overcome these obstacles. The tipping
point at which energy from solar panels will actually be less expensive than
fossil fuels is only a few years away. The power we are generating from
solar is doubling every two years; at that rate, it will be able to meet all
energy needs within 20 years.
Nanotechnology itself is an information technology and therefore subject to
what I call the "law of accelerating returns," a continual doubling of
capability about every year. I'm confident that the day is close at hand
when we will be able to obtain energy from sunlight using nanoengineered
solar panels and store it for use on cloudy days in nanoengineered fuel
cells for less than it costs to use environmentally damaging fossil fuels.
It's important to understand that exponentials seem slow at first. In the
mid-1990s, halfway through the Human Genome Project to identify all the
genes in human DNA, researchers had succeeded in collecting only 1 percent
of the human genome. But the amount of genetic data was doubling every year,
and that is actually right on schedule for an exponential progression. The
project was slated to take 15 years, and if you double 1 percent seven more
times you surpass 100 percent. In fact, the project was finished two years
early. This helps explain why people underestimate what is technologically
feasible over long periods of time -- they think linearly while the actual
course of progress is exponential.
What's more, this exponential progression of information technology will
affect our prosperity as well. The World Bank has reported, for example,
that poverty in Asia has been cut in half over the past decade due to
information technologies and that at current rates it will be cut by another
90 percent over the next decade. That phenomenon will spread around the
globe.
Clearly, the transformation of our 21st-century world is under way, and
information technology, in all its forms, is helping the future look
brighter ... exponentially.
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