In my mailbox today was an enormous package with an enormous black-covered book inside it:  The Singularity is Near, by Ray Kurzweil.  I'm pledging to you here, right now, that I will read this right away and report back.  I almost missed getting off the subway today (the urban equivalent of sitting in the driveway listening to a show on your car radio that you just can't bear to leave) because I was diving into the prologue.  Note: not "introduction." "Prologue."  This book is a theatrical event.

The subtitle of Kurzweil's new book is "When Humans Transcend Biology."  His premise is that humans have the ability to understand, model, and extend their own intelligence, using the computational power of machines to help.

We're trying to model e coli, so why not model our own minds?  It's a big big book, so part of my plan in telling you about its dramatic arrival in my life is to set the stage for some later posts.  The chapters go off on genetics, nanotechnology, robotics, diet (we knew he'd go there), and many many pages of responses to critics.

Deep breath. Onward.