Comments on: Ray Kurzweil’s Pill Habit

By: Sergiy Grynko

Sergiy Grynko — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 22:13:03 +0000

I remembered this post the moment I started watching a YouTube video about all the supplement pills Ronnie Coleman (the bodybuilder) takes (links not allowed in comments, you can Google it). But while Ronnie struggles to remember what all the various pills are, he seems to be able to do it without hired help.

By: Alvin

Alvin — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:12:15 +0000

I read Fantastic Voyage, The Age of Spiritual Machines and The Singularity is Near, and they changed my life. I even found some of his lectures on Itunes and I find myself impatiently awaiting his next book.

Recently read another incredible book that I can’t recommend highly enough, especially to all of you who also love Ray Kurzweil’s work. The book is “”My Stroke of Insight”" by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. I had heard Dr Taylor’s talk on the TED dot com site and I have to say, it changed my world. It’s spreading virally all over the internet and the book is now a NYTimes Bestseller, so I’m not the only one, but it is the most amazing talk, and the most impactful book I’ve read in years. (Dr T also was named to Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People and Oprah had her on her Soul Series last month and I hear they’re making a movie about her story so you may already have heard of her)
If you haven’t heard Dr Taylor’s TEDTalk, that’s an absolute must. The book is more and deeper and better, but start with the video (it’s 18 minutes). Basically, her story is that she was a 37 yr old Harvard brain scientist who had a massive stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain. Because of her knowledge of how the brain works, and thanks to her amazingly loving and kind mother, she eventually fully recovered (and that part of the book detailing how she did it is inspirational).

There’s a lot of learning and magic in the book, but the reason I so highly recommend My Stroke of Insight to this discussion, is because we have powerfully intelligent left brains that are rational, logical, sequential and grounded in detail and time, and then we have our kinesthetic right brains, where we experience intuition and peace and euphoria. Now that Kurzweil has got us taking all those vitamins and living our best “”Fantastic Voyage”" , the absolute necessity is that we read My Stroke of Insight and learn from Dr Taylor how to achieve balance between our right and left brains. Enjoy!

By: Johnny Cat

Johnny Cat — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 05:15:35 +0000

I’ve heard of this Singularity hypothesis before, way back before the Internet. But it went something like this:

When 10 billion atoms are focused in one group, the form a singular entity, a functional thing. Think of the population of the people on this planet (group), and think of the population of other, more populous species like swallows (European or African), sparrows, geese and ducks who tend to flock as one cohesive entity.

When the human population approaches/reaches 10 billion, we may see more breakthroughs in telekinesis and other abnormal psych stuff.

By: fixedgear

fixedgear — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 15:56:29 +0000

I read hwere he hires someone to filter his air and water, too. They change the filters daily. A filter wrangler.

By: Higgins

Higgins — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 02:02:53 +0000

Well, there IS a doctor involved in the pill selection — the article talks about that, and also suggests that they’re not entirely sure what the effects of all this stuff are. But they’re gamely giving it a shot. :)

However it turns out, I’ll be interested in the result. Wouldn’t it be interesting if he somehow did live to 100+?

By: mike

mike — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:57:17 +0000

bets he doesn’t make it to 65??

By: John

John — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 21:52:57 +0000

I agree with EV. All those pills and there is no way that his body is even absorbing a majority percentage of that.

Sometimes Kurzweil is a bit zany…this is bordering on Howard Hughesian.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 21:44:41 +0000

Does he even have to eat regular food? Isnt he worried about getting too much of something, or is that what he pays that guy for?

By: ac

ac — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 21:18:20 +0000

He’s a little out there but inspired some pretty good music: Spiritual Machines by Our Lady Peace is a concept album based on his book and includes some of his future predictions.

By: EV

EV — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 20:46:56 +0000

The man has the most expensive urine on the planet.