Subliming comes from the same memepool, but the singularity is rather less mystical.
At its heart is the commonplace observation that progress is accelerating. Once, half a million years could go by, and leave proto-human culture unchanged. In ancient times a thousand years could pass without any technological inovation. Even the industrial revolution stretched over generations.
Now change comes at breakneck speed -from the Wright brothers to Apollo within a single lifetime - and it's not slowing down.
Where will it stop? Will it stop, short of the limits of the physically posssible? (and they are wider than most people dream) Technology indistinguishable from magic may be the least we can expect.
Any technological progress puts an horizon on our predictions since forecasters can't account for technologies not yet invented. As the pace of change quickens, that horizon comes ever closer, and its impact grows greater.
If the limits of predictability are five hundred years out, no one need care; if that horizon lies fifty years out life will change radically over your lifetime; if it's five years out most things change beyond recognition every five years, making long term planning difficult.
If the technology curve goes near vertical, the horizon can fall to minutes or less, as much change as in the entire history of mankind, every single second, and still accelerating.
That would be a singularity.
If you want a plausible mechanism, consider computers. We have a good idea now how good a computer the human brain is, how many megabytes and megahertz we'd need to equal it. The best supercomputers today work out to be ant-equivalent, so the current idiocy of computers is hardly suprising.
A simple extrapolation shows that in 30-40 years we will have computers comparable with the human brain. A little later, most of the computing power on the planet will be artificial. Use that computing power to work out how to make better computers and you have a positive feedback loop, which takes off once most of the computing power isn't in human brains.
This brief sketch does skates over a number of weaknesses, but its an intriguing idea, which has made for some good SF.
For a better account, go to the source -
www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~pho...-sing.html
Googling on Vinge will reveal a lot more on the subject.
At its heart is the commonplace observation that progress is accelerating. Once, half a million years could go by, and leave proto-human culture unchanged. In ancient times a thousand years could pass without any technological inovation. Even the industrial revolution stretched over generations.
Now change comes at breakneck speed -from the Wright brothers to Apollo within a single lifetime - and it's not slowing down.
Where will it stop? Will it stop, short of the limits of the physically posssible? (and they are wider than most people dream) Technology indistinguishable from magic may be the least we can expect.
Any technological progress puts an horizon on our predictions since forecasters can't account for technologies not yet invented. As the pace of change quickens, that horizon comes ever closer, and its impact grows greater.
If the limits of predictability are five hundred years out, no one need care; if that horizon lies fifty years out life will change radically over your lifetime; if it's five years out most things change beyond recognition every five years, making long term planning difficult.
If the technology curve goes near vertical, the horizon can fall to minutes or less, as much change as in the entire history of mankind, every single second, and still accelerating.
That would be a singularity.
If you want a plausible mechanism, consider computers. We have a good idea now how good a computer the human brain is, how many megabytes and megahertz we'd need to equal it. The best supercomputers today work out to be ant-equivalent, so the current idiocy of computers is hardly suprising.
A simple extrapolation shows that in 30-40 years we will have computers comparable with the human brain. A little later, most of the computing power on the planet will be artificial. Use that computing power to work out how to make better computers and you have a positive feedback loop, which takes off once most of the computing power isn't in human brains.
This brief sketch does skates over a number of weaknesses, but its an intriguing idea, which has made for some good SF.
For a better account, go to the source -
www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~pho...-sing.html
Googling on Vinge will reveal a lot more on the subject.