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More on Singularity Science and Semi-Spoilers

Hey, treed --

Thanks for the kind words about Singularity (still available on Amazon -- wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

And, yeah, time travel can be a bear. But even the Grandmother Paradox might not be as irredeemable as you'd think. Oxford philosopher Michael Lockwood sketches out a scenario in which the parricidal time-traveller returns, not to his/her own past, but to an almost indistinguishable parallel past, one in which granny dies and the time-traveller is never born. But to swallow that gnat, you first have to eat the elephant of the many-worlds interpretation of Everett's no-collapse quantum mechanics. I recommend starting with the trunk first.

Still, I find even the above more congenial than Einstein's statement that "for us devout physicists, the distinction between past, present and future has no significance beyond that of an illusion, albeit a tenacious one" (condolence letter to the family of Michele Besso, 1955).

Thank goodness Dualism will not be wrestling with such knotty problems. All it's about is artificial intelligence, collective consciousness, and life after death!