Singularity Quotes

• No two on earth in all things can agree. All have some daring singularity.

  Winston Churchill

  Military, Agreement, Two

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• Here I had tried a straightforward extrapolation of technology, and found myself precipitated over an abyss. It's a problem we face every time we consider the creation of intelligences greater than our own. When this happens, human history will have reached a kind of singularity - a place where extrapolation breaks down and new models must be applied - and the world will pass beyond our understanding.

  Vernor Vinge

  Technology, Understanding, World

  Vernor Vinge (2002). “The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge”, p.44, Macmillan

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• Let those who would affect singularity with success first determine to be very virtuous, and they will be sure to be very singular.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Loneliness, Solitude, Firsts

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.211

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• No two on earth in all things can agree;
  All have some darling singularity;
  Women and men, as well as girls and boys,
  In gewgaws take delight, and sigh for toys,
  Your sceptres and your crowns, and such like things,
  Are but a better kind of toys for kings.
  In things indifferent reason bids us choose,
  Whether the whim's a monkey or a muse.

  Charles Churchill

  Girl, Kings, Boys

  Charles Churchill (1822). “The Poems of Charles Churchill”, p.95

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• Great endowments often announce themselves in youth in the form of singularity and awkwardness.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Time, Awkward, Youth

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Parke Godwin (1848). “The Auto-biography of Goethe: Truth and Poetry: from My Own Life”, p.59

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• He who would be singular in his apparel had need have something superlative to balance that affectation.

  Owen Feltham

  Balance, Would Be, Needs

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• Singularity is the point at which "all the change in the last million years will be superseded by the change in the next five minutes."

  Kevin Kelly

  Inspirational, Life, Years

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• There will always be One against All, one person against all others. [This is so] not because One is terribly wise and All are terribly foolish, but because the process of thinking and researching, which finally yields truth, can only be accomplished by an individual person. In its singularity or duality, one human being seeks and finds – not the truth (Lessing) –, but some truth.

  Hannah Arendt

  Wise, Thinking, Yield

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• The Singularity denotes an event that will take place in the material world, the inevitable next step in the evolutionary process that started with biological evolution and has extended through human-directed technological evolution. however, it is precisely in the world of matter and energy that we encounter transcendence, a principal connotation of what people refer to as spirituality.

  Ray Kurzweil

  People, Energy, Next Steps

  Ray Kurzweil (2005). “The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology”, p.498, Penguin

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• Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.

  Vernor Vinge

  Mean, Years, Eras

  "The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era". Vernor Vinge's remarks presented at the VISION-21 Symposium sponsored by NASA Lewis Research Center and the Ohio Aerospace Institute, edoras.sdsu.edu. March 30-31, 1993.

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• The singularity has nothing to do with consciousness.

  Stuart J. Russell

  Consciousness

  "Intelligent robots don't need to be conscious to turn against us". Interview with Guia Marie Del Prado, www.businessinsider.com. August 9, 2015.

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• The problem is not simply that the Singularity represents the passing of humankind from center stage, but that it contradicts our most deeply held notions of being.

  Vernor Vinge

  Problem, Passing, Stage

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• But if the technological Singularity can happen, it will.

  Vernor Vinge

  Technological, Happens, Ifs

  "The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era". Article by Vernor Vinge, for the VISION-21 Symposium sponsored by NASA Lewis Research Center and the Ohio Aerospace Institute, www.wired.com. 1993.

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• Singularity shows something wrong in the mind.

  Erica Jong

  Mind, Adaptability, Shows

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• A celibate, like the fly in the heart of an apple, dwells in a perpetual sweetness, but sits alone, and is confined and dies in singularity.

  Jeremy Taylor

  Heart, Apples, Celibacy

  Jeremy Taylor (1834). “The Beauties of J. Taylor: Selected from His Works with an Essay on His Life and Writings”, p.38

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• Anyone who knows a strange fact shares in its singularity.

  Jean Genet

  Facts, Strange, Share

  Jean Genet (2003). “Prisoner of Love”, New York Review of Books

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• I have argued above that we cannot prevent the Singularity, that its coming is an inevitable consequence of the humans natural competitiveness and the possibilities inherent in technology.

  Vernor Vinge

  Technology, Natural, Possibility

  "The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era". Book by Vernor Vinge, 1993.

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• Singularity is seen as an event horizon. There's everything that comes before it and everything that comes after it and never the twain shall meet, in much the same way that Judeo-Christian theology presents its notion of the afterlife - there's a very clear and impermeable demarcation there.

  Ron Currie Jr.

  Christian, Afterlife, Events

  Source: therumpus.net

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• There is only one real number: one. And love, apparently, is the best exponent of this singularity.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Real, Numbers, And Love

  Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (2008). “The Real Life of Sebastian Knight”, p.113, New Directions Publishing

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• When people talk about the singularity, when people talk about superintelligent AI, they're not talking about sentience or consciousness. They're talking about superhuman ability to make high-quality decisions.

  Stuart J. Russell

  Talking, People, Decision

  "Intelligent robots don't need to be conscious to turn against us". Interview with Guia Marie Del Prado, www.businessinsider.com. August 9, 2015.

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• I believe in singularity in relationships because you've got to have trust on both sides.

  Thomas Haden Church

  Trust, Believe, Two Sides

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• How will the approach of the Singularity spread across the human world view?

  Vernor Vinge

  Views, World, Approach

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• We say we want to create beauty, identity, quality, singularity. And yet, maybe in truth these cities that we have are desired. Maybe their very characterlessness provides the best context for living.

  Rem Koolhaas

  Cities, Quality, Identity

  "From Bauhaus to Koolhaas". Interview with Katrina Heron, www.wired.com. July 01, 1996.

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• The children are taught more of the meanest state in Europe than of the country they are born and bred in, despite the singularity of its characteristics, the interest of its history, the rapidity of its advance, and the stupendous promise of its future.

  Henry Lawson

  Country, Children, Europe

  Henry Lawson, Colin Arthur Roderick (1972). “Collected Prose: Autobiographical and other writings, 1887-1922”, Angus & Robertson

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• Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity, it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.

  John Keats

  Inspirational, Reading Poetry, Remembrance

  Letter to John Taylor, 27 February 1818, in H. E. Rollins (ed.) 'The Letters of John Keats' (1958) vol. 1, p. 238

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