How much fun academia must be.
"I'll live forever!! (read my book)"
"One day machines will rival human intelligence!! (read my book)"
I suppose it's easy to lose track of current progress when bopping around the halls of MIT where the next super-substance, ultra-efficient, free-energy widget is always just around the corner. I don't mean to poop on his parade but his views on near-term technology push the limits of optimism and border on scifi. With MIT.edu at the end of his email address, however, he gets heralded as a prescient futurist.
Kurzweil - you're going to die. I don't care how many injections of thiamine you take a week and how many glasses of organic carrot juice you put down. You'll die maybe with maybe a slightly longer life span than the average healthy person but 150 years of age you will not see. If pharma companies can pour hundreds of millions into studying a single drug, to interact with a single pathway, and then have to recall the same drug later due to unexpected side effects... what makes you think you have unlocked the gift of the gods? "respirocytes" to boost your oxygen exchange 100x that of red blood cells? please. They'd probably tangle in your brain in five minutes.
He'll have the last laugh though.. Another big burst of press when he dies. "Man who claimed immortality found dead on exercise bike at home."
As to his consciousness argument, I see nothing new in there relative to any inclusive book on the subject.
