Springer has commissioned an edited volume about the singularity hypothesis and related questions, intelligence explosion, acceleration, transhumanism, and whole brain emulation.

“The book examines answers to central questions which reformulate the singularity hypothesis as a coherent and falsifiable conjecture, examine its empirical value, and investigate its most likely consequences, in particular those associated with existential risks”, blah blah blubber.

Academic Philosophers


Extended abstracts where invited; this abstract was flat out refused on the grounds of:

“some of the best proposals could not be included regardless of their merit”

, which makes me wonder why they did not instead throw out the rubbish! You know the answer: Anything substantially critical and authors that do not sell well because they are not already known for a heap of naïve rubbish that sells well cannot possibly be included if the book is to sell well and further the positions of the editors and their circle.


The irony is: In twenty years or so we will hear the usual elitist crap about that “nobody could have foreseen”, or “as the relevant literature clearly shows, even the brightest did not expect, maybe could not have possibly envisioned” … . There is a book about emergent gravity coming out soon; it starts similarly about that “the philosophical discourse was taken by surprise by the recent advent of emergent gravity …”. Yeah, right, if the “philosophical discourse” is defined by people who a century after Einstein already understood the so called “Hole Problem”, still write about it being a problem while killing anything about emergent gravity via “peer review” and “editing”, then of course “the philosophical discourse was taken by surprise”.


Editors for an “important book” meet to discuss article selection.


Or in other words: The actual philosophical discourse happens nowadays in blogs, not in academic circles!


So, if you want to read something down to earth about the “singularity hypothesis”, spare you the Springer book, which is going to be 100% stuffed with overenthusiastic little-boy’s wet dreams, and stay with my blog.