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Interview: Vernor VingeInterview: Vernor VingePosted Dec 11, 2008 9:58 UTC (Thu) by k3ninho (subscriber, #50375)In reply to: Interview: Vernor Vinge by brouhaha Parent article: Interview: Vernor Vinge
Science Fiction authors using the term 'singularity' makes me think of the huge numbers of economic experts I saw on CNN in early October talking about the world's economic state. Each and every one sidestepped a real answer with the words 'it's hard'. I don't doubt that imagining a future radically different to ours, in consistent detail (or understanding how our global financial system might behave) is hard. But to say 'it's singular and will be unlike anything we have seen' robs me of enjoying the fantasy of what it *might* be.
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Interview: Vernor Vinge Posted Dec 11, 2008 15:44 UTC (Thu) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link]
I believe the word singularity has a more rigourous definition. IANAP, but I believe singularity in physics refers to either time 0 where backwards extrapolation divides by zero, or the similar problem trying to calculate what happens inside a black hole. You literally lose the ability to predict what happens.
Thus it is with social singularities. The social change is so profound that you cannot predict what will happen. No one could have predicted the changes the printing press made in Europe, with growing literacy and democratization of governments. No one could have predicted the changes wrought by electronics / computers / the internet. No one can predict what will happen when computers achieve human equivalent intelligence, and shortly thereafter superhuman intelligence in accord with Moore's law.
Think of it as a phase change. People whose weather experience is limited to temperatures of 30-40C normally and 20C once in a blue moon would imagine 0 to just be more so, possibly uncomfortable. Snow and ice would be utterly foreign to them, unimaginable and unpredictable.
Interview: Vernor Vinge Posted Dec 11, 2008 23:35 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
The definition of a singularity comes from maths, not physics: in simple
terms it's the point at which something goes abruptly to negative or positive infinity (or zero, sometimes). In maths it's not necessarily a sign that there's anything wrong: in physics, it tends to mean your model's broken down and can't model those conditions (on the arbitrary assumption that infinities don't exist in the real universe).
The singularities at the Big Bang and inside black holes are two examples
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