I have just finished reading "The Singularity Is Near" and I am most impressed. It is a great book I would highly recommend. I myself am too close to this man's philosophy to be a credible critic. I think he is perhaps simply an evolved human, perhaps quite ahead of his time and the rest of us.
This article makes it sound as if Kurzweil invented cryonics ("crafted a contingency plan in case he dies before The Singularity arrives").
From "I, Robot" (Newsweek):
But even some of Kurzweil's associates secretly think he's a bit off his rocker, and that his ideas are driven more by fear of death than by solid science. "Ray is going through the single most public midlife crisis that any male has ever gone through," says one scientist who will be teaching at Singularity University and who asked for anonymity because he didn't want to criticize a colleague publicly. . .
The goal of living long enough to experience The Singularity has taken over Kurzweil's life, turning him into a health nut. He's trim and fit, thanks to exercise, a careful diet and loads of supplements. It's also made him wealthier. He's written three books on the subject. His latest, Transcend, released in April, is coauthored with a physician, Terry Grossman, and provides recipesbaked cod, cauliflower with Indian spices, fruit smoothiesand tells you what supplements you should be taking. Grossman and Kurzweil sell their own line of supplements, vitamins and nutrition shakes called Ray & Terry's Longevity Products. Kurzweil has even crafted a contingency plan in case he dies before The Singularity arrives. He'll be frozen in liquid nitrogen and put into storage, waiting for technology to rescue him from the grave. Kurzweil also hopes to bring his father back to life by getting DNA from his father's grave site and using a swarm of nanobots to create a new body that is "indistinguishable from the original person." He'll dig up all of his father's old letters and other materials, and download them along with his own memories into an artificial-intelligence program to create a "virtual person" . . .
He has no doubt. None. He is utterly, completely, 100 percent sure that he is going to live forever. He will be reunited with his beloved father, and they will become immortal and spend eternity together. He is absolutely certain about this. Nothing can talk him out of it. And that, at the end of the day, may be the scariest, or saddest, thing of all.
Of course Kurzweil, assuming he does have cryotransport lined up, will need it according to the actuarial table, just like the rest of us. Well before then he might want to arrange his power of attorney with someone who will cooperate in case his spouse at the time or his children find cryonics all icky and plan to void his arrangements. Given Kurzweil's history of predicting his transcendence of death by the middle of the 21st Century, his relatives could make a plausible case to a judge to set aside his cryonics contract because he displayed mental incompetence when he entered into it, well before his final illness.
