Stephen Hawking - predictions of the future

Surfing through Digg.com today I found an article about Stephen Hawking and his current view of evolution. The basic point of the article is that we have started a new phase of evolution. According to Hawking, in the past, evolution was proceeded by natural selection and random mutation - in other words slow changes to our DNA or our internal record. However, Hawking points out that the external record (information) has grown exponentially. This external record has grown from where someone in the 18th century had read everything that had ever been written to today where it would take someone 15,000 years to read all of the books in our national library.

So what does Hawking make of all of this? Hawking thinks we are in a new phase of evolution; one where we will eventually be able to change and improve our DNA in otherwords "self designed evolution."

So that's the basic premise, but that's not why I'm including this article in my blog. Here is the article if you want to read it. I personally think that maybe Stephen's been watching the Matrix, Terminator, Star Trek the Next Generation, or playing some video games lately because this is one of the themes that you'll find in those media.

The reason why I'm including this article is because of the comments at the bottom of the blog; here are two of the posts that I found rather amusing:

Post 1-

What he's talking about in layman's terms (speaking to the dumbed down U.S. population here) is downloading your brain into a computer. That will be the next evolution of mankind. A lot of people are afraid of this becoming a reality. I welcome it.

Whether you believe in the concensus physical and biological sciences or your roots are of a more spiritual nature, you should agree that we human beings are fundamentally "information". The genetic data which was our foundation and the epigenetic (non-DNA affecting) environmental data which has formed us into the person we are can be modeled by a computer system. Yes it's the Matrix for real, and it's coming within most of our lifetimes. Prepare to live within our collective imagination.

Post 2-

Hello, I'm a Mac..
And I'M a PC..

:)

This definitely will make me laugh every time I see those Mac/PC commercials from now on!