Microsoft Word Kurzweil, Ray The Singularity Is Near doc

 
Exactly. We create the objects of our libido in our subconscious anyway. Just think, a couple could both 
change their genders. They could each become the other. 
M
OLLY 
2004:
 
Just as a therapeutic interlude, I presume? 
S
IGMUND
:
 
Of course. I would only suggest this under my careful supervision. 
M
OLLY 
2004:
 
Naturally. 
M
OLLY 
2104:
 
Hey, George, remember when we each became all of the opposite gender characters in the Allen 
Kurzweil novels at the same time it? 
G
EORGE 
2048:
 
Ha, I liked you best as that eighteenth-century French inventor, the one who made erotic pocket 
watches! 
M
OLLY 
2004:
 
Okay, now run this virtual sex by me again. How does it work exactly? 
R
AY
:
 
You're using your virtual body, which is simulated. Nanobots in and around your nervous system generate the 
appropriate encoded signals for all of your senses: visual, auditory, tactile of course, even olfactory. From the 
perspective of your brain, it's real because the signals are just as real as if your senses were producing them 
from real experiences. The simulation in virtual reality would generally follow the laws of physics, although 
that would depend on the environment you selected. If you go there with another person or persons, then these 
other intelligences, whether of people with biological bodies or otherwise, would also have bodies in this virtual 
environment. Your body in virtual reality does not need to match your body in real reality. In fact, the body you 
choose for yourself in the virtual environment may be different from the body that your partner chooses for you 
at the same time. The computers generating the virtual environment, virtual bodies, and associated nerve 
signals would cooperate so that your actions affect the virtual experience of the others and vice versa. 
M
OLLY 
2004:
 
So I would experience sexual pleasure even though I'm not actually, you know, with someone? 
R
AY
:
 
Well, you would be with someone, just not in real reality, and, of course, the someone may not even exist in real 
reality. Sexual pleasure is not a direct sensory experience, it's akin to an emotion. It's a sensation generated in 
your brain, which is reflecting on what you're doing and thinking, just like the sensation of humor or anger. 
M
OLLY 
2004:
 
Like the girl you mentioned who found everything hilarious when the surgeons stimulated a particular 
spot in her brain? 
R
AY
:
 
Exactly. There are neurological correlates of all of our experiences, sensations, and emotions. Some are 
localized whereas some reflect a pattern of activity. In either case we'll be able to shape and enhance our 
emotional reactions as part of our virtual-reality experiences. 
M
OLLY 
2004:
 
That could work out quite well. I think I'll enhance my funniness reaction in my romantic interludes. 
That will fit just about right. Or maybe my absurdity response—I kind of like that one, too. 
N
ED 
L
UDD
:
 
I can see this getting out of hand. People are going to start spending most of their time in virtual reality. 
M
OLLY 
2004:
 
Oh, I think my ten-year-old nephew is already there, with his video games. 
R
AY
: