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Ray Kurzweil Responds To PZ Myers

Posted by Soulskill on from the dem's-fightin'-woids dept.

On Tuesday we discussed a scathing critique of Ray Kurzweil's understanding of the brain written by PZ Myers. Reader Amara notes that Kurzweil has now responded on his blog. Quoting: "Myers, who apparently based his second-hand comments on erroneous press reports (he wasn't at my talk), [claims] that my thesis is that we will reverse-engineer the brain from the genome. This is not at all what I said in my presentation to the Singularity Summit. I explicitly said that our quest to understand the principles of operation of the brain is based on many types of studies — from detailed molecular studies of individual neurons, to scans of neural connection patterns, to studies of the function of neural clusters, and many other approaches. I did not present studying the genome as even part of the strategy for reverse-engineering the brain."

6 of 238 comments (clear)

  1. The best resolution... by Tenek · · Score: 4, Funny

    Clearly, this dispute should be resolved by a poll.

    1. Re:The best resolution... by Kilrah_il · · Score: 3, Funny

      Clearly, Myers did not RTFA (or Watch the featured talk - whatever)! Shame on him. He must be old here.

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      Whenever in an argument, remember this.
    2. Re:The best resolution... by Abstrackt · · Score: 5, Funny

      I say we resolve it with a deathmatch. Then Kurzweil can attempt to reverse-engineer his opponent's brain with his bare hands!

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      They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
  2. Re:Not really the main issue is it? by Zarf · · Score: 4, Funny

    In retrospect, maybe I should have read both articles and thought about what I was writing first instead of just spouting off.

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  3. Re:Two decades? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    We can easily do it within two decade: 2010-2019, and 3560-3569.

  4. in one sentence? by KingAlanI · · Score: 2, Funny

    Kurzweil ridiculously optimistic, Myers ridiculously cynical?

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    I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.