| The etymology and physical metaphor of "The Singularity" are a bit confused here, and I think it muddles the overall point. > the singularity is a term borrowed from physics to describe a cataclysmic threshold in a black hole In his article which popularized the idea of The Singularity, Vinge quotes Ulam paraphrasing von Neumann, and states, "Von Neumann even uses the term singularity". As von Neumann surely knew, "singularity" was a term widely used in mathematics well before the idea of black holes (etymonline dates first use to 1893). Vinge does not say anything about black holes. > an object is pulled into the center [of] gravity of a black hole [until] it passes a point beyond which nothing about it, including information, can escape. [...] This disruption on the way to infinity is called a singular event – a singularity. The point at which "nothing" can escape a black hole is the event horizon, not the singularity. What exactly happens to information and what exactly happens when crossing the event horizon are subjects of debate (see "black hole information paradox" and "AMPS/firewall paradox"); however, it's probably fair to say that the most orthodox/consensus views are that information is conserved through black-hole evaporation and that nothing dramatic happens to an observer passing through the event horizon. > the singularity became a black hole, an impenetrable veil hiding our future from us. Ray Kurzweil, a legendary inventor and computer scientist, seized on this metaphor While I'm not prepared to go into my personal views in this comment, it's worth noting that the idea that "exponential curves look the same from every point" is not foreign to, e.g., the Kurzweilian view of The Singularity; nevertheless, fitting dramatic, industrial-revolution-sized progress into the fixed scale of a (contemporary) human lifetime would surely be a big deal. This idea, (whether you believe it will happen or not), is obscured by the spurious black hole metaphor. |