The Spike

(Paperback)

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Description

The rate at which technology is changing our world-not just on a global level like space travel and instant worldwide communications but on the level of what we choose to wear, where we live, and what we eat-is staggeringly fast and getting faster all the time. The rate of change has become so fast that a concept that started off sounding like science fiction has become a widely expected outcome in the near future-a singularity referred to as the Spike. At that point of singularity, the cumulative changes on all fronts will affect the existence of humanity as a species and cause a leap of evolution into a new state of being.On the other side of that divide, intelligence will be freed from the constraints of the flesh; machines will achieve a level of intelligence in excess of our own and boundless in its ultimate potential; engineering will take place at the level of molecular reconstruction, which will allow everything from food to building materials to be assembled as needed from microscopic components rather than grown or manufactured; we'll all become effectively immortal by either digitizing and uploading our minds into organic machines or by transforming our bodies into illness-free, undecaying exemplars of permanent health and vitality.The results of all these changes will be unimaginable social dislocation, a complete restructuring of human society, and a great leap forward into a dazzlingly transcendent future that even science fiction writers have been too timid to imagine.

Reviews

"Named after the simple visual image represented by a line on a graph of the world's scientific progress rapidly jutting upward, Broderick's The Spike is where history as we know it comes to an end. . . . A convincing account, explicating numerous trends and research programs admirably and entertainingly." --Artbyte Magazine

"A crash course to a wonderful, frightening world." --Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia)

Author Bio

Damien Broderick is a noted Australian critic and scholar with an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in literature and science. He has published several Science Fiction novels and another important speculative science work, "The Last Mortal Generation." He lives in Melbourne, Australia.