[paula_w]

i showed my neuro the second draft of the book and he reacted in much the same way most people do. They open it and let a few pages flip on by and graphics pull you in right away. They are a window into the soul of the book. Then he started to read some of the pages. He quickly saw that he could read any page and start anywhere. He said right away to put it online; said he only reads by nook and sales have surpassed books . it's kind of sad but we still have a need to publish book versions as well. He thought the book was quite amazing and would gladly put it in his office waiting rooms.

Then my neuro asked if i had ever heard of Ray Kurzweil? i hadn't so he told me he wrote the software for BLIO, an online book publishing company . He is an inventor, wrote the first speech to text program and invented the synthesizer.

He believes in longeviity, believes that mind and machine willl merge and if we do not expand our intelligence we won't be able to keep up with artifcial intelligence. He predicts in billions how many pieces of information will be multiplied and generated over the next several years till about 2045? don't quote me on that date.

He has a book about it called Singularity. we can all download it and read it together like a book club.

His site:

http://www.kurzweilai.net/

He was on colbert last week:

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-col...1/ray-kurzweil

He is quite serious and mentions parkinsons 3 times on colbert. we need to find out why he thinks we have a head start on this as a community, another pathway to a treatment? revolution or too far out there? i 'm not going to form an opinion without the facts to do so altho i have other plans for longevity. Nano technology ,,,,is this what will really come out of stem cell research? an artificial one?

[indigogo]

That's cool, Paula - thanks for bringing it to our attention - he actually makes DBS seem exciting !

[Bob Dawson]

About 5 years ago he gave me permission to publish his comments on one of my webpages, about beauty, and I included a list of a few of the things he has done. Take note - he personally e-mailed me and encouraged me to go ahead.
If you can kidnap this guy and keep him - he is just the best, in a lot of ways. Immensely intelligent, very hopeful, and a real human being -= quite the combination
Ray Kurzweil
“Beauty is the ultimate in subtlety of human intelligence.”
Ray Kurzweil is an inventor, entrepreneur, author, and futurist. Called “the restless genius” by The Wall Street Journal and “the ultimate thinking machine” by Forbes, Kurzweil’s ideas on the future have been touted by his many fans, ranging from Bill Gates to Bill Clinton. Sun Microsystems Chief Scientist Bill Joy, “I can date the onset of my unease to the day I met Ray Kurzweil, the deservedly famous inventor of the first reading machine for the blind and many other amazing things.” Stevie Wonder writes “Ray’s technology and ideas have truly been among the sunshines of my life. Kurzweil’s writings are a wonderful riff on the next century from a keen seer, a great inventor, and a good friend.” Time Magazine compared him with Thomas Edison. Kurzweil was the developer of the first omni-font optical character recognition (OCR), the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first CCD flat-bed scanner, the first text-to-speech synthesizer, the first music synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments, and the first commercially marketed, large-vocabulary speech recognition. Kurzweil’s web site, KurzweilAI.net, is a leading resource on artificial intelligence, with more than 100,000 readers.

Kurzweil’s most recent book, The Age of Spiritual Machines, achieved the #1 status on Amazon in the categories of both science and artificial intelligence and has been published in nine languages. The New York Times writes, “Kurzweil’s latest book ranges widely over such juicy topics as entropy, chaos, the big bang, quantum theory, DNA computers, quantum computers, Godel’s theorem, neural nets, genetic algorithms, nanoengineering, the Turing test, brain scanning, the slowness of neurons, chess playing programs, the Internet—the whole world of information technology past, present, and future. Kurzweil’s writings are for anyone who wonders where human technology is going next.” His latest book, The Singularity is Near, When Humans Transcend Biology, predicts the dawning of a new civilization. How startling? Very startling. How soon? Very soon. Find out more at www.Singularity.com

Kurzweil and Artificial Intelligence

Kurzweil Technologies

[pegleg]

Bob
Good to see you posting here again, or maybe I have just been letting your posts slide by. This Kurzwell sounds most interesting. I mean, look at all he has accomplished!
” Time Magazine compared him with Thomas Edison. Kurzweil was the developer of the first omni-font optical character recognition (OCR), the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first CCD flat-bed scanner, the first text-to-speech synthesizer, the first music synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments, and the first commercially marketed, large-vocabulary speech recognition."

I am highly emotional this weekend. Last night my family attended an awesome Easter service at church (Our attendance runs about 2500). I get weepy when I think about how much longer I will be able to function as well as now.

The minister has been teaching a series of sermons called "Where is God in the Dark Times of Life?" He asked me to tell "my story," and they taped a 4-minute talk about how I have dealt with this illness. I shared about my faith, my network of forum friends, my experience with participating in a surgical trial, and how I met Michael J. Fox under a pseudo-name, then I heard him tell that story at a conference. Fox was thanking all of us (Bren, Nan, Paula, Chy, etc.) for "helping" him.

The preacher thought my story was "incredible," and it is, but yours is just as important. My helping Mike Fox cope is no more important to me than helping Carey - or Charlie - or Paula. We ALL have a responsibiliy that comes with this disease package, and that is why we need to get busy. Paula's infamous saying should be our mantra - "Time is not neutral for those who have Parkinson's." And that is so true that it scares me to . . . well, let's not even go there!

NOW is the time. If we - you guys and gals reading this forum right now - are to make a difference - a BIG difference; we must ALL colloboratively work toward finding a cure. We need to ask for those with voices of clout to speak for us - time is really passing quickly!

Maybe we can get this guy to help us. Bob, do you think we might be able to do that?

(Sorry guys and gals - I just feel such a sense of urgency.

Peggy

[Bob Dawson]

Maybe we can get this guy to help us. Bob, do you think we might be able to do that?

(Sorry guys and gals - I just feel such a sense of urgency.

Peggy[/QUOTE]

I think some attempt should me made to get the support and brilliance of Ray Kurzweil. I am not sure how such an approach should be made - it has to be what he wants to do.
One thing we can offer him is lots of white mice, and a very receptive audience for his hope and enthusiasm; and if we can get him really interested.... he could set his mind to work towards a cure.
Also, some of the Intel products made and perfected by Andy Grove went into items invented by Ray.
We could petition the guy, but the main thing is to know what he wants.
As Paula said, we could e-read his book together, and maybe ask him some questions.
And remember to send him the book you 'all are doing.

Ray, you are being recruited! We need help.

And Peggy, very kind of you to say you missed my posting. Partly that PD started to look impossible to me, I had a break-down; but mainly that I got recruited to write about native people and cause trouble for the government, in chapters 32 and after, of my never-ending story; for example, Igloolik joins the circus: http://parkinsonsdance.blogspot.com/...hapter-38.html

[pegleg]

Bob

I have not been paying attentioon! I did not know what a talented, accomplished writer you were! And I have been in search of the powerful, catchy phrase that would turn people's heads, and there it was - right among your blog! May I borrow these words? May I plagarize them? Heck, can I use them for my new approach to managing this gosh-awful disease?

FOCUS ON THE DANCE,
NOT THE DISEASE

Those words are PERFECT! They are the theme that I needed before soliciting every person, contact, stranger, family member, and friend in my network. And if you and others reading here would like to join this crusade, then just let me know.

Bob, I hope you are feeling better - I did miss your remarks.
Peg

[paula_w]

Hi guys,

I have written to Ray k and told him we would send the next draft of the book soon and if he found it appropriate ,asked him to write a short column or a reiview on the back tying his comments about pd on colbert to our commuity research.

i said we were frustrated over all the phase 2 cancellations and said we're we need this nano technology . Told him Andy Grove is in the book and that we were trying to get Sergey Brin's attention, explaining his pd history.

told him if he could figure out the plaebo effct plase let us know.

ccd my neuro - hoping for a reply.

[Bob Dawson]

dynamite !
Focus on the dance, not the disease
- i got that from Olie Westheimer of the Brooklyn Parkinson's group any one can use it
come to think of it, where are they?
(Olie did the most to get the dancing going nationwide)_

peggy and paula -= both go after ray from all directions

[pkell]

Sometimes we older types fail to have the imagination to view ideas that appear to be "sicence fiction" as seriously possible science. I have watched the Colbert tape several times and Kurzweil condirms, I think, that if we can think it, we can do it. The thinking of children is not confined by what they think the know and ours should not be either.

Besides, maybe we can end up looking like Jeri Ryan. Thanks Paula, for bird-dogging this guy, he sounds perfect for us.