Kurzweil and McKenna

Thinking about these two: in both the complexity of the human brain is a threshold that, once crossed, becomes a point of no return, with a future uncertain. In Kurzweil, superhuman machine intelligence will exceed human intelligence by the year 2030. The results, he says, on the other side, are unpredictable.

Mckenna, describes the human brain as THE most complex organization in the known universe. However, as novelty and complexity accelerate toward a curve of infinite exponential growth, we will approach an omega point (12/21/2012) presaged by the occurrence of pure novelty where anything and everything conceivable will appear in the human imagination, and then there will be the end of history

Heidegger on Art

The Kurzweil/transhuman issue continues to haunt me. It's not that I'm against "improving" the species, nor do I want to be stuck in the endless present. The issue is what enhances our humanity qua human "essence", and what limits our being such as in brave new world where everyone is efficiently designed to fulfill their role as consumers and workers in the year of our ford.

Reading Heidegger, and understanding very little, I see an opening. In his concept of the function of art as a way of "making coherent the scattered practices of the group and turning them into possibilities for action and for relations to each other". In this way we can experience the integration of these technologies as a cultural evolution given meaning by the work of art.

Big question: Heidegger's examples are such things as a Greek temple, and a medieval cathedral. What, in our day, can serve a similar role? Internet?