Thursday, September 08, 2005

Step Inside the Digital Universe

In a recent interview, Tom Huston talked to entrepreneur Joe Firmage about his 'cosmic' plan for the future of the internet. Here is a paragraph from the brief conversation - from the WIE site:

"It is the year 2019. Logging on to the internet through your nanotech implants, you lean back in your chair and close your eyes. Smiling, as always, at the sensation of weightlessness produced by the tiny robots attached to every nerve ending in your body, you find yourself floating in space at your favorite starting point, fifteen million light-years beyond the Milky Way galaxy. This is far enough outside the “local group” of galaxies to enable you to see them in all their awesome splendor—the massive twin spirals of Andromeda and the Milky Way, the smaller spiral of Triangulum, and over twenty-five other clusters of billions of suns scattered before you, brilliantly glowing against the infinite black void. Although most people choose to start their web browsing from a location a lot closer to home, for some reason you've always preferred taking the more scenic route . . .

Back in 2005, such a scenario may be difficult to take seriously, but it's almost equally hard to believe that the world wide web has only been in existence for little over a decade."

It will be amazing, how the exponential rate of change in technological evolution will take us into realms that are beyond our present ken of understanding - what some commentators refer to as the Singularity. What is the crucial area for me is how this technological advancement will converge with the intelligence increase and expansion of human consciousness that is in parallel transformation.

No comments: