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he argues that these revised theories coincide with a particular form of consequentialism, which is a theory in the same broad family as utilitarianism. If Parfit is right, there is much less disagreement between apparently conflicting moral theories than we all thought. The defenders of each of these theories are, in Parfit’s vivid phrase, “climbing the same mountain on different sides.”

Parfit’s real interest is in combating subjectivism and nihilism. Unless he can show that objectivism is true, he believes, nothing matters.

When Parfit does come to the question of “what matters,” his answer might seem surprisingly obvious. He tells us, for example, that what matters most now is that “we rich people give up some of our luxuries, ceasing to overheat the Earth’s atmosphere, and taking care of this planet in other ways, so that it continues to support intelligent life.” Many of us had already reached that conclusion. What we gain from Parfit’s work is the possibility of defending these and other moral claims as objective truths.

the first obvious serious objection is that technological “evolution” is in no logical way a continuation of biological evolution — the word “evolution” here being applied with completely different meanings. And besides, there is no scientifically sensible way in which biological evolution has been accelerating over the several billion years of its operation on our planet. So much for scientific accuracy and logical consistency.

here is a bit that will give you an idea of why some people think of Singularitarianism as a secular religion: “The Singularity will allow us to transcend [the] limitations of our biological bodies and brains. We will gain power over our fates. Our mortality will be in our own hands. We will be able to live as long as we want.”

Fig. 2 of that essay shows a progression through (again, entirely arbitrary) six “epochs,” with the next one (#5) occurring when there will be a merger between technological and human intelligence (somehow, a good thing), and the last one (#6) labeled as nothing less than “the universe wakes up” — a nonsensical outcome further described as “patterns of matter and energy in the universe becom[ing] saturated with intelligence processes and knowledge.” This isn’t just science fiction, it is bad science fiction.

“a serious assessment of the history of technology reveals that technological change is exponential. Exponential growth is a feature of any evolutionary process.” First, it is highly questionable that one can even measure “technological change” on a coherent uniform scale. Yes, we can plot the rate of, say, increase in microprocessor speed, but that is but one aspect of “technological change.” As for the idea that any evolutionary process features exponential growth, I don’t know where Kurzweil got it, but it is simply wrong, for one thing because biological evolution does not have any such feature — as any student of Biology 101 ought to know.

Kurzweil’s ignorance of evolution is manifested again a bit later, when he claims — without argument, as usual — that “Evolution is a process of creating patterns of increasing order. ... It’s the evolution of patterns that constitutes the ultimate story of the world. ... Each stage or epoch uses the information-processing methods of the previous epoch to create the next.” I swear, I was fully expecting a scholarly reference to Deepak Chopra at the end of that sentence. Again, “evolution” is a highly heterogeneous term that picks completely different concepts, such as cosmic “evolution” (actually just change over time), biological evolution (which does have to do with the creation of order, but not in Kurzweil’s blatantly teleological sense), and technological “evolution” (which is certainly yet another type of beast altogether, since it requires intelligent design). And what on earth does it mean that each epoch uses the “methods” of the previous one to “create” the next one?

As we have seen, the whole idea is that human beings will merge with machines during the ongoing process of ever accelerating evolution, an event that will eventually lead to the universe awakening to itself, or something like that. Now here is the crucial question: how come this has not happened already?

To appreciate the power of this argument you may want to refresh your memory about the Fermi Paradox, a serious (though in that case, not a knockdown) argument against the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligent life. The story goes that physicist Enrico Fermi (the inventor of the first nuclear reactor) was having lunch with some colleagues, back in 1950. His companions were waxing poetic about the possibility, indeed the high likelihood, that the galaxy is teeming with intelligent life forms. To which Fermi asked something along the lines of: “Well, where are they, then?”

The idea is that even under very pessimistic (i.e., very un-Kurzweil like) expectations about how quickly an intelligent civilization would spread across the galaxy (without even violating the speed of light limit!), and given the mind boggling length of time the galaxy has already existed, it becomes difficult (though, again, not impossible) to explain why we haven’t seen the darn aliens yet.

Now, translate that to Kurzweil’s much more optimistic predictions about the Singularity (which allegedly will occur around 2045, conveniently just a bit after Kurzweil’s expected demise, given that he is 63 at the time of this writing). Considering that there is no particular reason to think that planet earth, or the human species, has to be the one destined to trigger the big event, why is it that the universe hasn’t already “awakened” as a result of a Singularity occurring somewhere else at some other time?

So, does this mean that we should throw away all those pen-and-paper and survey-based studies of religion. Well no - they still tell us something. It's just not entirely clear what they are telling us!

The theory of motivated reasoning builds on a key insight of modern neuroscience (PDF): Reasoning is actually suffused with emotion (or what researchers often call "affect"). Not only are the two inseparable, but our positive or negative feelings about people, things, and ideas arise much more rapidly than our conscious thoughts, in a matter of milliseconds—fast enough to detect with an EEG device, but long before we're aware of it. That shouldn't be surprising: Evolution required us to react very quickly to stimuli in our environment. It's a "basic human survival skill," explains political scientist Arthur Lupia of the University of Michigan. We push threatening information away; we pull friendly information close. We apply fight-or-flight reflexes not only to predators, but to data itself.

We're not driven only by emotions, of course—we also reason, deliberate. But reasoning comes later, works slower—and even then, it doesn't take place in an emotional vacuum. Rather, our quick-fire emotions can set us on a course of thinking that's highly biased, especially on topics we care a great deal about.

Consider a person who has heard about a scientific discovery that deeply challenges her belief in divine creation—a new hominid, say, that confirms our evolutionary origins. What happens next, explains political scientist Charles Taber of Stony Brook University, is a subconscious negative response to the new information—and that response, in turn, guides the type of memories and associations formed in the conscious mind. "They retrieve thoughts that are consistent with their previous beliefs," says Taber, "and that will lead them to build an argument and challenge what they're hearing."

when we think we're reasoning, we may instead be rationalizing. Or to use an analogy offered by University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt: We may think we're being scientists, but we're actually being lawyers (PDF). Our "reasoning" is a means to a predetermined end—winning our "case"—and is shot through with biases. They include "confirmation bias," in which we give greater heed to evidence and arguments that bolster our beliefs, and "disconfirmation bias," in which we expend disproportionate energy trying to debunk or refute views and arguments that we find uncongenial.