Kurzweil's Singularity

I ran into a book by Ray Kurzweil (a name which reminds me of synthesizers) called The Singularity is Near. In this book he states that major events in the Universe are happening faster and faster and at some time in the future, an infinite number of events will occur just before a certain time which he calls the singularity. These events could start with the creation of the universe 13.7 billion years ago. Kurzweil then follows that with formation of the Earth and Sun, formation of life, Cambrian explosion, and so forth until he concludes with the Industrial Revolution, the car and airplane, the television, the computer and the Internet. Each of these events come sooner by a certain factor than the previous. If this factor is constant, it follows that these events converge to a point in the future, the singularity, which Kurzweil calculates will be somewhere around 2045. Kurzweil continues to describe events beyond this; in fact, two of his six stages of existence follow the singularity.

Is there any such thing coming up? Certainly an infinite number of events can't occur in a finite time. As this singularity is reached, the process breaks down. So what's going to happen? I tried to see if there were any singularities in my life. I found at least two of them, and possibly others. Both of these two singularities had catastrophic results. This says that singularities are not necessarily positive. Indeed, what could be happening is a conversion to a time when we run out of oil, have huge global warming effects, have a number of wars going on, and so forth. The consequences for humankind of this kind of singularity are huge; maybe our world civilization will collapse.

What will things be like if a singularity like the one Kurzweil occurs? In both of my singularities, I wound up in a world or existence substantially different from what went on before. It was like entering a new world. So that is how I expect this singularity will behave. Something earthshaking will occur then, and a new world order will ensue. In 2045. Well, we will have to see if this happens.