THE SINGULARITY IS COMING!

Look up ‘Singularity’ in a dictionary and this is what you’ll find……

1. The quality or condition of being singular.
2. A trait marking one as distinct from others; a peculiarity.
3. Something uncommon or unusual.
4. Astrophysics. A point in space-time at which gravitational forces cause matter to have infinite density and infinitesimal volume, and space and time to become infinitely distorted.
5. Mathematics. A point at which the derivative does not exist for a given function but every neighborhood of which contains points for which the derivative exists. Also called singular point.

I was surprised in my research, admittedly brief, OK then, extremely brief, indeed, one might even say cursory, that in all the definitions of singularity I looked at none mentioned a key point which is that in the astrophysical and mathematical world a singularity is something beyond which it is impossible to see or know.
And this is not a case of mere probability either, for example, one might say it is impossible to know what will happen tomorrow and this , strictly speaking is true. However we can assign meaningful probabilities to what may happen tomorrow – a 70% chance of rain for example - But we cannot assign a probability of what will happen after a singularity is reached, that is a fundamental part of the definition of the word.

Nowadays it has become fashionable to talk of a forthcoming cultural and/or technological singularity, informed by the likes of Terrance Mckenna, Ray Kurzwiel, Vernor Vinge et al. This concept(s) seems to be a bit of a mash up of science, folklore, new ageism, religion, wishful thinking, crackpottery and yes, some intelligent and informed speculation.
Clearly something’s up, we cannot go increasing our population indefinitely, sustained development is the great modern oxymoronic mantra of today’s idiot politicians, technology appears to be advancing at an ever increasing rate, particularly in certain areas like information technology, the climate is changing, finite resources are being exhausted and, some would say, the human race is being changed by its every increasing degree of connectedness.

So is this all utter shite?

Let Jeaunse explain his simple and yet effective method for determining the answer for you dear reader:
The way I see it is that there are two main types of ‘predictor systems’ currently operating in the human sphere: The ‘Rational’ and the ‘Non Rational’. In Rational Predictor Systems ( RPS’s) (Doncha just love TLAs?) one may use a variety of algorithmic mechanisms that are essentially mathematical in nature, they may include some element of extrapolation or finite element analysis, they may be statistically based or knowledge system based, whatever, they will all yield results that give a range of probabilities that are derived and defined by the method being used.
In Non Rational Predictor Systems (NPSs) results may be produced by astrology, various –mancies, The I Ching, strongly held ‘feelings’, ‘hunches’ etc. The main difference between the two systems is that while RPSs give results within a range of probabilities which widen as the time period over which the predictions are being made increases, NPSs give only absolute answers within a range of possibilities which remain the same over the time period.
This difference is absolutely significant, for with a RPS, after a certain time, tF, the width of the range of probabilities will have reached 100% and at this point anything can happen or, putting it another way, no useful information can be found. With a NPS however, the confidence of the prediction is non time dependant and so if I ask a powerful meteorological computer ‘will it rain in London on this day in 20 years time?’ the result has such a wide margin or error that it is meaningless, in other words a prediction cannot be made. However when I ask a Shaman to give me an answer to the same question he or she may well say ‘yes’ or indeed ‘no’.
This means that after tF The NPS is actually more reliable than the RPS. This then is my rationale for using NPSs for the prediction of future events that are a long way off or are extremely complex or both.
Back to our singularity. As a mathematical construct it is impossible to know what lies on the other side and therefore we need to fall back on NPSs to give us some glimpses of what may be in store for us. In order to bring a degree of confidence to the results obtained by NPSs I propose to use a method which I call Multiple Parallel Non Rational Predictions ( MPNRP , pronounced MpuhNerp). MPNRP uses an array of NPSs focused on one question and superimposes the results. For example I use a dream interpretation, tea leaves, I Ching, a drug induced predictive state with something like Ayahuasca, to ask will in rain on this day in twenty years time? Combining the results of these ( and ideally many more divining techniques) will give me a result that will have a degree of confidence built in which while still wide will nevertheless be narrower than the result from a powerful computer.
Utilising MPNRP we can therefore look at the other side of the forthcoming singularity!
And we can make a start immediately because there are already sufficient crackpot ideas sloshing around cyberspace for me to correlate some and get an idea of, for example, when this will be.
No surprises here as it is already widely agreed by those who have gazed into the future using a whole variety of, frankly barmy methods, to see that very many of them agree that it will be in 2012…. So soon? Well, I know, but MPNRP provides ample confirmation that this will be the date.
Here at JAIP - the Jeaunse Advanced Institute for Prediction, we are busy putting incisive questions about the future to a whole range of raving holy men, new age nutters, practitioners of ridiculous –mancies, fortune tellers and clairvoyants and carefully collating their answers. And even at this early stage in our researches let me tell you that the answers are astonishing! For example it seems that in the post 2012 world we must expect to live a life entirely free from beetroot, and what is more, by 2020 there will be no such thing as raffia......