“A primary reason that evolution—of life-forms or technology—speeds up is that it builds on its own increasing order.”

The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence (1999)

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Ray Kurzweil40

Author, scientist, inventor, and futurist 1948

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“We have long accepted the doctrine of the evolution of the forms in which dwells the Divine Life; here is the complementary and far greater idea of the evolution of that Life itself, showing that the very reason for that wondrous development of higher and higher forms is that the ever-swelling Life needs them in order to express itself. Forms are born and die, forms grow, decay and break; but the Spirit grows on eternally, ensouling those forms, and developing by means of experience gained in and through them, and as each form has served its turn and is outgrown, it is cast aside that another and better form may take its place.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

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“I've always wanted to own and control the primary technology in everything we do.”

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“Speed and efficiency do not always increase the quality of life.”

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“The dynamic earth has been spewing out the constituents of evolution and progress throughout its history, nurturing all species from the very first forms of life to our own.”

Shawna Vogel science writer

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“The Law of Accelerating Returns: As order exponentially increases, time exponentially speeds up (that is, the time interval between salient events grows shorter as time passes). The Law… applies specifically to evolutionary processes.”

Ray Kurzweil (1948) Author, scientist, inventor, and futurist

The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence (1999)

“Knowing that the life that remained to him could not be of great length, he said, “I try to increase it in weight, I try to arrest the speed of its flight by the speed with which I grasp it. … The shorter my possession of life, the deeper and fuller I must make it.””

Sarah Bakewell book How to Live

Source: How to Live, or, A Life of Montaigne in one Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer (2010), pp. 37-38.

“Why was progress in computing technology so fast compared with the lack of progress in space travel? The reason is very simple: computing technology is only now approaching scientific limits such as quantum uncertainty and the speed of light, while space technology has already run into its limits that derive from the basic principles of physics and chemistry.”

Mordechai Ben-Ari (1948) Israeli computer scientist

Source: Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005), Chapter 13, “The Future of Science: Surprises or Revolutions” (p. 210)

“We should not be surprised that life, having subjugated the bulk of inert matter on Earth, would go on to subjugate technology, and bring it also under its reign of constant evolution.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)

“Evolution is purely a religion. There is no scientific evidence at all to back up any form of macro-evolution.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Dissertation for doctor of philosophy in christian education (May 25, 1991)

“A primary reason that evolution—of life-forms or technology—speeds up is that it builds on its own increasing order.”

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Ray Kurzweil40

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